Prometheans 100+
Raising children is a journey of self-discovery – now as powerful as discovering fire. Who are our Prometheans?
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University of Toronto
Geoffrey Hinton
Nobel laureate, AI safety researcher and speaker
researcher
educator
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University of Toronto
Geoffrey Hinton
Nobel laureate, AI safety researcher and speaker
University Professor Emeritus at University of Toronto and Chief Scientific Advisor at the Vector Institute. Won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for foundational discoveries in machine learning with artificial neural networks. Since leaving Google in 2023, he focuses on publicly speaking about AI risks—job displacement, existential safety concerns, and the need for urgent research into controlling superintelligent systems.
Professor Emeritus — University of Toronto
Chief Scientific Advisor, Co-founder — Vector Institute
VP Engineering (2013-2023) — Google Brain
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AMI Labs
Yann LeCun
Founder of AMI Labs, world models AI researcher
researcher
industry-leader
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AMI Labs
Yann LeCun
Founder of AMI Labs, world models AI researcher
Left Meta in late 2025 where he led Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) to found Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs (AMI Labs), developing world models that understand physical reality rather than predict text. Turing Award winner who invented convolutional neural networks. Continues teaching at NYU while leading AMI Labs, which raised over $1 billion in its first funding round.
Founder & Executive Chair — AMI Labs
Professor — NYU
Chief AI Scientist — Meta
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LawZero
Yoshua Bengio
AI safety advocate, LawZero co-president and MILA founder
researcher
educator
policy
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LawZero
Yoshua Bengio
AI safety advocate, LawZero co-president and MILA founder
Full Professor at Université de Montréal and founder of Mila (Quebec AI Institute). Co-president and scientific director of LawZero, a non-profit focused on making AI safe by design, which he founded in 2025. Leads the International AI Safety Reports (published 2025, 2026), shaping global policy conversations on AI governance and risk mitigation.
Co-President & Scientific Director — LawZero
Full Professor — Université de Montréal
Founder & Scientific Advisor — Mila
Scientific & Technical Advisor — Recursion Pharmaceuticals
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DeepLearning.AI
Andrew Ng
Founder of DeepLearning.AI and AI Fund managing partner
educator
founder
investor
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DeepLearning.AI
Andrew Ng
Founder of DeepLearning.AI and AI Fund managing partner
Founder of DeepLearning.AI, managing general partner at AI Fund (recently closed $190M fund), and chairman of Coursera. Co-founder of Google Brain, former Chief Scientist at Baidu, and adjunct professor at Stanford. His online courses have trained millions in machine learning and AI.
Founder — DeepLearning.AI
Managing General Partner — AI Fund
Chairman and Co-Founder — Coursera
Board Member — Amazon
Executive Chairman — LandingAI
Adjunct Professor — Stanford University
Co-Founder — Google Brain
Chief Scientist — Baidu
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World Labs
Fei-Fei Li
CEO, World Labs; Stanford HAI co-director
researcher
educator
founder
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World Labs
Fei-Fei Li
CEO, World Labs; Stanford HAI co-director
CEO and co-founder of World Labs, an AI company focused on spatial intelligence in 3D environments. Serves as Sequoia Professor at Stanford and co-director of the Human-Centered AI Institute. Created ImageNet, the dataset that catalyzed the deep learning revolution in computer vision.
Co-founder & CEO — World Labs
Sequoia Professor, HAI Co-Director — Stanford University
pioneer
OpenAI
Sam Altman
OpenAI CEO building towards AGI
founder
industry-leader
pioneer
OpenAI
Sam Altman
OpenAI CEO building towards AGI
CEO of OpenAI, leading the company through rapid scaling and its path toward general artificial intelligence. He was president of Y Combinator before joining OpenAI full-time. Altman returned as CEO in November 2023 after a brief board removal, and continues to guide OpenAI through major fundraising rounds and strategic partnerships.
CEO — OpenAI
President — Y Combinator
pioneer
Anthropic
Dario Amodei
Anthropic CEO, AI safety advocate
founder
researcher
industry-leader
pioneer
Anthropic
Dario Amodei
Anthropic CEO, AI safety advocate
CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, building Claude while prioritizing AI safety research. Recently met with White House officials regarding AI policy and published 'The Adolescence of Technology' essay on managing risks of powerful AI systems. Maintains strict contractual positions on responsible AI deployment, refusing requests that conflict with safety principles.
CEO & Co-Founder — Anthropic
pioneer
Anthropic
Daniela Amodei
Anthropic President, AI safety and alignment focus
founder
industry-leader
pioneer
Anthropic
Daniela Amodei
Anthropic President, AI safety and alignment focus
President and co-founder of Anthropic, leading teams on AI safety and model alignment. Her brother Dario serves as CEO, focusing on research while she handles business and scaling. Named to TIME's 100 Most Influential People of 2026.
President & Co-founder — Anthropic
VP of Safety and Policy — OpenAI
pioneer
Google DeepMind
Demis Hassabis
Google DeepMind CEO and Isomorphic Labs founder
founder
researcher
industry-leader
pioneer
Google DeepMind
Demis Hassabis
Google DeepMind CEO and Isomorphic Labs founder
CEO and co-founder of Google DeepMind, where he leads all of Google's AI initiatives including Gemini. Also founder of Isomorphic Labs, an AI company applying computational biology to drug discovery. Nobel laureate in Chemistry (2024) for AlphaFold. Created AlphaGo and AlphaFold, pioneering breakthroughs that transformed AI capabilities in game-playing and protein structure prediction.
CEO & Co-Founder — Google DeepMind
Founder & CEO — Isomorphic Labs
Co-Founder — DeepMind
pioneer
Safe Superintelligence Inc.
Ilya Sutskever
Safe Superintelligence founder and CEO, superintelligence researcher
researcher
founder
pioneer
Safe Superintelligence Inc.
Ilya Sutskever
Safe Superintelligence founder and CEO, superintelligence researcher
CEO and co-founder of Safe Superintelligence Inc., focused exclusively on developing safe superintelligent AI without other product ambitions. Previously co-founded OpenAI and served as Chief Scientist, where he architected GPT's development and recognized the power of scaling laws. In 2026, received the National Academy of Sciences Award for Industrial Application of Science.
Founder & CEO — Safe Superintelligence Inc.
Chief Scientist — OpenAI
pioneer
NVIDIA
Jensen Huang
NVIDIA CEO and co-founder, AI infrastructure pioneer
founder
industry-leader
pioneer
NVIDIA
Jensen Huang
NVIDIA CEO and co-founder, AI infrastructure pioneer
Co-founded NVIDIA in 1993 and serves as president and CEO. Pivoted the company from gaming GPUs to become the dominant platform for AI compute, powering the infrastructure underlying the entire AI industry. NVIDIA is now the world's most valuable company.
Founder, President & CEO — NVIDIA
pioneer
Eureka Labs
Andrej Karpathy
Eureka Labs founder, AI education pioneer
researcher
educator
founder
pioneer
Eureka Labs
Andrej Karpathy
Eureka Labs founder, AI education pioneer
Founded Eureka Labs in July 2024, an AI-native education platform building personalized learning at scale. Former Tesla AI director and OpenAI researcher. Now defining how developers learn AI through hands-on courses like LLM101n, while actively shaping industry thinking on Software 3.0 and agent-native development.
Founder — Eureka Labs
Researcher — OpenAI
Director of AI — Tesla
pioneer
Tesla
Elon Musk
CEO at Tesla and SpaceX; founded xAI
founder
investor
industry-leader
pioneer
Tesla
Elon Musk
CEO at Tesla and SpaceX; founded xAI
CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Founded xAI, which SpaceX acquired in early 2026. Directs Grok AI development through xAI, autonomous driving at Tesla, and rocket technology at SpaceX. Owns X (Twitter) and integrates AI across its platform.
CEO and Technoking — Tesla
CEO — SpaceX
Founder (SpaceX subsidiary) — xAI
pioneer
Meta
Mark Zuckerberg
Meta CEO championing open-source Llama models and superintelligence AI
founder
industry-leader
pioneer
Meta
Mark Zuckerberg
Meta CEO championing open-source Llama models and superintelligence AI
CEO of Meta, the company he founded as Facebook in 2004. Zuckerberg has championed open-source AI development through Llama (now at version 5), which offers competitive alternatives to closed-source models from OpenAI and Google. His current vision is "Personal Superintelligence"—giving every person their own AI agent. Meta is backing this vision with massive infrastructure investments of $115-145 billion in 2026.
CEO & Founder — Meta
Founder (prior to Meta rebranding in 2021) — Facebook
pioneer
Microsoft
Satya Nadella
Microsoft CEO and Chairman, leading enterprise AI strategy
industry-leader
pioneer
Microsoft
Satya Nadella
Microsoft CEO and Chairman, leading enterprise AI strategy
CEO and Chairman of Microsoft since 2014. Nadella has positioned Microsoft as a leader in enterprise AI through a strategic $13 billion partnership with OpenAI and deep integration of Copilot across the company's product portfolio. In 2026, he took direct control of Microsoft's unified AI efforts, guiding the expansion of AI capabilities from Azure infrastructure to productivity software, with the company's AI business now running at a $37 billion annual rate.
CEO and Chairman — Microsoft
pioneer
Google/Alphabet
Sundar Pichai
Google/Alphabet CEO, leading the shift to AI agents
industry-leader
pioneer
Google/Alphabet
Sundar Pichai
Google/Alphabet CEO, leading the shift to AI agents
CEO of Google and Alphabet, steering both companies toward an AI-first future. In 2026, Pichai is driving the shift from chatbots to agentic AI — personalized agents that autonomously complete complex tasks. Under his leadership, Gemini has become the dominant generative AI platform globally, and Google/Alphabet is investing record capital ($185B+ in 2026 capex) to scale AI infrastructure.
CEO — Google/Alphabet
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OpenAI
Greg Brockman
OpenAI co-founder and president, engineering leader
founder
engineer
builder
OpenAI
Greg Brockman
OpenAI co-founder and president, engineering leader
Co-founder and current president of OpenAI, overseeing product development and infrastructure scaling. Previously served as CTO of Stripe during its rapid growth phase. Known for engineering the systems behind GPT and ChatGPT, including live-demonstrating GPT-4.
President & Co-Founder — OpenAI
CTO — Stripe
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Google
Jeff Dean
Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research
researcher
engineer
industry-leader
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Google
Jeff Dean
Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research
Google's Chief Scientist overseeing Google DeepMind and Google Research, reporting directly to CEO Sundar Pichai. Built the foundational infrastructure underlying modern AI—MapReduce, BigTable, TensorFlow, TPUs—and co-authored the Transformer paper's team. Now leads Google's AI research strategy and invests in AI startups.
Chief Scientist, Google DeepMind and Google Research — Google
Senior Fellow and Chief Scientist (2023–present) — Google
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Essential AI
Ashish Vaswani
Co-Founder and CEO of Essential AI, transformer pioneer
researcher
founder
builder
Essential AI
Ashish Vaswani
Co-Founder and CEO of Essential AI, transformer pioneer
Co-Founder and CEO of Essential AI, a startup building open-source frontier AI models and tools backed by Google, Nvidia, and AMD. Previously a researcher at Google Brain where he co-authored the landmark 2017 'Attention Is All You Need' paper that introduced the Transformer architecture, becoming the foundation for every modern LLM.
