The article discusses the emergence of a new 'tech mafia' in Silicon Valley, primarily driven by alumni of OpenAI, particularly as the company reached a $300 billion valuation. Many former employees are launching their startups, including Safe Superintelligence and Thinking Machines Lab, often raising substantial funds before even releasing products. Competitors like Anthropic, founded by Dario and Daniela Amodei, focus on AI safety and have rapidly grown to challenge OpenAI. Anthropic was valued at $61.5 billion, demonstrating the competitive landscape among these innovative ventures.
The hype around OpenAI is so high that some of these startups, like Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence and Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab, have been able to raise billions of dollars without even launching a product.
Siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei left OpenAI in 2021 to form their own startup, San Francisco-based Anthropic, that has long touted a focus on AI safety.
OpenAI co-founder John Schulman joined Anthropic in 2024, pledging to build a "safe AGI." OpenAI reportedly remains multiple times larger than Anthropic by revenue.
Anthropic has quickly grown to become OpenAI's biggest rival and was valued at $61.5 billion in March 2025.
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