Ella is the original AI Talent Tracker.

Updated October 20, 2026 at 9:50 PM PT

Technical

1
Thomas Dimson
Member of Technical Staff, SoraOpenAI (former)
Left OpenAI May 2026; building something new. ↗
2
Sachin Katti
Infrastructure and compute leadOpenAI
Leaving OpenAI Nov 15 to build something new. ↗
3
Barret Zoph
VP of ResearchGoogle DeepMind
Joined Google DeepMind as VP of Research, Aug 2026. ↗
4
Harsh Mehta
Co-founderMirendil
Left Anthropic; co-founded Mirendil, Mar 2026. ↗
5
Matthew Barnett
Senior Staff Software EngineerGoogle
Joined Google from Mechanize, Aug 2026. ↗

1
Ian Silber
Head of Product DesignOpenAI (former)
Left OpenAI Sept 2026; building something new. ↗
2
JSN
Founding design lead, Visa agentic commerceVisa (former)
Most recently led design for Visa agentic commerce. ↗
3
Benji Taylor
Head of Design for X and SpaceXSISpaceX
Head of Design, X and SpaceXSI at SpaceX. ↗
4
Gavin Nelson
Member of Design StaffOpenAI
At OpenAI since Feb 2026 (ChatGPT Voice). ↗
5
Evil Rabbit
Founding Designer, Head of DesignVercel
Founding designer at Vercel since 2016. ↗

1
Aleksander Madry
Former Head of PreparednessOpenAI (former)
Left OpenAI May 2026; building on AI economics. ↗
2
Thore Graepel
FounderMetis Reasoning
Left DeepMind to launch Metis Reasoning, Sept 2026. ↗
3
Danijar Hafner
Co-founderEmbo
Co-founded Embo, world-model agents, 2026. · unverified ↗
4
Oriol Vinyals
Co-founderDiscovery Loop
Reported co-founder of Discovery Loop, 2026. · unverified ↗
5
Behnam Neyshabur
Co-founderMirendil
Left Anthropic; co-founded Mirendil, Mar 2026. ↗

1
Kevin Weil
Former Chief Product OfficerOpenAI (former)
Left OpenAI; reported AI-science startup, Aug 2026. · unverified ↗
2
Fidji Simo
Former CEO of ApplicationsOpenAI
Stepped back July 2026; part-time OpenAI advisor. ↗
3
Mike Krieger
Co-lead, Labs (former CPO)Anthropic
Now co-leads Anthropic Labs (former CPO). ↗
4
Ami Vora
Head of ProductAnthropic
Head of Product at Anthropic. ↗
5
Tom Vieira
Former product leadBase (former)
Left Base product lead; building Run up the Sky. ↗

1
Alison Harmon
Growth & GTM leaderOpenAI (former)
Wrapped up at OpenAI May 2026 after ~3 years. ↗
2
Kate Rouch
Chief Marketing OfficerOpenAI (former)
Stepped down as OpenAI CMO, Apr 2026. ↗
3
Brad Lightcap
Former COO, then special projectsOpenAI (former)
Leaving OpenAI to start something new (Aug 2026). ↗
4
Joshua Kim
Growth Marketing leadCursor
Joined Cursor to build growth marketing, 2026. ↗
5
Sarah Khogyani Wolf
Startup Marketing LeadAnthropic
Left Base Apr 2026; now at Anthropic. ↗