Co-Founder and CEO — Essential AI
Researcher — Google Brain
Co-Founder — Adept AI
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Thinking Machines Lab
Alec Radford
Thinking Machines Lab adviser, independent AI researcher
researcher
builder
Thinking Machines Lab
Alec Radford
Thinking Machines Lab adviser, independent AI researcher
Former OpenAI research lead who departed in late 2024 to pursue independent research. Currently advises Thinking Machines Lab, founded by Mira Murati. Led development of GPT-1, GPT-2, CLIP, and Whisper, establishing the scaling hypothesis that transformed modern AI.
Adviser — Thinking Machines Lab
Research Lead — OpenAI
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Cohere
Aidan Gomez
Cohere CEO, Transformer co-author, enterprise AI leader
founder
researcher
builder
Cohere
Aidan Gomez
Cohere CEO, Transformer co-author, enterprise AI leader
Co-author of the Transformer paper and co-founder of Cohere, an enterprise-focused AI platform. Cohere recently merged with Aleph Alpha to build sovereign AI capabilities for European and North American markets. Leads one of the youngest teams building large-scale foundation models outside the US.
CEO & Co-Founder — Cohere
Board Member — Rivian
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Mistral AI
Arthur Mensch
Mistral AI CEO and co-founder, building Europe's leading open AI models
founder
researcher
builder
Mistral AI
Arthur Mensch
Mistral AI CEO and co-founder, building Europe's leading open AI models
Co-founder and CEO of Mistral AI, the Paris-based AI company competing at the frontier with efficient, open-weight models. Former DeepMind researcher. Under his leadership, Mistral has raised over €1.7 billion and established itself as the leading AI company outside the US.
Co-founder & CEO — Mistral AI
Researcher — DeepMind
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Intelligent Internet (ii.inc)
Emad Mostaque
Founder of Intelligent Internet, decentralized AI infrastructure
founder
builder
Intelligent Internet (ii.inc)
Emad Mostaque
Founder of Intelligent Internet, decentralized AI infrastructure
Founded Intelligent Internet (ii.inc), a project building universal AI infrastructure where individuals, countries, and companies have their own AI models. Left Stability AI in March 2024 after founding the open-source image generation pioneer. Now focused on decentralized approaches to AI development and governance.
Founder — Intelligent Internet (ii.inc)
Founder, Former CEO (departed March 2024) — Stability AI
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Hugging Face
Clement Delangue
Hugging Face CEO, open-source AI platform leader
founder
open-source
builder
Hugging Face
Clement Delangue
Hugging Face CEO, open-source AI platform leader
Co-founded and leads Hugging Face, the central platform for open-source AI models and datasets. Hugging Face hosts over 500K models and serves millions of developers globally. Under his leadership, the company went public on NASDAQ in June 2026.
CEO & Co-Founder — Hugging Face
builder
LangChain
Harrison Chase
LangChain CEO & co-founder, agent engineering platform
founder
open-source
engineer
builder
LangChain
Harrison Chase
LangChain CEO & co-founder, agent engineering platform
CEO and co-founder of LangChain, the platform developers use to build production AI agents. LangChain has evolved from a single framework into a comprehensive toolkit spanning LangGraph (multi-agent orchestration), LangSmith (production monitoring), and recently a no-code agent builder. Recent $125M Series B (October 2025) at $1.25B valuation funds the company's focus on reliable, production-ready agent engineering.
CEO & Co-Founder — LangChain
Founder (2022) — LangChain
builder
Independent
Simon Willison
Independent developer, prolific AI blogger, Datasette creator
open-source
educator
engineer
builder
Independent
Simon Willison
Independent developer, prolific AI blogger, Datasette creator
Independent open source developer building data exploration tools and AI infrastructure. Created Datasette and the llm CLI for practical LLM access. Maintains one of the most comprehensive blogs on real-world AI engineering and LLM applications, documenting experiments meticulously.
Open Source Developer & Writer — Independent
Board Member — Python Software Foundation
Engineering Director (former) — Eventbrite
Co-creator (historical) — Django Project
builder
Latent Space
Swyx
Latent Space editor, AI Engineer founder
educator
founder
builder
Latent Space
Swyx
Latent Space editor, AI Engineer founder
Shawn Wang edits Latent Space, the leading AI engineering publication and podcast that reached 10+ million readers and listeners in 2025. He is cofounder and CEO of AI Engineer, the global community and conference defining how developers build with AI. He also founded Smol AI, an LLM data pipeline company, and contributes to coding agent evaluation standards at Cognition.
Editor — Latent Space
Cofounder & CEO — AI Engineer
Founder — Smol AI
Coding Agent Evaluation Contributor — Cognition
Developer Experience Lead (former) — Netlify
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tiny corp
George Hotz
CEO at tiny corp, tinygrad creator, hardware builder
founder
engineer
open-source
builder
tiny corp
George Hotz
CEO at tiny corp, tinygrad creator, hardware builder
CEO of tiny corp, building tinygrad (a minimalist deep learning framework) and tinybox (affordable local AI hardware). Previously founded comma.ai (open-source self-driving). Known for live-coding streams that show how AI frameworks work at the hardware level.
Chief Executive Officer — tiny corp
Founder — comma.ai
builder
Voltron Data
Chip Huyen
VP of AI & Open Source at Voltron Data, AI Engineering author
educator
author
builder
Voltron Data
Chip Huyen
VP of AI & Open Source at Voltron Data, AI Engineering author
VP of AI & Open Source Software at Voltron Data, where she works on GPU-accelerated data processing. Author of 'AI Engineering' (2025), the most-read book on O'Reilly's platform since launch, and 'Designing Machine Learning Systems'. Her work bridges research and production, focusing on practical approaches to building AI systems.
VP of AI & Open Source Software — Voltron Data
Instructor (former) — Stanford University
Staff Engineer (former) — Snorkel AI
Senior ML Engineer (former) — NVIDIA
builder
RAIR Lab
Sebastian Raschka
Founder and LLM research engineer at RAIR Lab
educator
researcher
author
builder
RAIR Lab
Sebastian Raschka
Founder and LLM research engineer at RAIR Lab
Sebastian Raschka is founder and Principal AI & LLM Research Engineer at RAIR Lab, focusing on large language model architecture research and practical code-driven implementations. He's the author of 'Build a Large Language Model From Scratch' and publishes the 'Ahead of AI' newsletter exploring LLM architectures and the latest developments. His work bridges practical AI engineering with education, helping developers understand how modern language models actually work.
Founder, Principal AI & LLM Research Engineer — RAIR Lab
LLM Research Engineer — Lightning AI
Assistant Professor (Statistics) — University of Wisconsin-Madison
builder
Answer.AI
Jeremy Howard
Answer.AI founding CEO, created fast.ai and ULMFiT
educator
founder
researcher
builder
Answer.AI
Jeremy Howard
Answer.AI founding CEO, created fast.ai and ULMFiT
Founded Answer.AI with Eric Ries, a new R&D lab that ships practical AI products from research breakthroughs. Still co-leads fast.ai, which revolutionized deep learning education through a top-down, code-first approach. Created ULMFiT, the transfer learning technique that became the foundation for modern large language models including ChatGPT.
Founding CEO — Answer.AI
Chief Scientist — platform.ai
Co-founder — fast.ai
Former President — Kaggle
builder
Ndea
Francois Chollet
Ndea co-founder, AGI researcher, Keras creator
researcher
engineer
open-source
builder
Ndea
Francois Chollet
Ndea co-founder, AGI researcher, Keras creator
Co-founder of Ndea, an AI research lab focused on AGI through program synthesis and deep learning. Created Keras, the most widely-used deep learning framework, and founded the ARC Prize to measure genuine reasoning in AI systems. His philosophy: AI should adapt and generalize autonomously, not just memorize patterns.
Co-founder — Ndea
Founder — ARC Prize
Senior Staff Engineer (left November 2024) — Google
builder
NVIDIA
Jim Fan
NVIDIA Director of AI, Project GR00T and embodied agent research
researcher
builder
NVIDIA
Jim Fan
NVIDIA Director of AI, Project GR00T and embodied agent research
NVIDIA Director of AI & Distinguished Scientist leading Project GR00T for humanoid robotics and the GEAR lab. Pioneered foundation agents through Voyager and now focuses on building generally capable agents for physical and virtual environments. His work bridges AI and robotics toward physical AGI.
Director of AI & Distinguished Scientist, Project GR00T Co-Lead — NVIDIA
First Intern — OpenAI
builder
Independent
Pieter Levels
Indie maker, $3M+ annual revenue from AI products
founder
engineer
builder
Independent
Pieter Levels
Indie maker, $3M+ annual revenue from AI products
Dutch solo entrepreneur who has built multiple bootstrapped businesses including NomadList, RemoteOK, and PhotoAI. Generates $3M+ annually from independent projects, increasingly using AI to ship products at unprecedented speed. Recently built a viral 3D flight simulator in three hours with zero game development background.
Indie Maker — Independent
Angel Investor — Levels Ventures
builder
Google
Noam Shazeer
Google VP Engineering and Gemini Co-Lead
researcher
founder
builder
Google
Noam Shazeer
Google VP Engineering and Gemini Co-Lead
VP Engineering and Co-Lead of Google Gemini, where he returned in late 2024 as part of the Character.AI licensing deal. Co-authored the Transformer paper and founded Character.AI, one of the most popular consumer AI products. Elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2026.
VP Engineering, Gemini Co-Lead — Google
Co-founder — Character.AI
Researcher — Google Research
builder
Ineffable Intelligence
David Silver
CEO of Ineffable Intelligence, AlphaGo architect
researcher
builder
Ineffable Intelligence
David Silver
CEO of Ineffable Intelligence, AlphaGo architect
Founded Ineffable Intelligence in 2026, a London-based AI lab focused on building systems that learn autonomously without human-generated data. Previously led reinforcement learning research at DeepMind for 13 years, creating AlphaGo and AlphaZero. Also a professor at University College London.
CEO and Founder — Ineffable Intelligence
Professor — University College London
Principal Research Scientist — Google DeepMind
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Google DeepMind
John Jumper
Distinguished Scientist at Google DeepMind, AlphaFold lead
researcher
builder
Google DeepMind
John Jumper
Distinguished Scientist at Google DeepMind, AlphaFold lead
Leads the AlphaFold team at Google DeepMind, creating AI systems that predict protein structures from amino acid sequences. Awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with Demis Hassabis and David Baker) for this breakthrough in protein structure prediction. His work has transformed drug discovery and structural biology research worldwide.
Distinguished Scientist — Google DeepMind
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Mistral AI
Guillaume Lample
Mistral AI co-founder and Chief Scientist
researcher
founder
builder
Mistral AI
Guillaume Lample
Mistral AI co-founder and Chief Scientist
Co-founded Mistral AI in 2023 alongside Arthur Mensch and Timothée Lacroix, where he serves as Chief Scientist. His research focuses on NLP, efficient model architectures, and multilingual capabilities. Previously, he was a Research Scientist at Meta AI Research specializing in unsupervised machine translation.
Co-Founder & Chief Scientist — Mistral AI
Research Scientist — Meta AI Research
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Thinking Machines Lab
Mira Murati
CEO and co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab
engineer
industry-leader
builder
Thinking Machines Lab
Mira Murati
CEO and co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab
Mira Murati founded Thinking Machines Lab in February 2025 after departing OpenAI, where she served as CTO overseeing ChatGPT and GPT-4 launches. The company raised $2 billion in seed funding (July 2025) and released Tinker, an API for fine-tuning language models. She continues building infrastructure for accessible, scalable AI model customization.
