Switch, Mafia Paypal: There is a new technology mobster at Silicon Valley. As the start after Chatgpt, Openai is probably the biggest player of him in the city. Its meteoric growth in a $ 300 billion rating has prompted many employees to leave the giant to create their beginnings.
Hype about Openai is so high that some of these startups, such as the safe supervision of Ilya Sutskyr and the Laboratory of Mira Murati Machinery, have been able to collect billions of dollars without even starting a product.
But there are many other startups at the Mafia Openai ecosystem. These range from the grief of the search giant to Xai, the new owner of X (once twitter.) There are also smaller clothing with some futuristic plans, such as Living Carbon, which is creating plants that absorb more carbon from the atmosphere, or prosperous robotics, which is building a butler robot.
Below is a summary of the most visible beginnings founded by Alumni Openai.
Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei and John Schulman – Anthropical
The brothers Dario and Daniela Amodei left Openai in 2021 to form their start, anthropic based in San Francisco, who has long defended a focus on him. Later, Openai’s co -founder John Schulman joined anthropic in 2024, pledging to build a “secure Agi”. Openai is reported to remain many times larger than anthropics from income ($ 3.7 billion compared to $ 1 billion per 2024, information reported). But anthropics has grown quickly to become Openai’s biggest rival and was rated at $ 61.5 billion in March 2025.
Ilya Sutskyr – Safe Oversight
Openai’s main co -founder and scientist Ilya Sutskyr left Openai in May 2024 after he was reported to be part of a failed attempt to replace CEO Sam Altman. After a while, he co-founded a safe supervision, or SSI, with “a goal and a product: a safe superintelligence,” he says. Details about what exactly the beginning is less about: it has no product and income yet. But investors are gathering for a part anyway, and has been able to raise $ 2 billion, with its latest rating reported to increase to $ 32 billion this month. SSI is based in Palo Alto, California and Tel Aviv, Israel.
Mira Murati – Thinking machinery laboratory
Mira Murati, CTO and Openai, left Openai last year to find her company, thinking Machines Lab, who came out of the thefts in February 2025, announcing (quite undoubtedly) that he will build the one who is “personal” and “capable”. The beginning of San Francisco he has no product or newcomers but many former Openai senior scholars and is reported to be in the process of collecting a massive $ 2 billion round that estimates at $ 10 billion, the minimum.
Aravind Srinivas – Clash
Aravind Srinivas has worked as a research scientist in Openai for one year by 2022, when he left the company to co-consul his search engine. Its start has attracted a series of high -profile investors such as Jeff Bezos and Nvidia, although there has also been controversial on the alleged scrap of the unethical web. The purification, which is located in San Francisco, is currently collecting about $ 1 billion in a $ 18 billion rating since March 2025.
Kyle Kosic – Xai
Kyle Kosic left Openai in 2023 to become a co -founder and leader of Xai’s infrastructure, the beginning of that of Elon Musk offering a rival chatbot, Grok. In 2024, however, he returned to Openai again. Palo Alto -based Xai recently won X, once Twitter, and gave the combined unit an estimate of $ 113 billion. The versatile transaction raised some eyebrows, but it is a good deal if you are betting on the Musk Empire.
Shear Emmett – Stem he
Emmett Shear is the former -ceo of Twitch who was the OpenAi temporary CEO in November 2023 for a few days before Sam Altman reunited with the company. Shear is working at his stolen start, called Stem he, Techcrunch discovered in 2024. Although there are few details about the activity and collecting his funds so far, she has already attracted funds from Andreessen Horowitz.
Andrej Karpathy – EUREKA LABS
Computer vision expert Andrej Karpathy was a founding member and research scientist in Openai, leaving the start to join Tesla in 2017 to lead his autopilot program. Karpathy is also known for his youtube videos that explain the essential concepts of him. He left Tesla in 2024 to find his start of educational technology, Eureka Labs, a San Francisco -based startup who is building his teaching assistants.
Jeff Arnold – Pilot
Jeff Arnold worked as Chief of Openai Operations for five months in 2016 before establishing the San Francisco -based accounting pilot in 2017. Pilot, which originally focused on making accounting for beginnings, last raised a series of C 100m in 2021 with a $ 1.2 billion rating Arnold worked as a pilot’s CO until the departure in 2024 to start a VC fund.
David plays – he laboratories of him
David Luan was the Openai engineer VP until he left in 2020. After a Google attack, in 2021 he co-founded he Labs he, a startup who builds tools for employees. The last beginning raised $ 350 million in a $ 1 billion rating in 2023, but Luan left at the end of 2024 to oversee the Amazon’s Laboratory after Amazon hired the founders of ADEPT.
My rain – cresta
Tim Shi was an early member of the Openai team, where he focused on building a secure artificial intelligence (Agi), according to his LinkedIn profile. He worked in Openai for a year in 2017, but left to find Cresta, a contact center start -to -center in San Francisco who has collected over $ 270 million from QV such as Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others, according to a press release.
Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen and Rocky Duan – Covariant
The trio all worked in Openai in 2016 and 2017 as research scientists before establishing Covariant, a Berkeley -based startup, California building models of the AI ​​Foundation for robots. In 2024, Amazon hired all three founders of the Kovariant and about a quarter of its staff. Buying Quasi was seen by some as part of a wider tendency of large technology in an attempt to avoid antitrust control.
Maddie Hall – Living Carbon
Maddie Hall has worked on “Special Projects” in Openai but left in 2019 to co-like Living Carbon, a Startup based in San Francisco that aims to create engineering plants that can absorb more carbon from the sky to combat climate change. Living Carbon raised a $ 21m series round in 2023, bringing its total funds by that time to $ 36 million, according to a press release.
Hashme Sharma – Prosper robotics
Shariq Hashme has worked for Openai for 9 months in 2017 in a bot that could play the popular video dota game, according to his LinkedIn profile. After a few years in the start of the data labeling, he co-founded the London-based prosperation in 2021. The beginning says he is working on a robot butler for people’s homes, a hot robotic trend that other players as Norway-based apetronic are also working.
Jonas Schneider – Daedalus
Jonas Schneider led the Openai software engineering for the Robotics Team, but left in 2019 to co-like Daedalus, which builds advanced factories for the precision components. Starting in San Francisco set up a series of $ 21 million last year with support from Khosla Ventures, among other things.
Margaret Jennings – Kindo
Margaret Jennings worked in Openai in 2022 and 2023 until she left to co-founded Kindo, who trades herself as a chatbot for enterprises. Kindo has raised over $ 27 million in funding, recently raising a $ 20.6 million series in 2024. Jennings La Kindo in 2024 to run the product and search at that Mistral French, according to its LinkedIn profile.
