The OpenAI Mafia: Alumni Startups Making Waves

OpenAI, the AI lab behind ChatGPT, has become a central hub for talent in Silicon Valley. Many former employees have gone on to found companies, raise billions, or join other AI initiatives, forming a network that rivals the legendary “PayPal mafia.” OpenAI itself is reportedly in talks for a $100 billion deal, potentially valuing the company at $850+ billion.

Here’s a breakdown of the notable startups and founders:

1. Adept AI Labs

Founder: David Luan, former OpenAI VP of Engineering (left 2020).
Focus: AI tools for employees.
Funding: $350 million, valuation >$1B (2023).
Update: Luan left in 2024 to join Amazon’s AI agents lab.

2. Anthropic

Founders: Dario & Daniela Amodei, John Schulman (OpenAI alumni).
Focus: AI safety and AGI.
Funding: $30 billion Series G, valuation $380B.
Status: OpenAI’s largest rival; IPO rumors for 2026.

3. Applied Compute

Founders: Rhythm Garg, Linden Li, Yash Patil.
Focus: Enterprise AI agents.
Funding: $20 million, valuation $100 million (10 months old).

4. Covariant

Founders: Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen, Rocky Duan.
Focus: Robotics AI, foundation models for robots.
Update: 2024 quasi-acquisition by Amazon.

5. Cresta

Founder: Tim Shi, early OpenAI team (2017).
Focus: AI-powered contact center tools.
Funding: $270 million from top VCs.

6. Daedalus

Founder: Jonas Schneider, former OpenAI robotics lead (left 2019).
Focus: Advanced factories for precision components.
Funding: $21 million Series A (2024).

7. Eureka Labs

Founder: Andrej Karpathy, OpenAI founding member and Tesla autopilot lead.
Focus: AI education technology, teaching assistants.

8. Kindo

Founder: Margaret Jennings, OpenAI alum (2022–23).
Focus: Enterprise AI chatbot.
Funding: $27 million, Series A $20.6M (2024).
Update: Jennings now at French AI startup Mistral.

9. Living Carbon

Founder: Maddie Hall, OpenAI special projects alum (left 2019).
Focus: Engineered plants to remove atmospheric carbon.
Funding: $36M total, $21M Series A (2023).

10. Periodic Labs

Founder: Liam Fedus, OpenAI VP of post-training research (left March 2025).
Focus: AI-driven discovery of new materials, superconductors.
Funding: $300M seed from Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Andreessen Horowitz.

11. Perplexity

Founder: Aravind Srinivas, OpenAI research scientist (left 2022).
Focus: AI search engine.
Funding: $200M, valuation $20B.

12. Pilot

Founder: Jeff Arnold, former OpenAI operations lead (2016).
Focus: Accounting for startups.
Funding: $100M Series C, valuation $1.2B.

13. Prosper Robotics

Founder: Shariq Hashme, OpenAI alumni (worked on Dota bot, 2017).
Focus: Home robot butlers.
Status: London-based, founded 2021.

14. Safe Superintelligence (SSI)

Founder: Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder & chief scientist (left 2024).
Focus: Safe AGI / superintelligence.
Funding: $2B, valuation $32B.
Status: No product or revenue yet.

15. Stem AI (aka Softmax)

Founder: Emmett Shear, former Twitch CEO and interim OpenAI CEO (Nov 2023).
Focus: AI research.
Funding: Backed by Andreessen Horowitz.

16. Thinking Machines Lab

Founder: Mira Murati, OpenAI former CTO.
Focus: Customizable AI; released API for fine-tuning models.
Funding / Valuation: $12B, first product launched late 2025.

17. xAI

Founder: Kyle Kosic, former OpenAI engineer (left 2023).
Focus: Elon Musk’s AI startup, chatbot Grok.
Status: Acquired Musk’s X platform; valuation $1.25T; preparing IPO June 2026.

18. Worktrace AI

Founder: Angela Jiang, OpenAI alum (left 2024).
Focus: AI-powered workflow automation for enterprises.
Backing: Mira Murati, OpenAI startup fund, other OpenAI alumni.

19. Stealth Startups

Several other former OpenAI employees have launched stealth AI startups, including:

Danilo Hellermark (left 2023).
Lucas Negritto (left 2023).

Key Takeaways

The OpenAI alumni network is forming a new kind of Silicon Valley “mafia,” rivaling the PayPal-era network in both influence and funding.
Many alumni are focused on AI, but the applications range from enterprise tools, robotics, and AI safety, to education, carbon removal, and workflow automation.
Funding levels are staggering: multiple unicorns ($1B+ valuations) and mega-startups like SSI ($32B) and Thinking Machines Lab ($12B) are already active.