CEO and Co-founder — Thinking Machines Lab
Chief Technology Officer — OpenAI
builder
Stanford University
Percy Liang
Stanford associate professor, HELM benchmarks, foundation models
researcher
educator
builder
Stanford University
Percy Liang
Stanford associate professor, HELM benchmarks, foundation models
Associate Professor of Computer Science at Stanford and director of the Center for Research on Foundation Models (CRFM). Created HELM (Holistic Evaluation of Language Models), an open-source benchmark suite that has become the standard for evaluating foundation models and LLMs. His recent work includes HELM Safety, expanding evaluation to cover risk categories like discrimination, fraud, and deception.
Associate Professor of Computer Science, CRFM Director — Stanford University
Senior Fellow — Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI)
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Anduril Industries
Palmer Luckey
Anduril founder, building autonomous defense AI
founder
defence
builder
Anduril Industries
Palmer Luckey
Anduril founder, building autonomous defense AI
Created Oculus Rift at 19, which sold to Facebook for $2B. Founded Anduril Industries in 2017, now valued at $30.5B, building autonomous defense systems and AI. Recently led Anduril's acquisition of the Army's IVAS program and collaborated with Meta on military wearables.
Founder — Anduril Industries
Founder (acquired 2014) — Oculus VR / Facebook Reality Labs
builder
Palantir Technologies
Alex Karp
Palantir CEO and co-founder, defense AI and intelligence technology
founder
defence
industry-leader
builder
Palantir Technologies
Alex Karp
Palantir CEO and co-founder, defense AI and intelligence technology
CEO and co-founder of Palantir Technologies, the leading AI software platform for government intelligence and defense agencies. His AIP (Artificial Intelligence Platform) enables organizations to deploy large language models on classified and sensitive data. Recognized by Time as one of the world's 100 most influential people (2025) and Economist CEO of the Year (2024).
CEO & Co-Founder — Palantir Technologies
Co-Founder with Peter Thiel — Palantir Technologies
pioneer
Andreessen Horowitz
Marc Andreessen
a16z co-founder, PCAST tech advisor, AI market optimist
investor
industry-leader
pioneer
Andreessen Horowitz
Marc Andreessen
a16z co-founder, PCAST tech advisor, AI market optimist
Co-founder and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, managing $90B+ in assets with heavy focus on AI. Appointed to President Trump's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in 2026. Publicly advocates for AI-driven job growth and predicts the shift from prompt-based interfaces to proactive AI agents in mainstream applications.
Co-Founder & General Partner — Andreessen Horowitz
Advisor — President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
Inventor (web browser pioneer) — Mosaic/Netscape
pioneer
Founders Fund
Peter Thiel
Founders Fund managing partner, Palantir co-founder, AI and defense investor
investor
founder
pioneer
Founders Fund
Peter Thiel
Founders Fund managing partner, Palantir co-founder, AI and defense investor
Co-founder of PayPal and Palantir. Managing partner at Founders Fund, which recently raised $6 billion for late-stage investments in AI, defense, and space tech. Major investor in Anthropic, Anduril, and other AI-forward companies. Known for contrarian philosophy on technology and geopolitics.
Managing Partner — Founders Fund
Co-Founder — Palantir Technologies
Co-Founder — PayPal
builder
Khosla Ventures
Vinod Khosla
Founder of Khosla Ventures, early OpenAI investor
investor
builder
Khosla Ventures
Vinod Khosla
Founder of Khosla Ventures, early OpenAI investor
Sun Microsystems co-founder who founded Khosla Ventures, managing $15B in capital backing AI, climate tech, and transformative companies. Early investor in OpenAI. Publicly vocal about AI's disruption of professional services and potential to create abundance through automation.
Founder — Khosla Ventures
Co-founder — Sun Microsystems
builder
Anthropic
Jan Leike
Anthropic researcher, weak-to-strong generalization and AI alignment
researcher
policy
builder
Anthropic
Jan Leike
Anthropic researcher, weak-to-strong generalization and AI alignment
Jan Leike is a researcher at Anthropic working on AI alignment and safety, with focus on weak-to-strong generalization and scalable oversight. He previously led OpenAI's Superalignment team and publicly resigned, citing that safety had taken a backseat to product velocity. His current work explores automated alignment researchers — AI systems that help solve alignment problems at scale.
AI Alignment Researcher — Anthropic
Superalignment Lead — OpenAI
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UC Berkeley
Stuart Russell
UC Berkeley Distinguished Professor, AI safety and governance
researcher
educator
policy
builder
UC Berkeley
Stuart Russell
UC Berkeley Distinguished Professor, AI safety and governance
Stuart J. Russell is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley, where he holds the Michael H. Smith and Lotfi A. Zadeh Chair in Engineering. He is Director of the Center for Human-Compatible AI and co-founder of the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI. Russell is a leading voice on AI governance and long-term safety, best known for the foundational textbook 'Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach' and for advancing human-compatible AI as a research discipline.
Distinguished Professor of Computer Science — UC Berkeley
Director, Center for Human-Compatible AI — UC Berkeley
Distinguished Professor of Computational Precision Health — University of San Francisco
Co-chair, Expert Group on AI Futures — OECD
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MIT
Max Tegmark
MIT physicist, Future of Life Institute president, AI safety advocate
researcher
policy
builder
MIT
Max Tegmark
MIT physicist, Future of Life Institute president, AI safety advocate
Physics professor at MIT researching artificial intelligence and fundamental physics. Co-founder and president of the Future of Life Institute, which funds AI safety research and advocates for responsible AI development. Also leads the Improve the News Foundation.
Physics Professor — MIT
Co-Founder and President — Future of Life Institute
President — Improve the News Foundation
rising
Princeton University
Tri Dao
Princeton professor and Together AI Chief Scientist, hardware-aware algorithms
researcher
founder
rising
Princeton University
Tri Dao
Princeton professor and Together AI Chief Scientist, hardware-aware algorithms
Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University (joined 2024) and Chief Scientist at Together AI. Designs hardware-aware algorithms to improve machine learning efficiency. Created FlashAttention and the Mamba architecture — two of the most impactful algorithmic innovations enabling modern AI. Named AI2050 Early Career Fellow by Schmidt Sciences in 2025.
Assistant Professor of Computer Science — Princeton University
Chief Scientist & Co-Founder — Together AI
AI2050 Early Career Fellow — Schmidt Sciences
rising
Thinking Machines Lab
Lilian Weng
Co-founder at Thinking Machines Lab, former OpenAI safety VP
researcher
educator
rising
Thinking Machines Lab
Lilian Weng
Co-founder at Thinking Machines Lab, former OpenAI safety VP
Recently joined Thinking Machines Lab, a new AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. Previously served as VP of Research and Safety at OpenAI for seven years, where she led the Applied AI Research team and contributed to robotics, safety frameworks, and tools like the fine-tuning and embedding APIs. Her technical blog (lilianweng.github.io) remains one of the most widely-read resources on diffusion models, transformers, RLHF, and AI alignment.
Founding Team Member — Thinking Machines Lab
Distinguished Fellow — Fellows Fund
VP of Research and Safety — OpenAI
rising
Meta Superintelligence Labs
Jason Wei
Meta Superintelligence Labs researcher, reasoning pioneer
researcher
rising
Meta Superintelligence Labs
Jason Wei
Meta Superintelligence Labs researcher, reasoning pioneer
AI researcher at Meta Superintelligence Labs focused on advanced reasoning and multimodal models. Previously at OpenAI (2023-2025) where he led research on reasoning models and deep research capabilities. Pioneered chain-of-thought prompting at Google Brain, a foundational technique for improving LLM reasoning.
Researcher — Meta Superintelligence Labs
Researcher — OpenAI
Research Scientist — Google Brain
rising
EleutherAI
Stella Biderman
EleutherAI Executive Director, open-source AI researcher
researcher
open-source
rising
EleutherAI
Stella Biderman
EleutherAI Executive Director, open-source AI researcher
Executive Director of EleutherAI, a mathematician and AI researcher specializing in natural language processing and interpretability. Leading the open-science movement to make large language models accessible for academic research and non-profit study outside corporate control.
Executive Director — EleutherAI
Researcher — FAR.AI
rising
Adaption Labs
Sara Hooker
Co-founder of Adaption Labs, building efficient adaptive AI systems
researcher
rising
Adaption Labs
Sara Hooker
Co-founder of Adaption Labs, building efficient adaptive AI systems
Co-founded Adaption Labs in February 2026 with Sudip Roy, raising $50M in seed funding to develop AI models that adapt to individual tasks while using less computing power. Previously served as VP of Research at Cohere, where she led Cohere for AI, a research initiative focused on making AI accessible across languages and resource-constrained environments. Former Google Brain researcher known for pioneering work on the Hardware Lottery and efficient model inference.
Co-founder — Adaption Labs
VP of Research — Cohere
Research Scientist — Google Brain / Google DeepMind
rising
OpenAI
Karina Nguyen
OpenAI researcher, reasoning models and agent design
researcher
rising
OpenAI
Karina Nguyen
OpenAI researcher, reasoning models and agent design
Leads research at OpenAI on reasoning models (o1/o3) and human-AI collaboration products like Canvas and Tasks. Spent two years at Anthropic working on post-training, Constitutional AI, and Claude 3 evaluations, including the 100K context window feature. Known for thinking deeply about how to design AI systems that augment human capability.
Researcher — OpenAI
Researcher (post-training and evaluation) — Anthropic
Engineer — New York Times
Designer — Dropbox
Designer — Square
rising
OpenAI
Roon
OpenAI technical staff, influential pseudonymous AI voice
educator
rising
OpenAI
Roon
OpenAI technical staff, influential pseudonymous AI voice
Pseudonymous researcher at OpenAI known for incisive analysis on X (@tszzl). Writes authoritatively about model capabilities, scaling laws, alignment, and the practical state of AI development. His threads are widely read and discussed within the AI research and builder communities.
Technical Staff — OpenAI
AI commentator — Pseudonymous X (@tszzl)
rising
Answer.AI
Rachel Thomas
Answer.AI R&D researcher; fast.ai co-founder
educator
founder
policy
rising
Answer.AI
Rachel Thomas
Answer.AI R&D researcher; fast.ai co-founder
Rachel Thomas works in R&D at Answer.AI, advancing practical breakthroughs in deep learning research. She co-founded fast.ai with Jeremy Howard, championing accessible AI education and ethical practice. A PhD mathematician with early experience at Uber, she has shaped how practitioners think about AI's societal impact.
R&D Researcher — Answer.AI
Co-Founder — fast.ai
Founding Director, Center for Applied Data Ethics — University of San Francisco
rising
Hugging Face
Sasha Luccioni
Hugging Face AI and Climate researcher
researcher
policy
rising
Hugging Face
Sasha Luccioni
Hugging Face AI and Climate researcher
AI researcher and Climate Lead at Hugging Face, focusing on measuring and reducing the environmental footprint of AI systems. Named to Time100 Most Influential People in AI (2024). Also Adjunct Professor at McGill University School of Computer Science.
AI & Climate Lead — Hugging Face
Adjunct Professor — McGill University
rising
ControlAI
Connor Leahy
ControlAI US Director, AI policy advocate
founder
policy
rising
ControlAI
Connor Leahy
ControlAI US Director, AI policy advocate
Co-founded EleutherAI and Conjecture, then moved to ControlAI in early 2026 to lead campaigns for AI superintelligence regulation. Advocates for binding government policy on frontier AI development and is among the most prominent voices warning of extinction risk from advanced AI.
