r/OpenAI

37 people have left OpenAI or Anthropic to start companies in 2026. Here’s what they’re building.

2026-08-08 · 01:41 UTC ·u/ImaginaryRea1ity ·1 min read

Brief

A Reddit post by u/ImaginaryRea1ity (r/OpenAI, Aug 8, 2026) lists 16 startups founded in 2026 by 37 former OpenAI or Anthropic employees. Most firms focus on agentic automation, alignment/safety, personal AI, and data/compute infrastructure—examples include Core Automation, River AI, Resolution, Mirendil, Zavify, and Blackstar. No community responses are provided.

Why it matters

u/ImaginaryRea1ity's r/OpenAI post (Aug 8, 2026) reports 37 people left OpenAI or Anthropic in 2026 to found 16 startups; the post flags 11 companies founded by ex-OpenAI staff and 5 by ex-Anthropic staff (examples: Core Automation, River AI, Math Inc vs Mirendil, Syntony, Zavify).

Key details

  • The new ventures cluster around agentic/automation tooling (Core Automation, Rational, Zavify, Planar, Egoist Machines, Intellagentsia), safety/governance/adversarial evaluation (Resolution, Guidelight AI Standards, Syntony), and personal AI/data/compute infrastructure or apps (River AI, Embrasure, Blackstar, Math Inc, Heyfuture, Mbason AI).
  • The post is a curated list only; no community comments or counterpoints are included in the submission, so reader reactions or validation of the claims are not present.
Source evidence

• Core Automation - "the world's most automated AI lab," starting by automating research itself (ex-OpenAI)
• Mirendil - AI research lab building self-accelerating systems that turn compute into scientific and engineering breakthroughs (ex-Anthropic)
• River AI - personal AI owned and shaped by each individual (ex-OpenAI)
• Math Inc - Solve math, solve everything. (ex-OpenAI)
• Resolution — scale and automation for higher confidence in alignment (ex-OpenAI)
• Guidelight AI Standards — identifying and promoting safe frontier AI development practices (ex-OpenAI)
• Syntony — safety research, governance design, adversarial evaluation → ex-Anthropic
• Embrasure — "your data warehouse was never built for autonomous agents" (ex-OpenAI)
• Egoist Machines, Inc. (YC S26) Machines — context tooling for AI; their AI Passport lets users control what AI apps know about them (ex-OpenAI)
• Rational (YC S26) — agentic business process automation (ex-OpenAI)
• Zavify — agentic AI development: custom systems, voice agents, integrations (ex-Anthropic)
• Planar — turns individual work into shared state for your team (ex-OpenAI)
• Mbason AI — helps candidates find real opportunities without insider connections → ex-Anthropic
• Blackstar — building a new personal computer (ex-OpenAI)
• Intellagentsia — (ex-OpenAI)
• Heyfuture — Predict anything and share it. (ex-Anthropic)

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