OpenAI
Sam Altman
Co-founded OpenAI and previously led Y Combinator. His interviews connect AI research, product distribution, infrastructure spending and the organizational choices involved in scaling an AI company.
Explore founderTHE BUILDERS
Start with the people.
Founder backgrounds, companies and original conversations.
87 founder profiles
OpenAI
Greg Brockman
Greg Brockman is a co-founder of OpenAI. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in foundation models.
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Anthropic
Dario Amodei
Dario Amodei is a co-founder of Anthropic. An AI researcher whose work helped shape the company’s emphasis on model capability, reliability and safety.
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Anthropic
Daniela Amodei
Daniela Amodei is a co-founder of Anthropic. Helped build the organization and operating approach around Anthropic’s research and commercial work.
Explore founder
Cohere
Aidan Gomez
Aidan Gomez is a co-founder of Cohere. A co-author of the original Transformer research paper, with a focus on applying language models to enterprise work.
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Cohere
Nick Frosst
Nick Frosst is a co-founder of Cohere. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in enterprise ai.
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Cohere
Ivan Zhang
Ivan Zhang is a co-founder of Cohere. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in enterprise ai.
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Mistral AI
Arthur Mensch
Co-founded Mistral after working in AI research at DeepMind. His background connects frontier models with open and enterprise deployment.
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Mistral AI
Guillaume Lample
Co-founded Mistral with a research background in language models and machine learning.
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Mistral AI
Timothée Lacroix
Co-founded Mistral with an engineering and AI research background.
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World Labs
Fei-Fei Li
Co-founded World Labs to build spatial intelligence. Her work in computer vision connects visual understanding with world models and physical environments.
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World Labs
Justin Johnson
Co-founded World Labs and works in computer vision, generative AI and machine learning.
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World Labs
Ben Mildenhall
Co-founded World Labs with a research background spanning computer vision and graphics.
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World Labs
Christoph Lassner
Co-founded World Labs with a background in machine learning, computer vision and graphics.
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Shield AI
Brandon Tseng
Brandon Tseng is a co-founder of Shield AI. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in autonomous aircraft.
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Shield AI
Ryan Tseng
Ryan Tseng is a co-founder of Shield AI. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in autonomous aircraft.
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Hadrian
Chris Power
Founded Hadrian to expand industrial capacity through software-driven manufacturing and automated factories.
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Impulse Space
Tom Mueller
Founded Impulse Space after a career developing rocket propulsion. The company focuses on moving payloads after they reach space.
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Stripe
Patrick Collison
Co-founded Stripe with his brother John. The business began with developer-friendly online payments and expanded into financial infrastructure.
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Stripe
John Collison
Co-founded Stripe with Patrick Collison. The brothers’ annual letters explain the company’s approach to products, customers and the internet economy.
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Ramp
Eric Glyman
Eric Glyman is a co-founder of Ramp. Previously co-founded Paribus. Ramp combines financial products with tools designed to reduce administrative work.
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Ramp
Karim Atiyeh
Karim Atiyeh is a co-founder of Ramp. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in corporate finance.
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Ramp
Gene Lee
Gene Lee is a co-founder of Ramp. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in corporate finance.
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Plaid
Zach Perret
Zach Perret is a co-founder of Plaid. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in financial data infrastructure.
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Plaid
William Hockey
William Hockey is a co-founder of Plaid. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in financial data infrastructure.
Explore founder
Revolut
Nik Storonsky
Co-founded Revolut to make financial services easier to access through software. The company’s expansion combines product breadth with country-by-country regulatory requirements.
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Revolut
Vlad Yatsenko
Co-founded Revolut with a software engineering background and helped develop the platform’s technical infrastructure.
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Mercury
Immad Akhund
Co-founded Mercury in 2017 with Jason Zhang and Max Tagher. A repeat founder, he frames the product around the financial work of running a business.
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Mercury
Jason Zhang
Co-founded Mercury with Immad Akhund and Max Tagher to build financial tools for founders and businesses.
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Mercury
Max Tagher
Co-founded Mercury with Immad Akhund and Jason Zhang, helping create its software-based financial platform.
Explore founder
Databricks
Ali Ghodsi
Ali Ghodsi is a co-founder of Databricks. A distributed-systems researcher and member of Databricks’ founding team. The business grew from open-source data technology into an enterprise platform.
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Databricks
Matei Zaharia
Matei Zaharia is a co-founder of Databricks. Created Apache Spark, one of the technologies behind the company’s origins.
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Databricks
Reynold Xin
Reynold Xin is a co-founder of Databricks. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in data & ai platforms.
Explore founder
Canva
Melanie Perkins
Co-founded Canva after starting the yearbook-design business Fusion Books. Her founding idea focused on making design tools accessible to more people.
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Canva
Cliff Obrecht
Co-founded Canva and Fusion Books with Melanie Perkins, bringing company-building experience to a global design platform.
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Canva
Cameron Adams
Co-founded Canva with a product and design background. He helped shape the platform’s browser-based design experience.
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Notion
Ivan Zhao
Co-founded Notion around a flexible workspace in which people can combine documents, information and software-like building blocks.
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Notion
Simon Last
Co-founded Notion and helped establish the product’s technical foundation.
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Oura
Petteri Lahtela
A co-founder of Oura, whose early development brought sleep and recovery measurement into a wearable ring.
Explore founder
Helion
David Kirtley
David Kirtley is a co-founder of Helion. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in fusion energy.
Explore founder
Helion
Chris Pihl
Chris Pihl is a co-founder of Helion. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in fusion energy.
Explore founder
Commonwealth Fusion Systems
Bob Mumgaard
Bob Mumgaard is a co-founder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in fusion energy.
Explore founder
Commonwealth Fusion Systems
Dennis Whyte
Dennis Whyte is a co-founder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in fusion energy.