US Director — ControlAI
CEO & Co-Founder — Conjecture
Co-Founder — EleutherAI
rising
Goldman Sachs
Jan Hatzius
Goldman Sachs chief economist, AI labor market impacts
industry-leader
rising
Goldman Sachs
Jan Hatzius
Goldman Sachs chief economist, AI labor market impacts
Chief Economist and Head of Global Investment Research at Goldman Sachs. Known for accurate macroeconomic forecasting—three-time Lawrence R. Klein Award winner (2009, 2011, 2025). His research team analyzes AI's impact on productivity, labor markets, and GDP growth.
Chief Economist, Head of Global Investment Research — Goldman Sachs
rising
Shumer Capital
Matt Shumer
Investor and AI builder, founder of HyperWrite agent platform
founder
rising
Shumer Capital
Matt Shumer
Investor and AI builder, founder of HyperWrite agent platform
Co-founder of OthersideAI/HyperWrite, stepping into investing as GP at Shumer Capital backing AI infra and dev tools. Known for shipping advanced AI products and publicly advocating for rapid AI progress. Recently published widely-discussed essay on AI's accelerating impact.
GP / Investor — Shumer Capital
Co-founder and Former CEO — OthersideAI / HyperWrite
rising
DAIR.AI
Elvis Saravia
DAIR.AI co-founder, AI educator and researcher
educator
open-source
rising
DAIR.AI
Elvis Saravia
DAIR.AI co-founder, AI educator and researcher
Co-founder and Lead AI Researcher at DAIR.AI, where he leads research, education, and engineering efforts. Created the Prompt Engineering Guide — an open-source resource that has reached millions of learners — and co-created the Galactica LLM. Focuses on training, evaluating, and building applications with large language models.
Co-Founder, Lead AI Researcher & Instructor — DAIR.AI
Research collaborator — Papers with Code, PyTorch, FAIR, Meta AI
builder
Y Combinator
Paul Graham
Y Combinator co-founder, essayist on startups and AI
investor
educator
builder
Y Combinator
Paul Graham
Y Combinator co-founder, essayist on startups and AI
Co-founded Y Combinator in 2005 with Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris. Has funded over 5,600 companies including OpenAI, Stripe, and Airbnb. Continues to write influential essays about startup strategy, founders, and AI's impact on technology and work.
Co-founder — Y Combinator
builder
Meta Superintelligence Labs
Nat Friedman
Meta Superintelligence Labs VP of Product & Applied Research
founder
investor
builder
Meta Superintelligence Labs
Nat Friedman
Meta Superintelligence Labs VP of Product & Applied Research
Former GitHub CEO who launched Copilot, now at Meta Superintelligence Labs leading product and applied research. Co-founded venture fund NFDG with Daniel Gross, which was acquired by Meta in 2025. Recognized in TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI.
VP of Product & Applied Research — Meta Superintelligence Labs
Co-founder & Investor — NFDG (acquired by Meta)
CEO — GitHub
builder
Replit
Amjad Masad
Replit CEO, AI agent platform for autonomous development
founder
builder
Replit
Amjad Masad
Replit CEO, AI agent platform for autonomous development
Founder and CEO of Replit, the browser-based platform where developers build software with AI agents. Recently led Replit to a $9B valuation with a $400M Series D round. His vision of AI-first development—where agents can build entire startups autonomously—is becoming reality through Agent 4, Replit's latest AI system.
Founder & CEO — Replit
rising
Anysphere / Cursor
Michael Truell
CEO of Cursor, AI-native code editor backed by $60B SpaceX deal
founder
rising
Anysphere / Cursor
Michael Truell
CEO of Cursor, AI-native code editor backed by $60B SpaceX deal
Co-founder and CEO of Anysphere, the company behind Cursor. Built an AI-native code editor that grew from launch in early 2023 to $2 billion annualized revenue by February 2026. In April 2026, SpaceX announced the right to acquire Cursor for $60 billion, cementing it as one of the fastest-growing developer tools.
CEO & Co-Founder — Anysphere / Cursor
Intern (former) — Google
builder
President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
David Sacks
PCAST co-chair, Craft Ventures founder and investor
investor
policy
builder
President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
David Sacks
PCAST co-chair, Craft Ventures founder and investor
Co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) as of March 2026, advising on AI, semiconductors, quantum computing, and nuclear power. Founder of venture capital firm Craft Ventures. Former White House special advisor for AI and crypto (served through March 2026). Previously PayPal COO and early PayPal mafia member.
Co-Chair — President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
Founder — Craft Ventures
Special Advisor for AI and Crypto (ended March 2026) — White House
rising
DeepJudge
Yannic Kilcher
DeepJudge CTO and co-founder, ML researcher and YouTube educator
educator
rising
DeepJudge
Yannic Kilcher
DeepJudge CTO and co-founder, ML researcher and YouTube educator
Co-founder and CTO at DeepJudge, building AI-powered legal document processing. PhD in ML from ETH Zurich. Continues to produce detailed technical explanations of machine learning research papers on YouTube, serving as a critical resource for understanding AI research alongside his work on DeepJudge's platform.
CTO and Co-Founder — DeepJudge
YouTube Educator — Independent
builder
Thinking Machines Lab
Soumith Chintala
CTO at Thinking Machines Lab, AI infrastructure researcher
engineer
open-source
builder
Thinking Machines Lab
Soumith Chintala
CTO at Thinking Machines Lab, AI infrastructure researcher
CTO of Thinking Machines Lab, the AI research company co-founded by Mira Murati. Previously spent 11 years at Meta where he co-created PyTorch, the open-source deep learning framework that became the dominant tool in AI research.
Chief Technology Officer — Thinking Machines Lab
PyTorch co-creator (2014-2025) — Meta
builder
Google DeepMind
Ian Goodfellow
DeepMind researcher who invented GANs
researcher
builder
Google DeepMind
Ian Goodfellow
DeepMind researcher who invented GANs
Research scientist at Google DeepMind. Invented Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) in 2014, which enabled AI image generation before diffusion models took over. Previously led machine learning at Apple and Google Brain.
Research Scientist — Google DeepMind
Director of Machine Learning — Apple
Research Scientist — Google Brain
builder
Google DeepMind
Oriol Vinyals
VP of Research at Google DeepMind, Gemini co-technical lead
researcher
builder
Google DeepMind
Oriol Vinyals
VP of Research at Google DeepMind, Gemini co-technical lead
VP of Research at Google DeepMind, co-leading Gemini development as Technical Lead. Major contributions to foundational AI research including AlphaStar (StarCraft II), AlphaFold, sequence-to-sequence learning, and WaveNet. Actively driving evolution of agentic AI systems and multimodal models.
VP of Research, Gemini Co-Technical Lead — Google DeepMind
builder
Baidu
Robin Li
Baidu CEO, leading China's AI with ERNIE 5.0
founder
industry-leader
builder
Baidu
Robin Li
Baidu CEO, leading China's AI with ERNIE 5.0
Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Baidu since 2000. Leads Baidu's AI strategy, including the ERNIE model series — most recently ERNIE 5.0, a multimodal model launched in November 2025. ERNIE Assistant has grown to 202 million monthly active users, and Baidu is developing custom AI chips for next-generation performance.
CEO, Chairman & Co-Founder — Baidu
Board Member — New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc.
rising
Meta
Alexandr Wang
Meta Chief AI Officer, Scale AI founder
founder
rising
Meta
Alexandr Wang
Meta Chief AI Officer, Scale AI founder
Chief AI Officer at Meta, leading Meta Superintelligence Labs since 2025. Founded Scale AI at 19, building the data labeling and evaluation infrastructure used by OpenAI, Google, Meta, and most major AI companies. Remains on Scale AI's board after Meta's $14.3 billion investment.
Chief AI Officer, Meta Superintelligence Labs — Meta
Founder, Board Member — Scale AI
rising
US AI Safety Institute (NIST)
Paul Christiano
Head of AI Safety at US AI Safety Institute, NIST
researcher
policy
rising
US AI Safety Institute (NIST)
Paul Christiano
Head of AI Safety at US AI Safety Institute, NIST
Leads AI safety research at the U.S. AI Safety Institute (NIST), designing evaluations for frontier models' national security capabilities. Former OpenAI researcher who developed RLHF, the core technique that made ChatGPT helpful and harmless. Founded the nonprofit Alignment Research Center to advance theoretical AI alignment research.
Head of AI Safety — US AI Safety Institute (NIST)
Founder — Alignment Research Center
Researcher (former) — OpenAI
rising
Anthropic
Chris Olah
Co-founder leading Anthropic's mechanistic interpretability research
researcher
rising
Anthropic
Chris Olah
Co-founder leading Anthropic's mechanistic interpretability research
Co-founder of Anthropic, Chris Olah leads the company's interpretability team working to understand what's happening inside AI models. His pioneering work on mechanistic interpretability — identifying and mapping the features and circuits within neural networks — has become central to Anthropic's approach to making models safer and more trustworthy.
Co-founder, Interpretability Team Lead — Anthropic
legend
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Jürgen Schmidhuber
KAUST AI director advancing generative AI and self-improving systems
researcher
legend
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Jürgen Schmidhuber
KAUST AI director advancing generative AI and self-improving systems
Director of the Center of Excellence for Generative AI at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and Scientific Director of Swiss AI Lab IDSIA. Co-inventor of LSTM networks and a foundational figure in deep learning history. Currently leading research on generative AI applications and self-rewriting AI systems.
Director, Center of Excellence for Generative AI — King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Scientific Director — Swiss AI Lab IDSIA
Founder — juergen.AI
Co-founder, Former President — NNAISENSE
builder
Microsoft
Sam Schillace
Microsoft CVP Deputy CTO, Google Docs creator
engineer
industry-leader
builder
Microsoft
Sam Schillace
Microsoft CVP Deputy CTO, Google Docs creator
Corporate Vice President and Deputy CTO at Microsoft, leading consumer experiences and productivity innovation. Created Google Docs through his startup Writely, which Google acquired in 2006. Now focuses on how AI integration transforms productivity tools and reshapes development practices.
Corporate Vice President, Deputy CTO - Consumer Experiences and Productivity — Microsoft
Engineer, Google Docs creator — Google
Founder — Writely
builder
Association for Computing Machinery
Yolanda Gil
ACM President and AI researcher at USC Information Sciences Institute
researcher
policy
builder
Association for Computing Machinery
Yolanda Gil
ACM President and AI researcher at USC Information Sciences Institute
Yolanda Gil is serving as ACM President (2024-2026) while continuing her role as Principal Scientist and Senior Director for AI and Data Science Initiatives at USC's Information Sciences Institute, where she directs the Center on Artificial Intelligence for Health. Appointed to the National Science Board in 2024 for a six-year term, her research focuses on knowledge-rich AI systems for scientific discovery and health, with emphasis on AI augmenting rather than replacing human researchers.
