The contribution Who are the founders of Openaai – and what do you do today? by Beatrice Bode first appeared on Basic Thinking. You always stay up to date with our newsletter.
Chatgpt is now a term. The AI company Openaai is behind it. It was founded in 2015 by a group IT expert around developer Sam Altman-however, many have now left the group. We’ll tell you what the founders of Openaai are doing today.
Openai started in San Francisco in 2015 as a non-profit organization for researching artificial intelligence. The company has developed AI tools such as Chatgpt and Dall-E. The result: a gigantic hype about artificial intelligence. Because use now Report According to over 200 million users, chatt.
Openai was founded by a group of eleven tech experts. The idea was to make AI accessible to all of humanity. For this, the founders invested a proud sum of money in their vision – most of their own pockets. The company started with a capital of $ 1 billion.
The founders of Openaai: How it all started
The most famous founders of Openai include Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Wojciech Zaremba and John Schulman. But Trevor Blackwell, Vicki Cheung, Andrej Karpathy, Durk Kingma and Pemala Vagata are also part of the group.
Other Silicon Valley greats such as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffmann, PayPal-Co founder Peter Thiel or Microsoft appeared as investors. However, the company’s NGO times have been over since 2019. Because Sam Altman wants to convert Openai into a profit -oriented company.
In the first few years, those responsible focused on basic research. At that time, the group published their findings freely. The foundation of the subsidiary Openaai Global, LLC later marked the change from the purely non -profit organization into a commercial company. However, the conversion is currently in a transition process (as of April 3, 2025).
What do the founders of Openaai do today?
Sam Altman
Sam Altman has been CEO of Openaai since 2019. It leads the company’s commercialization. In 2023 there was a brief interruption of his “reign”. At that time he was released by the board of directors and was about to switch to Microsoft. However, the whole thing only lasted for just under two weeks. After a few chaotic days, the Chatgpt boss returns to his executive chair. Since then, Microsoft has not only been an Openai investor, but also has a seat in the supervisory body – but without voting rights.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk has already withdrawn from the OPENAI operational business in 2018 and has been concentrating on his other companies since then. In addition, in US politics. However, Musk is still connected to Openaai: In November 2024, he requested an injunction to stop conversion to a profit -oriented company. In his view, the process of the original non -profit mission contradicts. In February 2025, the Tesla and SpaceX boss Openai wanted to take over together with an investor consortium. The offer: $ 97.4 billion. However, the company rejected. Elon Musk and Sam Altman are now considered arch enemies.
Greg Brockman
Greg Brockman is one of the chairpersons of Openai. When Sam was released, he went with him out of solidarity. Brockman followed him again when he returned. In the summer of 2024 the co -founder announced on Xthat he would do a sabbatical. It was the first time since the company was founded that it could relax. However, the mission was far from over, he said in his post. In the meantime, Greg Brockman works for Openai after his break.
Wojciech Zaremba
Wojciech Zaremba continues to work at Openai. He is responsible for language and code. Zaremba developed the basis for chatt. In addition, Zaremba sits on the advisory board of Growbots, a start-up from the Silicon Valley, which deals with the automation of sales processes through machine learning and AI.
Ilya Sutskever
Ilya Sutskever came to Google as an expert in Machine learning from Google to the founding team in Openaai. He left the company in 2024. According to reports, he was dissatisfied with how Openaai deals with the topic of security. In the meantime he has founded another company. His company Safe Superintelligence focuses on the development of a harmless and highly developed AI.
John Schulman
John Schulman has now left Open Ai. Before that, he was responsible for some key innovations that Chatgpt helped to break through. In August 2024, he switched to the competitor Anthropic to devote more about security and focus on human values. In the meantime, however, Schulman has turned anthropic back. According to reports, he wants to switch to the new AI start-up of the former Openai-CTO Mira Murati.
Trevor Blackwell
Trevor Blackwell is known for his work on humanoid robots and as a partner at Y-Combinator. There he met Sam Altman. He works as one of the founding researchers at Openaai until 2017. In the meantime, he focuses on promoting start-ups and his work on robotics projects.
Vicki Cheung
Vicki Cheung was one of the first engineers at Openaai and led the infrastructure development. Later she switched to the driving service broker Lyft. She has also been a co -founder and CTO of Gantry since 2020. The company specializes in AI infrastructure.
Andrej Karpathy
After his time, Andrej Karpathy worked as head of the computer vision team at Tesla, who took care of the development of the autopilot system. He returned to Openaai again, but left the company again in 2024 to pursue personal research projects.
Durk Kingma
Durk Kingma is known for his contributions to machine learning research. He has now also left Openai. At the end of 2024 Kinga started at Anthropic and is involved in research on the development of responsible and safe transformative AI.
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The contribution Who are the founders of Openaai – and what do you do today? by Beatrice Bode first appeared on Basic Thinking. Follow us too Google News and Flipboard.
OpenAI was founded by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, and Wojciech Zaremba. However, Elon Musk has since stepped down from the board of OpenAI to focus on his other ventures.
Today, the founders of OpenAI are still actively involved in the organization. Sam Altman serves as the CEO of OpenAI, while Greg Brockman is the CTO. Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, and Wojciech Zaremba are all leading research efforts within the organization.
Overall, the founders of OpenAI continue to drive the organization forward in its mission to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. Their expertise and leadership in the tech industry are invaluable in shaping the future of AI research and development.
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