Explore founder
Commonwealth Fusion Systems
Brandon Sorbom
Brandon Sorbom is a co-founder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in fusion energy.
Explore founder
Redwood Materials
JB Straubel
Founded Redwood Materials after co-founding Tesla. Redwood connects battery recycling and materials recovery with a growing energy-storage business.
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Perplexity
Aravind Srinivas
Aravind Srinivas is a co-founder of Perplexity. An AI researcher who helped build Perplexity around search, retrieval and generated answers.
Explore founder
Perplexity
Denis Yarats
Denis Yarats is a co-founder of Perplexity. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in ai search.
Explore founder
Perplexity
Johnny Ho
Johnny Ho is a co-founder of Perplexity. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in ai search.
Explore founder
Glean
Arvind Jain
Arvind Jain is a co-founder of Glean. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in enterprise search.
Explore founder
Glean
Tony Gentilcore
Tony Gentilcore is a co-founder of Glean. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in enterprise search.
Explore founder
Glean
Piyush Prahladka
Piyush Prahladka is a co-founder of Glean. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in enterprise search.
Explore founder
Anduril
Palmer Luckey
Palmer Luckey is a co-founder of Anduril. Previously founded Oculus. His company-building background connects consumer hardware with autonomous defense systems.
Explore founder
Anduril
Brian Schimpf
Brian Schimpf is a co-founder of Anduril. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in defense technology.
Explore founder
Anduril
Trae Stephens
Trae Stephens is a co-founder of Anduril. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in defense technology.
Explore founder
Saronic
Dino Mavrookas
Dino Mavrookas is a co-founder of Saronic. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in autonomous maritime.
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Saronic
Rob Lehman
Rob Lehman is a co-founder of Saronic. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in autonomous maritime.
Explore founder
Epirus
Bo Marr
Bo Marr is a co-founder of Epirus. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in counter-drone systems.
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Figure
Brett Adcock
Brett Adcock is a co-founder of Figure. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in humanoid robotics.
Explore founder
Apptronik
Jeff Cardenas
Jeff Cardenas is a co-founder of Apptronik. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in humanoid robotics.
Explore founder
Apptronik
Nick Paine
Nick Paine is a co-founder of Apptronik. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in humanoid robotics.
Explore founder
Apptronik
Luis Sentis
Luis Sentis is a co-founder of Apptronik. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in humanoid robotics.
Explore founder
Skild AI
Deepak Pathak
Deepak Pathak is a co-founder of Skild AI. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in robotics foundation models.
Explore founder
Skild AI
Abhinav Gupta
Abhinav Gupta is a co-founder of Skild AI. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in robotics foundation models.
Explore founder
Physical Intelligence
Karol Hausman
Karol Hausman is a co-founder of Physical Intelligence. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in robotics foundation models.
Explore founder
Physical Intelligence
Chelsea Finn
Chelsea Finn is a co-founder of Physical Intelligence. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in robotics foundation models.
Explore founder
Physical Intelligence
Sergey Levine
Sergey Levine is a co-founder of Physical Intelligence. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in robotics foundation models.
Explore founder
Brex
Pedro Franceschi
Pedro Franceschi is a co-founder of Brex. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in corporate finance.
Explore founder
Brex
Henrique Dubugras
Henrique Dubugras is a co-founder of Brex. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in corporate finance.
Explore founder
Rippling
Parker Conrad
Parker Conrad is a co-founder of Rippling. Previously co-founded Zenefits. Rippling applies a shared employee record across HR, IT and finance.
Explore founder
Rippling
Prasanna Sankar
Prasanna Sankar is a co-founder of Rippling. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in workforce platforms.
Explore founder
TAE Technologies
Norman Rostoker
Norman Rostoker is a historical founder of TAE Technologies. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in fusion energy.
Explore founder
Neuralink
Elon Musk
Elon Musk is a co-founder of Neuralink. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in brain-computer interfaces.
Explore founder
Neuralink
DJ Seo
DJ Seo is a co-founder of Neuralink. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in brain-computer interfaces.
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Altos Labs
Rick Klausner
Rick Klausner is a co-founder of Altos Labs. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in cellular rejuvenation.
Explore founder
Epic Games
Tim Sweeney
Tim Sweeney is a co-founder of Epic Games. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in gaming platforms.
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Epic Games
Mark Rein
Mark Rein is a co-founder of Epic Games. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in gaming platforms.
Explore founder
Discord
Jason Citron
Jason Citron is a co-founder of Discord. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in communication platforms.
Explore founder
Discord
Stan Vishnevskiy
Stan Vishnevskiy is a co-founder of Discord. The company’s founding and leadership material provides context for its work in communication platforms.
Explore founder
Lambda
Stephen Balaban
Co-founded Lambda to build computing systems for AI developers and researchers.
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Lambda
Michael Balaban
Co-founded Lambda, contributing to the company’s origins in computing infrastructure for machine learning.
Explore founder
Crusoe
Chase Lochmiller
Co-founded Crusoe around the connection between energy resources and compute-intensive workloads.
Explore founder
Crusoe
Cully Cavness
Co-founded Crusoe, combining an energy background with the development of computing infrastructure.
Explore founder
Kraken
Jesse Powell
Co-founded Kraken, helping establish an early digital-asset exchange. Founding history should be distinguished from the company’s current management.
Explore founder
CoreWeave
Michael Intrator
Co-founded CoreWeave, which developed from GPU computing into specialized AI cloud infrastructure.
Explore founder
CoreWeave
Brian Venturo
Co-founded CoreWeave and contributed to its infrastructure and technology development.
Explore founder
CoreWeave
Brannin McBee
Co-founded CoreWeave and contributed to its commercial development.
Explore founder