President (2024-2026) — Association for Computing Machinery
Principal Scientist, Senior Director for AI and Data Science Initiatives — USC Information Sciences Institute
Director, Center on Artificial Intelligence for Health — USC Information Sciences Institute
Member (2024-2030) — National Science Board
Past President (2018-2020) — Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
rising
AlgoExpert
Clément Mihailescu
AlgoExpert CEO, technical interview platform, 500K YouTube subscribers
founder
educator
rising
AlgoExpert
Clément Mihailescu
AlgoExpert CEO, technical interview platform, 500K YouTube subscribers
Co-founder and CEO of AlgoExpert, the leading technical interview preparation platform with over 200,000 paying customers. Ex-Google and ex-Facebook software engineer. Runs a popular YouTube channel (500K+ subscribers) discussing software engineering careers and entrepreneurship.
Co-founder & CEO — AlgoExpert
builder
Hugging Face
Margaret Mitchell
Chief Ethics Scientist at Hugging Face, AI ethics pioneer
researcher
policy
builder
Hugging Face
Margaret Mitchell
Chief Ethics Scientist at Hugging Face, AI ethics pioneer
Chief Ethics Scientist and Researcher at Hugging Face, where she leads work on ML data governance, responsible AI development, and AI ethics. Creator of Model Cards, the industry standard for documenting AI model capabilities and limitations. Named to TIME's Most Influential People 2023 for her foundational work on algorithmic fairness and accountability.
Chief Ethics Scientist and Researcher — Hugging Face
Affiliate — Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard
Staff Research Scientist, Ethical AI co-lead — Google AI
builder
DAIR Institute
Timnit Gebru
DAIR founder and Executive Director, AI ethics researcher
researcher
policy
builder
DAIR Institute
Timnit Gebru
DAIR founder and Executive Director, AI ethics researcher
Founder and Executive Director of the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), an independent research organization focused on AI's societal impact with particular attention to Africa and the diaspora. Known for foundational work on AI bias in datasets and her 2020 departure from Google over concerns about large language models. Currently writing The View from Somewhere, a memoir and manifesto on building technology that serves communities rather than enables surveillance.
Founder & Executive Director — DAIR Institute
Co-founder — Black in AI
builder
Robust.AI
Gary Marcus
Founder & Executive Chairman of Robust.AI, AI skeptic
researcher
educator
builder
Robust.AI
Gary Marcus
Founder & Executive Chairman of Robust.AI, AI skeptic
Gary Marcus is founder and executive chairman of Robust.AI, a machine learning platform company he launched in 2019 with Rodney Brooks. Professor emeritus of psychology and neural science at NYU, Marcus is one of AI's most prominent skeptics, arguing that pure deep learning approaches have fundamental limitations. He advocates for neurosymbolic AI that combines neural networks with symbolic reasoning, and writes extensively about AI reliability, hallucinations, and the gap between hype and capability.
Founder & Executive Chairman — Robust.AI
Professor Emeritus — New York University
pioneer
Microsoft
Mustafa Suleyman
Microsoft superintendent engineer, DeepMind and Inflection co-founder
founder
industry-leader
pioneer
Microsoft
Mustafa Suleyman
Microsoft superintendent engineer, DeepMind and Inflection co-founder
Co-founded DeepMind in 2010 and Inflection AI in 2022. Joined Microsoft in 2024 to lead AI strategy; as of March 2026, shifted focus to superintelligence and frontier AI models. Co-author of 'The Coming Wave', an influential book on AI's trajectory and governance.
Leading superintelligence and frontier AI models — Microsoft
Co-founder — Inflection AI
Co-founder — DeepMind
rising
Columbia Law School
Lina Khan
Director, Center for Law and the Economy at Columbia Law
policy
rising
Columbia Law School
Lina Khan
Director, Center for Law and the Economy at Columbia Law
Former FTC Chair (2021-2025) who led antitrust enforcement against tech giants. Now heads Columbia Law School's Center for Law and the Economy, applying her enforcement approach to the next generation of lawyers and policymakers. Known for aggressive scrutiny of Big Tech mergers and platform power.
Director, Center for Law and the Economy; Associate Professor — Columbia Law School
Chair (2021-2025) — Federal Trade Commission
rising
Fireship
Fireship (Jeff Delaney)
YouTube tech explainer, Google Developer Expert
educator
rising
Fireship
Fireship (Jeff Delaney)
YouTube tech explainer, Google Developer Expert
Founder of Fireship, a YouTube channel with 4+ million subscribers known for high-intensity code tutorials and tech news. Creates content that makes programming accessible and fun through sharp insight and signature humor. Google Developer Expert focused on helping developers learn faster.
Founder & Creator — Fireship
Google Developer Expert — Google
rising
Forward Future
Matthew Berman
CEO of Forward Future, AI education platform and content creator
educator
rising
Forward Future
Matthew Berman
CEO of Forward Future, AI education platform and content creator
Founder and CEO of Forward Future, established in 2023. Creates educational AI content through YouTube (595K subscribers) and newsletter, publishing 5-6 videos weekly covering breaking AI news, model reviews, tutorials, and interviews with tech leaders. Known for rapid practical reviews of new AI models when they launch.
CEO & Founder — Forward Future
AI YouTuber & Educator — Independent
rising
Self-employed
Dave Plummer
Retired Microsoft engineer, Dave's Garage YouTube creator
educator
engineer
rising
Self-employed
Dave Plummer
Retired Microsoft engineer, Dave's Garage YouTube creator
Retired Microsoft operating systems engineer (1993–2003) who created Windows Task Manager. Now runs Dave's Garage, a widely-followed YouTube channel covering programming history, software development, vintage computing, and hands-on tech projects. Co-hosts Dave's Garage: Shop Talk podcast.
YouTube creator and podcaster (Dave's Garage) — Self-employed
Operating Systems Engineer (1993–2003) — Microsoft
builder
Princeton University
Arvind Narayanan
Princeton professor and CITP director, AI policy and evaluation researcher
researcher
educator
policy
builder
Princeton University
Arvind Narayanan
Princeton professor and CITP director, AI policy and evaluation researcher
Computer science professor at Princeton and director of the Center for Information Technology Policy. Co-author of 'AI Snake Oil' with Sayash Kapoor — a clear-eyed analysis of what AI can and can't do that cuts through hype with evidence. Currently leads research on AI agent evaluation and maintains the AI Snake Oil newsletter read by 60,000+ researchers, policymakers, and journalists.
Professor of Computer Science, Director of Center for Information Technology Policy — Princeton University
Faculty Associate — Harvard Berkman Klein Center
Co-author, AI Snake Oil (with Sayash Kapoor) — Princeton University Press
builder
Machine Intelligence Research Institute
Eliezer Yudkowsky
MIRI co-founder, pioneering AI alignment researcher
researcher
policy
builder
Machine Intelligence Research Institute
Eliezer Yudkowsky
MIRI co-founder, pioneering AI alignment researcher
Co-founded the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and has been foundational in shaping AI alignment research over two decades. His early warnings about AI existential risk, once dismissed, are now mainstream concerns. Currently focuses on communicating these risks to broader audiences, including through the recent co-authored book 'If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies' with Nate Soares.
Co-Founder — Machine Intelligence Research Institute
builder
MIT
Lex Fridman
MIT researcher, host of the Lex Fridman Podcast
educator
builder
MIT
Lex Fridman
MIT researcher, host of the Lex Fridman Podcast
Research Scientist at MIT's Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, focused on human-AI interaction and robotics. Host of the Lex Fridman Podcast, which features long-form conversations with AI leaders and reaches millions of listeners. His interviews have become the definitive oral history of the AI era.
Research Scientist, Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems — MIT
Research Scientist, Center for Complex Engineering Systems — MIT & KACST
rising
Pulitzer Center
Karen Hao
Empire of AI author and freelance journalist
educator
policy
rising
Pulitzer Center
Karen Hao
Empire of AI author and freelance journalist
Award-winning journalist and bestselling author of 'Empire of AI' (2025), which reshaped public understanding of OpenAI and the AI industry. Now freelances for publications including The Atlantic while co-hosting the BBC podcast The Interface. She co-created and leads the Pulitzer Center's AI Spotlight Series, training journalists worldwide on rigorous AI coverage.
AI Spotlight Series co-creator — Pulitzer Center
Co-host, The Interface podcast — BBC
Former Senior AI Editor — MIT Technology Review
builder
Meta
Russ Salakhutdinov
Meta VP Research in Generative AI; CMU professor
researcher
builder
Meta
Russ Salakhutdinov
Meta VP Research in Generative AI; CMU professor
Vice President of Research in Generative AI at Meta since June 2024, focusing on multimodal large language models and AI agents. Also a UPMC Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Pioneer in deep learning and representation learning; trained under Geoffrey Hinton.
VP Research in Generative AI — Meta
UPMC Professor of Computer Science — Carnegie Mellon University
Former Director of AI Research — Apple
rising
Contextual AI
Douwe Kiela
Contextual AI CEO, RAG and agents pioneer
founder
researcher
rising
Contextual AI
Douwe Kiela
Contextual AI CEO, RAG and agents pioneer
CEO and co-founder of Contextual AI, building enterprise AI agents grounded in knowledge bases. Former head of research at Hugging Face and research scientist at Meta AI, where he co-authored the foundational RAG paper. Adjunct professor at Stanford University.
CEO & Co-Founder — Contextual AI
Adjunct Professor, Symbolic Systems — Stanford University
Head of Research — Hugging Face
Research Scientist — Meta AI Research
builder
Anthropic
Jared Kaplan
Anthropic Chief Science Officer, scaling laws pioneer
researcher
founder
builder
Anthropic
Jared Kaplan
Anthropic Chief Science Officer, scaling laws pioneer
Chief Science Officer and co-founder of Anthropic. Associate professor of physics at Johns Hopkins University. Pioneered research on scaling laws demonstrating that AI model performance improves predictably with compute and data—foundational work that shaped the LLM revolution.
Chief Science Officer & Co-Founder — Anthropic
Associate Professor of Physics — Johns Hopkins University
rising
Dwarkesh Podcast
Dwarkesh Patel
Host, Dwarkesh Podcast; author, The Scaling Era
educator
rising
Dwarkesh Podcast
Dwarkesh Patel
Host, Dwarkesh Podcast; author, The Scaling Era
Hosts the Dwarkesh Podcast, featuring long-form technical interviews with AI researchers, engineers, and leaders. Co-authored The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI (2025) with Gavin Leech. Named to Time 100 AI list in 2024, and described by The Economist as Silicon Valley's favorite podcaster.
Host — Dwarkesh Podcast
Co-author — The Scaling Era
builder
Hugging Face
Thomas Wolf
Hugging Face Chief Science Officer, Transformers library creator
founder
open-source
engineer
builder
Hugging Face
Thomas Wolf
Hugging Face Chief Science Officer, Transformers library creator
Chief Science Officer and co-founder of Hugging Face. Created the Transformers library — the standard way to use open-source AI models. Leads Hugging Face's research initiatives and moonshot projects, advancing open-source AI.
Chief Science Officer & Co-Founder — Hugging Face
CTO & Co-Founder — Hugging Face
builder
You.com
Richard Socher
CEO of You.com, founder of Recursive Superintelligence
founder
researcher
builder
You.com
Richard Socher
CEO of You.com, founder of Recursive Superintelligence
CEO and cofounder of You.com, an AI-powered search engine. Recently founded Recursive Superintelligence, which secured $500M in funding at a $4B valuation. Pioneering NLP researcher known for foundational work on word vectors and contextual embeddings.
