(Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images)

OpenAI alumni startups take shape

New details on former OpenAI executives Murati and Sutskever’s startups.

2/18/25 3:59PM

During the fall of 2024, OpenAI was shedding executives at an alarming rate. Since then, two of the most prominent alumni have been building up their new startups, and both are making news.

Mira Murati

The former CTO (and briefly the CEO) of OpenAI announced her departure in September 2024 amid a flurry of resignations. Since then, she’s aimed to raise over $100 million for her new startup and poached OpenAI cofounder John Schulman from Anthropic after only five months at the company. Today, Murati announced her new startup, called “Thinking Machines Lab,” which will be centered on AI research and build its own models.

I started Thinking Machines Lab alongside a remarkable team of scientists, engineers, and builders. We're building three things:
- Helping people adapt AI systems to work for their specific needs
- Developing strong foundations to build more capable AI systems
- Fostering a…
— Mira Murati (@miramurati) February 18, 2025

Joining Murati are 20 former OpenAI employees, as well as others from Meta, Google’s DeepMind, Mistral AI, and Character AI.

llya Sutskever

In May 2024, OpenAI cofounder and former Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever left the company, and a month later he announced his new startup called “Safe Superintelligence Inc.” (SSI).

In September 2024, Sutsekver revealed that SSI had raised $1 billion from Andreesen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and others.

Now, Bloomberg is reporting that Sutskever is raising an additional $1 billion, led by Greenoaks Capital Partners, and that SSI has a $30 billion valuation. The startup is focusing on achieving AGI with a focus on safety, but it hasn’t revealed any specific plans yet.

Jon Keegan13h

Anthropic projections for 2028: Up to $70 billion in revenue, could be profitable by 2027

Anthropic’s Claude API business is doing so well with enterprise customers, the company is upping its revenue forecasts significantly. According to a report from The Information, the company’s robust corporate sales have caused it to revise its most optimistic forecast up to $70 billion in sales by 2028.

Anthropic estimates its API business will be double that of OpenAI’s API sales. OpenAI is currently burning through much more money per month than Anthropic, and reportedly expects to spend as much as $115 billion through 2029, while Anthropic is forecasting that it could be cash positive by 2027, per the report.

Anthropic Projects $70 Billion in Revenue, $17 Billion in Cash Flow in 2028

Rani Molla13h

Amazon, which is developing AI shopping agents, doesn’t want Perplexity’s AI shopping agents on its site

Amazon has sent a cease and desist letter to Perplexity AI, demanding that it stop letting its AI browser agent, Comet, make online purchases for users, Bloomberg reports.

Amazon, which is developing its own AI shopping agents and is having “conversations” with builders of third-party agents, accused the AI startup of “committing computer fraud by failing to disclose when its AI agent is shopping on a user’s behalf, in violation of Amazon’s terms of service.”

Perplexity, in response, said Amazon is attempting to “eliminate user rights” in order to sell more ads.

Amazon Demands Perplexity Stop AI Agent From Making Purchases

Perplexity, in response, said Amazon is attempting to “eliminate user rights” in order to sell more ads.

Jon Keegan14h

Apple to challenge Google Chromebooks with low-cost Mac laptop, Bloomberg reports

Apple is designing a new sub-$1,000 Mac laptop aimed at the education market, Bloomberg reports.

Google’s low-cost Chromebooks currently dominate the K-12 education market, and Apple’s reentry into the education market that it once owned could disrupt the sector’s status quo.

According to the report, Apple plans on using the custom mobile chips it currently uses in iPhones to power the more affordable devices.

Apple’s recent earnings demonstrated that iPhone sales have been steady, and the tech giant is looking to find new areas of growth, like services. A low-cost Mac could be popular with consumers, in addition to education buyers.

Apple Prepares to Enter Low-Cost Laptop Market for First Time

According to the report, Apple plans on using the custom mobile chips it currently uses in iPhones to power the more affordable devices.

Jon Keegan14h

Getty Images suffers partial defeat in UK lawsuit against Stability AI

Stability AI, the creator of image generation tool Stable Diffusion, largely defended itself from a copyright violation lawsuit filed by Getty Images, which alleged the company illegally trained its AI models on Getty’s image library.

Lacking strong enough evidence, Getty dropped the part of the case alleging illegal training mid-trial, according to Reuters reporting.

Responding to the decision, Getty said in a press release:

“Today’s ruling confirms that Stable Diffusion’s inclusion of Getty Images’ trademarks in AI‑generated outputs infringed those trademarks. ... The ruling delivered another key finding; that, wherever the training and development did take place, Getty Images’ copyright‑protected works were used to train Stable Diffusion.”

Stability AI still faces a lawsuit from Getty in US courts, which remains ongoing.

A number of high-profile copyright cases are still working their way through the courts, as copyright holders seek to win strong protections for their works that were used to train AI models from a number of Big Tech companies.

Getty Images largely loses landmark UK lawsuit over AI image generator

Responding to the decision, Getty said in a press release:

“Today’s ruling confirms that Stable Diffusion’s inclusion of Getty Images’ trademarks in AI‑generated outputs infringed those trademarks. ... The ruling delivered another key finding; that, wherever the training and development did take place, Getty Images’ copyright‑protected works were used to train Stable Diffusion.”

Stability AI still faces a lawsuit from Getty in US courts, which remains ongoing.

Rani Molla

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Uber says it’s doing better in markets where it has autonomous vehicles

It’s autonomous ride-sharing business is still very small.