Founded in December 2015, the organization initially boasted a team of 11 prominent figures from the tech industry, including Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever12. These founders brought diverse expertise from areas such as AI research, entrepreneurship, and technology development, with the shared goal of creating safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence (AGI) for humanity2. The founding team's collective experience and vision positioned OpenAI as a significant player in the AI research landscape from its inception.

The initial roles of OpenAI's founders were diverse, reflecting their varied backgrounds and expertise in technology, research, and entrepreneurship. Here's an overview of the key founders and their initial roles within the organization:

• Sam Altman: Co-chair of OpenAI alongside Elon Musk, bringing his experience as president of Y Combinator12

• Elon Musk: Co-chair, providing funding and strategic vision12

• Greg Brockman: Chief Technology Officer (CTO), leveraging his experience as former CTO of Stripe12

• Ilya Sutskever: Research Director, bringing expertise as a world-renowned machine learning expert2

• John Schulman: Research scientist focusing on reinforcement learning and AI alignment34

• Wojciech Zaremba: Research scientist specializing in machine learning and natural language processing1

• Trevor Blackwell: Co-founder, bringing experience from Y Combinator and robotics3

• Vicki Cheung: Engineering team member2

• Andrej Karpathy: Research scientist with expertise in deep learning and computer vision3

• Durk Kingma: Research scientist specializing in machine learning and probabilistic modeling3

• Pamela Vagata: Engineering team member with experience from Facebook2

The founders collectively pledged $1 billion to support OpenAI's mission, although the actual collected amount was reported to be around $130 million until 20191.

As of the latest updates, only three of the original 11 founders remain actively involved with OpenAI:

• Sam Altman continues as CEO, leading the company's strategic direction

• Greg Brockman serves as President, though he is currently on an extended sabbatical through the end of 20241

• Wojciech Zaremba remains as the Lead of Language and Code Generation

The departure of other founders, including John Schulman's recent move to rival AI firm Anthropic, highlights the evolving landscape of AI research and development23. These changes reflect the dynamic nature of the industry and the ongoing competition for top talent in the field of artificial intelligence.

Recent departures from OpenAI to Anthropic highlight the ongoing competition for top AI talent and the growing focus on AI alignment research. Key figures who have made the move include:

• John Schulman: Co-founder and research scientist at OpenAI, joined Anthropic in August 2024 to focus on AI alignment and hands-on technical work12

• Dario Amodei: Former VP of Research at OpenAI, co-founded Anthropic in 20212

• Daniela Amodei: Co-founded Anthropic with her brother Dario in 20212

• Jan Leike: Former leader of OpenAI's safety team, joined Anthropic after being reassigned within OpenAI2

• Paul Christiano: Former research scientist at OpenAI, now at Anthropic3

Anthropic's focus on these areas has attracted talent from OpenAI, potentially influencing the direction of AI development and research in the coming years.23