CEO & Cofounder — You.com
Founder — Recursive Superintelligence
Founder & Managing Director — AIX Ventures
Former Chief Scientist — Salesforce
builder
Stanford University
Chris Manning
Stanford NLP pioneer, SAIL director, Siebel Professor
researcher
educator
builder
Stanford University
Chris Manning
Stanford NLP pioneer, SAIL director, Siebel Professor
Thomas M. Siebel Professor in Machine Learning at Stanford, co-founder of the Stanford NLP Group, and Director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL). Elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2025 for pioneering NLP methods. His foundational work on neural networks, word vectors (GloVe), and neural machine translation transformed modern NLP.
Thomas M. Siebel Professor in Machine Learning, Director of SAIL — Stanford University
Associate Director — Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI)
builder
Anthropic
Jack Clark
Anthropic Head of Public Benefit, co-founder and policy leader
founder
policy
builder
Anthropic
Jack Clark
Anthropic Head of Public Benefit, co-founder and policy leader
Co-founder of Anthropic and current Head of Public Benefit, leading the Anthropic Institute which studies the societal, economic, and security impacts of advanced AI systems. Previously served as Policy Director at OpenAI and created the AI Index Report at Stanford. Continues to publish Import AI, a weekly newsletter covering AI research and policy developments that has grown to over 100,000 subscribers.
Head of Public Benefit / Co-Founder — Anthropic
Former Policy Director — OpenAI
AI Index Report Creator — Stanford
rising
Imbue
Kanjun Qiu
Imbue CEO, building AI reasoning agents
founder
researcher
rising
Imbue
Kanjun Qiu
Imbue CEO, building AI reasoning agents
CEO and co-founder of Imbue, an AI research lab building AI agents capable of reasoning and coding. Also a general partner at Outset Capital, investing in early-stage founders. Previously co-founded Sourceress and served as Chief of Staff at Dropbox during its scaling phase.
CEO & Co-Founder — Imbue
General Partner — Outset Capital
Co-Founder & CEO — Sourceress
Chief of Staff — Dropbox
rising
Anthropic
Sholto Douglas
Anthropic member of technical staff, scaling reinforcement learning
researcher
rising
Anthropic
Sholto Douglas
Anthropic member of technical staff, scaling reinforcement learning
Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic, focusing on scaling reinforcement learning to improve model reasoning and autonomy. Previously at Google DeepMind where he worked on large-scale learning, inference infrastructure, and the Gemini team. Known for insightful X threads and long-form podcast conversations (notably with Trenton Bricken) explaining frontier AI training, scaling, and the path to AGI.
Member of Technical Staff, Scaling RL — Anthropic
Researcher, Gemini team — Google DeepMind
legend
Boston Dynamics AI Institute
Marc Raibert
Executive Director of Boston Dynamics AI Institute, founder of Boston Dynamics
robotics
founder
researcher
legend
Boston Dynamics AI Institute
Marc Raibert
Executive Director of Boston Dynamics AI Institute, founder of Boston Dynamics
Leads the Boston Dynamics AI Institute (RAI Institute), a Hyundai Motor Group research lab in Kendall Square with 260+ researchers working on robotics and generative AI integration. Founded Boston Dynamics in 1992 and spent decades creating the modern field of dynamic legged robotics, including Spot, Atlas, and BigDog. Now focuses on applying large language models to robotic learning and perception.
Executive Director — Boston Dynamics AI Institute
Founder & Chairman — Boston Dynamics
Board Member — Nimble
pioneer
Amazon
Pieter Abbeel
Amazon Frontier AI & Robotics researcher, Berkeley professor
robotics
researcher
founder
pioneer
Amazon
Pieter Abbeel
Amazon Frontier AI & Robotics researcher, Berkeley professor
Joined Amazon in August 2024 to co-lead the Frontier AI & Robotics team, building embodied AI systems. Continues as UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and computer science, directing the Berkeley Robot Learning Lab. Pioneer of deep reinforcement learning for robotics whose lab produced leaders now across major AI companies.
Co-lead, Frontier AI & Robotics — Amazon
Professor of EECS, Director Berkeley Robot Learning Lab — UC Berkeley
Founding Investment Partner — AIX Ventures
Co-Founder (2017–2024) — Covariant
pioneer
UC Berkeley
Sergey Levine
UC Berkeley professor, deep RL for robotic control
robotics
researcher
pioneer
UC Berkeley
Sergey Levine
UC Berkeley professor, deep RL for robotic control
Associate Professor at UC Berkeley (EECS) and Research Scientist at Google. Developed foundational deep reinforcement learning algorithms for robotic manipulation, locomotion, and control. His work on end-to-end learning from demonstration and inverse RL remains essential to embodied AI systems across industry and research.
Associate Professor, EECS — UC Berkeley
Research Scientist — Google
pioneer
MIT CSAIL
Daniela Rus
MIT CSAIL Director, roboticist and embodied AI researcher
robotics
researcher
pioneer
MIT CSAIL
Daniela Rus
MIT CSAIL Director, roboticist and embodied AI researcher
Directs MIT CSAIL, the lab at the forefront of AI and robotics research. Three decades of leadership in autonomous systems, distributed robotics, and intelligent machines. Received the IEEE Edison Medal in 2025 for pioneering contributions to modern robotics, and joined Gartner's Board in 2026.
Director — MIT CSAIL
Board of Directors — Gartner
Panasonic Professor of EECS — MIT
builder
Physical Intelligence
Chelsea Finn
Physical Intelligence co-founder building general-purpose robot models
robotics
researcher
builder
Physical Intelligence
Chelsea Finn
Physical Intelligence co-founder building general-purpose robot models
Co-founder and Research Lead at Physical Intelligence, an AI robotics startup building foundation models for universal robot control. Stanford assistant professor whose MAML algorithm pioneered meta-learning. Now focuses on large-scale robot learning and multi-task foundation models.
Co-founder & Research Lead — Physical Intelligence
Assistant Professor (CS/EE) — Stanford University
builder
Physical Intelligence
Karol Hausman
Physical Intelligence CEO, foundation models for robotics
robotics
researcher
builder
Physical Intelligence
Karol Hausman
Physical Intelligence CEO, foundation models for robotics
Co-founder and CEO of Physical Intelligence, Karol Hausman builds foundation models that enable robots to operate autonomously across diverse environments and tasks. Previously a Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind, he pioneered connecting large language models to robotic systems, including the influential RT-2 project. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Stanford.
Co-founder & CEO — Physical Intelligence
Adjunct Professor — Stanford University
Staff Research Scientist — Google DeepMind
rising
Figure AI
Brett Adcock
Figure AI CEO, scaling humanoid robotics
robotics
defence
founder
rising
Figure AI
Brett Adcock
Figure AI CEO, scaling humanoid robotics
CEO and founder of Figure AI, valued at $39B. Recently ended OpenAI partnership to focus on internal AI development, training models on physical robot hardware with his DeepMind-veteran team. Figure is scaling production 24x, moving toward household robot leases at $400–600/month.
Founder & CEO — Figure AI
Founder — Hark
Founder — Cover
builder
Shield AI
Brandon Tseng
Shield AI President and Co-Founder, AI combat pilot builder
defence
robotics
founder
builder
Shield AI
Brandon Tseng
Shield AI President and Co-Founder, AI combat pilot builder
President and Co-Founder of Shield AI, which develops autonomous defense AI systems and unmanned aircraft. Formerly a Navy SEAL (served 7 years). Shield AI's V-BAT drones have been combat-validated in Ukraine and the company is now developing X-BAT, an AI-piloted VTOL fighter jet designed to operate fully autonomously in contested environments.
President and Co-Founder — Shield AI
SEAL / Surface Warfare Officer (retired) — US Navy
builder
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Nand Mulchandani
Hoover fellow and tech entrepreneur, former CIA CTO
defence
policy
builder
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Nand Mulchandani
Hoover fellow and tech entrepreneur, former CIA CTO
Nand Mulchandani is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University (2025–26), where he focuses on technology policy and defense innovation. He stepped down as the CIA's first-ever CTO in June 2025 after three years transforming the agency's AI and advanced computing strategy. He continues as an adviser to the CIA and recently joined the board of Second Front Systems, a defense tech company.
Visiting Fellow — Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Board Director — Second Front Systems
Chief Technology Officer (2022–2025) — CIA
builder
Duke University
Kathleen Hicks
Adjunct professor and policy advisor, former Deputy Secretary of Defense
defence
policy
builder
Duke University
Kathleen Hicks
Adjunct professor and policy advisor, former Deputy Secretary of Defense
Former US Deputy Secretary of Defense (2021–2025) who spearheaded Replicator, the DoD's autonomous systems initiative to counter China's military production advantage. Now serves as adjunct professor at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy and holds appointments across leading policy institutions including the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Johns Hopkins University's Kissinger Center.
Adjunct Professor, Sanford School of Public Policy — Duke University
International Leadership Council — CEPA (Center for European Policy Analysis)
Advisor/Expert — Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Fellow, Kissinger Center for Global Affairs — Johns Hopkins University
Deputy Secretary of Defense (2021–2025) — US Department of Defense
builder
Self-Employed
Aurélien Géron
Machine learning author and independent consultant
author
educator
builder
Self-Employed
Aurélien Géron
Machine learning author and independent consultant
Self-employed ML consultant and author based in New Zealand. Best known for O'Reilly's 'Hands-On Machine Learning' book series, currently in its third edition with a fourth coming. Previously led machine learning at YouTube (2013-2016) and founded Wifirst, a French wireless ISP (2002-2012).
ML Consultant & Author — Self-Employed
Video Classification Team Lead — YouTube / Google
Co-founder & CTO — Wifirst
pioneer
Microsoft Research
Christopher Bishop
Microsoft Technical Fellow, founder of AI for Science research
author
researcher
pioneer
Microsoft Research
Christopher Bishop
Microsoft Technical Fellow, founder of AI for Science research
Founder of Microsoft Research AI for Science, applying machine learning to solve scientific challenges across physics, chemistry, biology. Authored two of the field's most influential textbooks: Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning (2006) and Deep Learning: Foundations and Concepts (2024, Springer-Nature's top seller both years).
Technical Fellow, Founder of AI for Science — Microsoft Research
Honorary Professor of Computer Science — University of Edinburgh
Lab Director (2015–2022) — Microsoft Research Cambridge
builder
Google DeepMind
Kevin Murphy
Principal Scientist at Google DeepMind, author of Probabilistic ML books
author
researcher
builder
Google DeepMind
Kevin Murphy
Principal Scientist at Google DeepMind, author of Probabilistic ML books
Principal Scientist at Google DeepMind managing a team researching generative models, reinforcement learning, and Bayesian inference. Author of the two-volume 'Probabilistic Machine Learning' textbook series (2022-2023), a comprehensive reference covering probabilistic approaches, deep learning, graphical models, and causality.
Principal Scientist — Google DeepMind
Senior Staff Research Scientist — Google Brain
Associate Professor (departed 2012) — University of British Columbia
builder
USC Annenberg
Kate Crawford
Research professor studying AI's social and material costs
author
policy
researcher
builder
USC Annenberg
Kate Crawford
Research professor studying AI's social and material costs
Kate Crawford is a Research Professor at USC Annenberg and Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New York, where she investigates how AI systems are trained and their social implications. She is the inaugural Visiting Chair for AI and Justice at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and leads the Knowing Machines Project, a transatlantic research collaboration. She authored 'Atlas of AI,' which traces the material and political infrastructure underlying AI systems.
