Life after the startup
Deep Research Presented by Startups.RIP
Life after the startup
See where YC founders go after their startup is acquired or shut down
Explore 1,841 startup post-mortems→
Where are YC founders now?
STARTUP FOUNDEDWHERE THEY ARE NOW20052010201520202025OpenAI · 70Anthropic · 35
Each ribbon is one founder's journey. Hover over to see what they built and where they went. Did we get something wrong?
Who they are & what they built
Last updated: July 14, 2026.
Did we miss you? Add yourself!
Swipe to explore the table
| YC founders who later joined OpenAI or Anthropic. Sortable by every column. Activate a column header to sort; activate it again to reverse the direction.| Founder↕ | Startup↑ | Now↕ | Working on↕ |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 
Sam Altman | 
Loopt S05 | OpenAI | Still running OpenAI as CEO.TIME profile ↗@sama ↗ |
| 
Emmett Shear | 
Twitch / Justin.tv W07 | OpenAIformer | Steered OpenAI for one extraordinary weekend in 2023.TIME report ↗@eshear ↗ |
| 
Brian Fioca | 
RescueTime W08 | OpenAI | Applied evaluationsFirst-party update ↗@bfioca ↗ |
| 
Gabor Cselle | 
reMail W09 | OpenAIformer | Worked on strategy, then moved to Google Workspace GenAI.Bio ↗@gabor ↗ |
| EPElfred Pagan | 
Stackq S09 | OpenAI | Member of Technical StaffLinkedIn ↗ |
| 
Peter Lai | 
Crocodoc W10
Emburse W16 | Anthropic | MTS on prototyping teamLinkedIn post ↗ |
| 
Brian Krausz | 
GazeHawk S10 | Anthropic | Product engineer building Claude APIs/SDKs & platformLinkedIn post + Anthropic/Stainless acq blogs ↗ |
| 
Joe Gershenson | GazeHawk S10 | OpenAI | Moved from startup operations into OpenAI in 2026.Profile ↗ |
| 
Eric Zhang | Flotype W11 | OpenAI | Member of Technical StaffLinkedIn ↗ |
| 
Sridatta Thatipamala | Flotype W11 | OpenAI | MTS on search evals, RAG & agentic AILinkedIn ↗@sridatta ↗ |
| 
Tom Blomfield | 
GoCardless S11
Monzo Bank YC Continuity↗ | Anthropic | Working on Anthropic's compute team with Tom Brown.TechCrunch ↗@t\_blom ↗ |
| 
Sean Grove | Zenbox S11
OneGraph S18 | OpenAIformer | Worked on post-training and alignment, then founded Linzumi.Profile ↗ |
| 
Christopher Berner | Carsabi W12 | OpenAI | Distinguished Engineer leading robotics & next-gen consumer hardwareLinkedIn ↗ |
| 
Michael Petrov | Couple W12 | OpenAI | Led technical work on the GPT-3 API and Applied AI.Profile ↗@mpetrov ↗ |
| TBTom Brown | Grouper W12 | Anthropic | Co-founder, Chief Compute Officer.Forbes profile ↗@NotTomBrown ↗ |
| 
Igor Kofman | HackPad W12 | Anthropic | Claude Code TL / Member of Technical StaffLinkedIn ↗ |
| 
Alex Karpenko | Midnox W12 | OpenAI | Research Engineer; core contributor to o1 and GPT-4VLinkedIn ↗ |
| 
Alexei Karpenko | Midnox W12 | OpenAI | MTS on core productsOpenAI announcement + LinkedIn ↗ |
| 
Chris Lloyd | Minefold W12 | Anthropic | TUI rendering for Claude CodeHN self-comment + attribution ↗ |
| 
Kevin Kelley | SolidStage W12 | Anthropic | Member of Technical StaffLinkedIn ↗ |
Showing 20 of 105 founders
See more
Roles Then & Now
The Times They Are A-Changin'
OpenAIAnthropic
Once CEOs & CTOs, everyone is a Member of Technical Staff now.
- Member of Technical Staff63· 60%
- Other / undisclosed11· 10%
- Research & Safety10· 10%
- Go-to-Market & Partnerships8· 8%
- Leadership7· 7%
- Data, Product & Design6· 6%
- 20051
- 20060
- 20071
- 20081
- 20092
- 20103
- 20114
- 201211
- 20135
- 20142
- 20153
- 20165
- 20177
- 20188
- 20198
- 202013
- 20218
- 20227
- 20236
- 202414
- 20251
YC batches
Which batches fed the labs
Counting each YC chapter by batch year shows when these founders came through. A founder with two YC startups appears in both years.
Startups.RIP
Find your next big idea
Startups don't work for a range of reasons, including timing. Explore the database to find already validated ideas that are ready for another shot.