{"slug": "where-are-yc-founders-now-openai-and-anthropic-mostly", "title": "Where are YC founders now? OpenAI and Anthropic, mostly", "summary": "A new database tracking Y Combinator founders shows that after their startups are acquired or shut down, many join AI labs OpenAI and Anthropic. The list includes 105 founders, with notable names like Sam Altman at OpenAI and Tom Brown at Anthropic, highlighting the talent flow from YC startups to leading AI companies.", "body_md": "See where YC founders go after their startup is acquired or shut down\n\nLast updated: July 14, 2026.\n\nSwipe to explore the table\n\nSam Altman | OpenAI | Still running OpenAI as CEO. | |\n|---|---|---|---|\nEmmett Shear | OpenAI former | Steered OpenAI for one extraordinary weekend in 2023. | |\nBrian Fioca | OpenAI | Applied evaluations | |\nGabor Cselle | OpenAI former | Worked on strategy, then moved to Google Workspace GenAI. | |\nElfred Pagan | OpenAI | Member of Technical Staff | |\nPeter Lai | Anthropic | MTS on prototyping team | |\nBrian Krausz | Anthropic | Product engineer building Claude APIs/SDKs & platform | |\nJoe Gershenson | OpenAI | Moved from startup operations into OpenAI in 2026. | |\nEric Zhang | OpenAI | Member of Technical Staff | |\nSridatta Thatipamala | OpenAI | MTS on search evals, RAG & agentic AI | |\nTom Blomfield | Anthropic | Working on Anthropic's compute team with Tom Brown. | |\nSean Grove | OpenAI former | Worked on post-training and alignment, then founded Linzumi. | |\nChristopher Berner | OpenAI | Distinguished Engineer leading robotics & next-gen consumer hardware | |\nMichael Petrov | OpenAI | Led technical work on the GPT-3 API and Applied AI. | |\nTom Brown | Anthropic | Co-founder, Chief Compute Officer. | |\nIgor Kofman | Anthropic | Claude Code TL / Member of Technical Staff | |\nAlex Karpenko | OpenAI | Research Engineer; core contributor to o1 and GPT-4V | |\nAlexei Karpenko | OpenAI | MTS on core products | |\nChris Lloyd | Anthropic | TUI rendering for Claude Code | |\nKevin Kelley | Anthropic | Member of Technical Staff |\n\nShowing 20 of 105 founders\n\nStartups.RIP\n\nStartups don't work for a range of reasons, including timing. Explore the database to find already validated ideas that are ready for another shot.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/where-are-yc-founders-now-openai-and-anthropic-mostly", "canonical_source": "https://joinedanthropic.com", "published_at": "2026-07-16 08:03:35+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-16 08:25:34.310004+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-startups", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Y Combinator", "OpenAI", "Anthropic", "Sam Altman", "Emmett Shear", "Tom Brown", "Claude", "GPT-3"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/where-are-yc-founders-now-openai-and-anthropic-mostly", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/where-are-yc-founders-now-openai-and-anthropic-mostly.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/where-are-yc-founders-now-openai-and-anthropic-mostly.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/where-are-yc-founders-now-openai-and-anthropic-mostly.jsonld"}}