Research Professor — USC Annenberg
Senior Principal Researcher — Microsoft Research New York
Inaugural Visiting Chair for AI and Justice — École Normale Supérieure Paris
Co-founder (2017, inactive since 2024) — AI Now Institute
rising
TalentNeuron
Andrei Burkov
Machine learning leader at TalentNeuron, author of two Hundred-Page books
author
educator
rising
TalentNeuron
Andrei Burkov
Machine learning leader at TalentNeuron, author of two Hundred-Page books
PhD in AI currently leading the machine learning team at TalentNeuron. Published The Hundred-Page Language Models Book in January 2025, following his viral bestseller The Hundred-Page Machine Learning Book — both widely adopted as university textbooks. Active thought leader on AI/ML fundamentals and LLM architectures with 900K LinkedIn followers.
Machine Learning Team Lead — TalentNeuron
Founder/Author — True Positive Inc
legend
insitro
Daphne Koller
insitro founder & CEO, transforming drug discovery with AI
researcher
founder
educator
legend
insitro
Daphne Koller
insitro founder & CEO, transforming drug discovery with AI
Founder and CEO of insitro, a machine learning company transforming drug discovery and development. Pioneer of probabilistic graphical models and co-founder of Coursera. Named to TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI (2024) and Forbes' 250 America's Greatest Innovators.
Founder & CEO — insitro
Co-Founder and Board Member — Engageli
Co-Founder — Coursera
pioneer
Stanford University
Yejin Choi
Stanford HAI Professor, commonsense AI researcher
researcher
pioneer
Stanford University
Yejin Choi
Stanford HAI Professor, commonsense AI researcher
Now at Stanford University as the Dieter Schwarz Foundation HAI Professor and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI. Investigates whether AI systems can truly learn commonsense knowledge and reasoning, and questions if machines can learn moral reasoning. Won the MacArthur Fellowship in 2022 for her work on teaching AI common sense.
Dieter Schwarz Foundation HAI Professor, Senior Fellow at HAI — Stanford University
Professor (former) — University of Washington
Researcher (former) — Allen Institute for AI
rising
Perplexity AI
Aravind Srinivas
Perplexity CEO, AI-native search engine builder
founder
rising
Perplexity AI
Aravind Srinivas
Perplexity CEO, AI-native search engine builder
CEO and co-founder of Perplexity AI, founded in 2022. Former research scientist at OpenAI with prior research roles at Google and DeepMind. Leading Perplexity as an AI-powered answer engine competing with traditional search, now valued at $21B+.
CEO & Co-Founder — Perplexity AI
Research Scientist — OpenAI
Researcher — Google
Researcher — DeepMind
builder
Relativity Space
Eric Schmidt
Relativity Space CEO; ex-Google, AI policy leader
investor
policy
industry-leader
builder
Relativity Space
Eric Schmidt
Relativity Space CEO; ex-Google, AI policy leader
CEO of Relativity Space, an aerospace manufacturing company, since March 2025. Former Google CEO and Executive Chairman. Co-founder of Schmidt Futures, which funds AI and technology research. Chairs Sandbox AQ and leads multiple board positions including The Broad Institute and Mayo Clinic. Continues to shape US AI policy through his work on national security and technology strategy.
CEO — Relativity Space
Chairman — Sandbox AQ
Co-founder — Schmidt Futures
Founding Partner — Innovation Endeavors
Former CEO and Executive Chairman — Google
builder
Apple
Samy Bengio
Apple AI research director, Torch co-creator, former Google Brain
researcher
builder
Apple
Samy Bengio
Apple AI research director, Torch co-creator, former Google Brain
Senior Director of AI and Machine Learning Research at Apple since 2021, leading research on machine learning systems and robustness. Previously a founding researcher at Google Brain where he led large teams working on deep learning and adversarial robustness. Co-developer of Torch (2002), the predecessor to PyTorch.
Senior Director, AI and Machine Learning Research — Apple
Adjunct Professor — École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Founding Researcher — Google Brain
builder
Anthropic
Boris Cherny
Head of Claude Code at Anthropic, Staff Engineer
engineer
founder
builder
Anthropic
Boris Cherny
Head of Claude Code at Anthropic, Staff Engineer
Head of Claude Code at Anthropic, where he created the AI coding agent that autonomous codes alongside developers. Previously a Principal Engineer at Meta for five years. Author of O'Reilly's Programming TypeScript and a longtime functional programming advocate.
Head of Claude Code / Staff Engineer — Anthropic
Principal Engineer — Meta
pioneer
Anthropic
Mike Krieger
Anthropic Labs co-lead, Instagram co-founder
industry-leader
engineer
founder
pioneer
Anthropic
Mike Krieger
Anthropic Labs co-lead, Instagram co-founder
Mike Krieger co-leads Anthropic's Labs, an internal incubator building experimental AI products powered by Claude. He was Instagram's co-founder and served as Anthropic's Chief Product Officer before transitioning to lead the Labs team in January 2026. He brings deep product expertise from scaling Instagram to billions of users.
Labs Co-Lead, Member of Technical Staff — Anthropic
Chief Product Officer (2024-2026) — Anthropic
Co-Founder — Instagram
pioneer
OpenAI
Fidji Simo
CEO of AGI Deployment at OpenAI, ex-Instacart
industry-leader
pioneer
OpenAI
Fidji Simo
CEO of AGI Deployment at OpenAI, ex-Instacart
CEO of AGI Deployment at OpenAI, overseeing product, business, engineering, and operations across the company since August 2025. Previously CEO of Instacart from 2021–2025, and before that a senior executive at Facebook where she led video, news feed, and monetization initiatives.
CEO of AGI Deployment — OpenAI
CEO — Instacart
Senior Executive — Facebook
pioneer
OpenAI
Jakub Pachocki
OpenAI Chief Scientist leading reasoning model research
researcher
pioneer
OpenAI
Jakub Pachocki
OpenAI Chief Scientist leading reasoning model research
Chief Scientist at OpenAI, where he leads research on reasoning models including o1 and o3. He succeeded Ilya Sutskever in this role in May 2024 after serving as Research Director. His work shapes OpenAI's approach to AI research and has contributed to breakthroughs in mathematical reasoning and coding capability.
Chief Scientist — OpenAI
Research Director — OpenAI
pioneer
DeepSeek
Liang Wenfeng
DeepSeek founder and CEO, Chinese AI innovator
founder
industry-leader
pioneer
DeepSeek
Liang Wenfeng
DeepSeek founder and CEO, Chinese AI innovator
Founder and CEO of DeepSeek, an AI startup that gained prominence in 2025 with the release of DeepSeek-R1, a capable reasoning model achieving strong performance at a fraction of Western training costs. Also co-founded High-Flyer, a quantitative hedge fund that invests in AI development. Ranked among the top AI leaders globally, though he maintains minimal public visibility.
Founder and CEO — DeepSeek
Co-Founder — High-Flyer
legend
AMD
Lisa Su
AMD Chair and CEO, leading AI accelerator innovation
industry-leader
legend
AMD
Lisa Su
AMD Chair and CEO, leading AI accelerator innovation
Chair and CEO of AMD since 2014. Built AMD into the primary GPU alternative to Nvidia for AI infrastructure, delivering MI325X, MI350, and MI450 accelerators with major enterprise partnerships including Meta for large-scale AI deployment.
Chair and CEO — AMD
Chair — Semiconductor Industry Association
pioneer
Nvidia
Jonathan Ross
Nvidia Chief Software Architect, Groq founder and LPU creator
founder
engineer
pioneer
Nvidia
Jonathan Ross
Nvidia Chief Software Architect, Groq founder and LPU creator
Jonathan Ross is Chief Software Architect at Nvidia, joining the company in December 2025 as part of a technology licensing agreement with Groq. He founded Groq and created the Language Processing Unit (LPU) architecture for ultra-fast AI inference. He previously designed Google's Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) and is recognized as one of the most influential AI chip architects in the industry.
Chief Software Architect — Nvidia
Founder — Groq
TPU Lead Designer — Google
builder
Cerebras Systems
Andrew Feldman
Cerebras CEO building wafer-scale AI processor chips
founder
engineer
builder
Cerebras Systems
Andrew Feldman
Cerebras CEO building wafer-scale AI processor chips
Co-founded and leads Cerebras Systems, building wafer-scale AI processors as a hardware challenger to GPU-dominant training pipelines. Cerebras filed for IPO in April 2026 and reported $510M revenue for 2025. The Wafer-Scale Engine is positioned as an alternative architecture for large-scale AI training and inference.
Co-Founder and CEO — Cerebras Systems
pioneer
TSMC
C.C. Wei
Chairman and CEO of TSMC, the AI chip manufacturing bottleneck
industry-leader
pioneer
TSMC
C.C. Wei
Chairman and CEO of TSMC, the AI chip manufacturing bottleneck
Chairman and CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest contract chip manufacturer. TSMC produces over 90% of the world's most advanced semiconductors, including virtually all chips used in AI training and inference by Nvidia, Apple, AMD, and major AI labs. Wei leads TSMC's strategic capacity expansion to meet unprecedented AI demand, increasing annual capital expenditures to $56 billion.
Chairman and CEO — TSMC
builder
ElevenLabs
Mati Staniszewski
ElevenLabs CEO, building voice AI and conversational agents
founder
builder
ElevenLabs
Mati Staniszewski
ElevenLabs CEO, building voice AI and conversational agents
Co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs, which raised $500 million at $11 billion valuation in February 2026. ElevenLabs builds voice AI and conversational agents deployed across voice, chat, text, and email for enterprises. Also joined Klarna's board in 2025. Believes voice is becoming the primary interface for AI.
CEO & Co-Founder — ElevenLabs
Board Member — Klarna
Co-Founder — ElevenLabs
builder
Runway
Cristóbal Valenzuela
Runway CEO, generative video and world models
founder
builder
Runway
Cristóbal Valenzuela
Runway CEO, generative video and world models
Leads Runway, the generative video platform. Co-founded the company's Gen-3 and successor models, bringing text-to-video generation to filmmakers and developers. Now focused on world models—systems that understand and simulate physical environments.
CEO & Co-Founder — Runway
pioneer
Midjourney
David Holz
Midjourney founder and CEO, most popular AI image generator
founder
engineer
pioneer
Midjourney
David Holz
Midjourney founder and CEO, most popular AI image generator
David Holz founded Midjourney in 2021 and remains its CEO. Midjourney is the world's most popular AI image generation platform, reaching $500M revenue in 2025 while remaining bootstrapped and profitable. Previously co-founded Leap Motion, a hand-tracking technology company.
Founder and CEO — Midjourney
Co-Founder and CTO — Leap Motion
builder
Sakana AI
David Ha
Sakana AI CEO & Co-Founder, nature-inspired AI models
founder
researcher
builder
Sakana AI
David Ha
Sakana AI CEO & Co-Founder, nature-inspired AI models
CEO and co-founder of Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based AI research lab building nature-inspired foundational models. Previously led Google Brain's research team in Japan. Known for work on AI scientists for scientific discovery, evolutionary model merging, and creative approaches to scaling AI with less compute.
CEO & Co-Founder — Sakana AI
Research Scientist, Brain team — Google
Managing Director, Interest Rates Trading — Goldman Sachs
builder
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Ethan Mollick
Wharton professor, clearest AI-for-practitioners writer
educator
author
builder
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Ethan Mollick
Wharton professor, clearest AI-for-practitioners writer
Associate Professor of Management at Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, studying AI's effects on work and education. Author of the New York Times bestseller Co-Intelligence and creator of the widely-read One Useful Thing newsletter. Named one of TIME's Most Influential People in AI (2024).
Associate Professor of Management, Ralph J. Roberts Distinguished Faculty Scholar, Co-Director Generative AI Labs — Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Newsletter Author and Creator — One Useful Thing
rising
MKBHD (YouTube)
Marques Brownlee
Tech reviewer and content creator, 20M YouTube subscribers
educator
rising
MKBHD (YouTube)
Marques Brownlee
Tech reviewer and content creator, 20M YouTube subscribers
Marques Brownlee, known as MKBHD, is the founder of the most influential consumer tech review channel on YouTube with over 20 million subscribers. In February 2024, he joined Ridge, an everyday accessories company, as a board member and chief creative partner, expanding his influence beyond content creation. He also co-hosts the Waveform podcast and has investments in Opal and Riverside.FM.
Founder & Tech Reviewer — MKBHD (YouTube)
Board Member & Chief Creative Partner — Ridge
legend
Sinovation Ventures
Kai-Fu Lee
Sinovation Ventures chairman, 01.AI founder and CEO
investor
author
industry-leader
legend
Sinovation Ventures
Kai-Fu Lee
Sinovation Ventures chairman, 01.AI founder and CEO
Chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures, managing $3 billion in dual-currency investment funds focused on deep tech. Founder and CEO of 01.AI, an AI company developing enterprise-focused generative AI applications and models, which recently launched Wanzhi, an enterprise platform for deploying AI applications. A veteran of Microsoft Research Asia, Google China, and Apple; author of 'AI Superpowers' examining US-China AI competition.
Chairman & CEO — Sinovation Ventures
Founder & CEO — 01.AI
Founder — Microsoft Research Asia
Head — Google China
builder
Meta
Daniel Gross
Meta Superintelligence Labs researcher, former Safe Superintelligence CEO
investor
founder
builder
Meta
Daniel Gross
Meta Superintelligence Labs researcher, former Safe Superintelligence CEO
Joined Meta Superintelligence Labs in July 2025 after co-founding and leading Safe Superintelligence Inc. from 2024, which raised over $1B focused on AI safety and synthetic reasoning. Previously ran machine learning at Apple following the acquisition of Cue, his earlier startup. Also co-manages NFDG, a venture firm investing in frontier AI.
Superintelligence Labs Researcher — Meta
Co-Founder, former CEO — Safe Superintelligence Inc.
Machine Learning Lead — Apple
Founder — Cue
legend
Microsoft
Reid Hoffman
Microsoft board member, Greylock partner, AI author
investor
founder
author
legend
Microsoft
Reid Hoffman
Microsoft board member, Greylock partner, AI author
LinkedIn co-founder and venture partner at Greylock, Hoffman serves on Microsoft's board of directors and co-founded Inflection AI with Mustafa Suleyman in 2022. In January 2025, he published Superagency, a book making the case for AI as a human empowerment technology. He remains a prolific investor and thought leader on AI's role in extending human agency.
Board Member — Microsoft
Venture Partner — Greylock Partners
Board Director — Inflection AI
legend
Beyond Imagination
Ray Kurzweil
Chief AI officer, Beyond Imagination robotics; author, The Singularity Is Nearer
author
researcher
legend
Beyond Imagination
Ray Kurzweil
Chief AI officer, Beyond Imagination robotics; author, The Singularity Is Nearer
Chief AI officer of Beyond Imagination, a humanoid robotics company focused on industrial automation. Prolific inventor and futurist best known for predicting AI singularity trajectories. Recent book "The Singularity Is Nearer" (2024) continues his decades-long exploration of machine intelligence and human-AI convergence.
Chief AI Officer — Beyond Imagination
Principal Researcher & AI Visionary — Google
Director — United Therapeutics
builder
Center for AI Safety
Dan Hendrycks
Center for AI Safety director, Scale AI advisor
researcher
policy
builder
Center for AI Safety
Dan Hendrycks
Center for AI Safety director, Scale AI advisor
Director of the Center for AI Safety. Creator of foundational AI benchmarks including MMLU, MATH, and HumanEval. Recently joined Scale AI as an advisor and collaborates on benchmarks measuring AI capabilities across cognitive domains and real-world tasks.
Director — Center for AI Safety
Advisor — Scale AI
Safety Adviser — xAI
pioneer
Microsoft
Kevin Scott
Microsoft CTO and EVP of AI, architect of OpenAI partnership
industry-leader
engineer
pioneer
Microsoft
Kevin Scott
Microsoft CTO and EVP of AI, architect of OpenAI partnership
Chief Technology Officer and Executive VP of AI at Microsoft. Kevin Scott leads Microsoft's AI and technology strategy at global scale and architected Microsoft's multi-billion dollar partnership with OpenAI. His technical vision shapes how AI reaches enterprise developers and organizations worldwide.
Chief Technology Officer, Executive VP of AI — Microsoft
Senior Vice President of Engineering and Operations — LinkedIn
Board of Directors — Shopify
builder
Waabi
Raquel Urtasun
Waabi founder and CEO, autonomous trucking pioneer
founder
researcher
builder
Waabi
Raquel Urtasun
Waabi founder and CEO, autonomous trucking pioneer
Founder and CEO of Waabi, developing simulation-first autonomous driving technology. Professor of computer science at University of Toronto. Previously led self-driving research at Uber.
Founder & CEO — Waabi
Professor of Computer Science — University of Toronto
Director of Self-Driving Research — Uber
pioneer
Cloudflare
Matthew Prince
Cloudflare CEO, building fair economics for creators in the AI era
founder
industry-leader
pioneer
Cloudflare
Matthew Prince
Cloudflare CEO, building fair economics for creators in the AI era
Co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. Leading the charge on content creator protection through Content Independence Day (July 2025), a global initiative that defaults to blocking AI crawlers unless they compensate creators. Shifting the web from an opt-out to opt-in model for AI data access and working toward a creator–AI marketplace.
CEO & Co-founder — Cloudflare
builder
Google DeepMind
Lila Ibrahim
Google DeepMind Chief AI Readiness Officer, AI governance lead
industry-leader
builder
Google DeepMind
Lila Ibrahim
Google DeepMind Chief AI Readiness Officer, AI governance lead
Chief AI Readiness Officer at Google DeepMind, leading the Frontier AI Global Affairs team and Strategic Initiatives & Public Engagement Lab. Previously served as DeepMind's first Chief Operating Officer. She oversees preparations for advanced AI systems and research responsibility across DeepMind.
Chief AI Readiness Officer — Google DeepMind
Chief Operating Officer (former) — Google DeepMind
Chief Operating Officer — Coursera
builder
Google-Alphabet
James Manyika
Google SVP and President, Research, Labs, Technology & Society
industry-leader
researcher
builder
Google-Alphabet
James Manyika
Google SVP and President, Research, Labs, Technology & Society
Senior Vice President and President for Research, Labs, Technology & Society at Google, overseeing Google Research and Labs. Previously senior partner and chairman of McKinsey Global Institute. Leading expert on AI's economic impact and responsible technology deployment.
SVP and President, Research, Labs, Technology & Society — Google-Alphabet
Former Senior Partner and Chairman, McKinsey Global Institute — McKinsey & Company
builder
Unitree Robotics
Wang Xingxing
Unitree Robotics founder and CEO, humanoid robotics pioneer
founder
robotics
builder
Unitree Robotics
Wang Xingxing
Unitree Robotics founder and CEO, humanoid robotics pioneer
Founder, CEO, and CTO of Unitree Robotics, founded in 2016. Leads development of the G1 and H2 humanoid robots, which gained global attention performing at the 2026 Spring Festival Gala. Appointed vice chair of China's MIIT technical committee for humanoid robotics standards in February 2026.
Founder, CEO & CTO — Unitree Robotics
Vice Chair (Humanoid Robotics & Embodied Intelligence Standards) — MIIT Technical Committee
builder
Arm Holdings
Rene Haas
Arm CEO and SoftBank Group International CEO
industry-leader
builder
Arm Holdings
Rene Haas
Arm CEO and SoftBank Group International CEO
CEO of Arm Holdings, which designs chips powering smartphones and edge AI devices globally. As of April 2026, he also leads SoftBank Group International, coordinating semiconductor and AI investments across SoftBank's portfolio.
CEO — Arm Holdings
CEO — SoftBank Group International
rising
OpenAI
Joanne Jang
OpenAI Labs lead, new AI interface research
researcher
rising
OpenAI
Joanne Jang
OpenAI Labs lead, new AI interface research
Leads OpenAI Labs, a research team prototyping new interfaces for how people collaborate with AI. Previously founded and led OpenAI's Model Behavior team, shaping the personality and post-training approach of models like GPT-4o. Focused on moving beyond chat and agent paradigms toward new instruments for thinking and making.
Lead, OpenAI Labs — OpenAI
Founding Lead, Model Behavior — OpenAI
rising
Anthropic
Kyle Fish
Anthropic's first AI welfare researcher, exploring model consciousness
researcher
rising
Anthropic
Kyle Fish
Anthropic's first AI welfare researcher, exploring model consciousness
Works on AI welfare at Anthropic, the company's first researcher dedicated full-time to examining whether AI models might have morally-relevant experiences. Trained in neuroscience with a background in biotech and drug discovery, Fish designs experiments to probe model welfare, creates practical safeguards, and helps shape company policy on consciousness and moral status. Featured in TIME 100 Most Influential People in AI 2025.
AI Welfare Researcher — Anthropic
Co-founder — Eleos AI
rising
CSIS Wadhwani AI Center
Kateryna Bondar
CSIS fellow analyzing Russia's AI-enabled warfare systems
defence
policy
researcher
rising
CSIS Wadhwani AI Center
Kateryna Bondar
CSIS fellow analyzing Russia's AI-enabled warfare systems
Fellow at the CSIS Wadhwani AI Center researching how Russia is building AI-enabled command-and-control systems and deploying autonomous weapons in the Ukraine war. She previously advised the Ukrainian government on defense, financial sector, and innovation reforms, and was an Emerging Leaders fellow at Stanford (2019-2020).
Fellow — CSIS Wadhwani AI Center
Adviser (defense, financial sector, innovation) — Ukrainian government
rising
Storia AI
Julia Turc
Co-founder of Storia AI, former Google Research engineer
educator
researcher
rising
Storia AI
Julia Turc
Co-founder of Storia AI, former Google Research engineer
Julia Turc is a computer scientist and startup founder building Storia AI (YC S24), an open-source AI copilot for code understanding and software architecture. Previously, she spent eight years at Google Research working on NLP, transfer learning, and Transformers—including work on efficiency, multilinguality, and techniques that influenced Google's Gemini. She creates AI explainer videos and speaks publicly on topics like how LLMs are reshaping machine learning.
Co-founder — Storia AI
Research Engineer — Google
rising
Anthropic
Barry Zhang
Anthropic Research Engineer, Claude Agent Architecture
engineer
researcher
rising
Anthropic
Barry Zhang
Anthropic Research Engineer, Claude Agent Architecture
Barry Zhang is a Research Engineer at Anthropic working on Claude's agent architecture and the Skills framework for dynamically loaded procedural knowledge. Previously at Meta's Monetization genAI team, he co-authored "Building Effective Agents" and advocates for paradigm-shifting approaches to agent development. He speaks widely on production agent systems and simplifying complex AI architectures through composable patterns.
Research Engineer, Applied AI — Anthropic
Engineer, Monetization genAI team — Meta
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