This is a companion piece to two books I read back to back: Karen Hao’s Empire of AI, which follows OpenAI, and Sebastian Mallaby’s The Infinity Machine, which follows Demis Hassabis and DeepMind through the same years. The same twenty or thirty names run through both. Each of them carried part of an old idea, that a machine could learn to think, from a lab in Toronto or a games studio in London to the systems we use today, and many carried it through several organisations before it worked. I kept losing track of who was where in which year, so I drew it.
Each lane is a person, each coloured bar a place they worked. A ring marks where someone moved on, and hovering it says why. Choose a person to draw their ties to the others at the moment they happened; choose an organisation to see everyone who passed through it. The band on top holds the ideas, the products, and the turns that moved the story. It starts in 1955, with McCarthy’s proposal that gave the field its name, and squeezes the next fifty years so that the part both books are about has room.
John McCarthy: Dartmouth professor who convened the 1956 workshop and chose the name 'artificial intelligence'.
1955 to 1958: assistant professor; wrote the 1955 workshop proposal, Dartmouth College
1958 to 1962: co-founded the MIT AI Project with Minsky, MIT
1962 to 2011-10: professor; founded and directed SAIL from 1965, Stanford University. Died in October 2011.
Geoffrey Hinton (@geoffreyhinton): British-Canadian deep-learning pioneer; Sutskever's mentor; sold DNNresearch to Google.
1982 to 1987: Professor, Carnegie Mellon University. Moved to Toronto
1987 to now: professor, University of Toronto
1998 to now: founding director, Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit. returned to Toronto
2010 to now: senior adviser, DeepMind
2012 to 2013-03: Cofounder, DNNresearch. Sold to Google
2013 to 2023-05: Part-time researcher while keeping Toronto post, Google / Alphabet. Left Google
Demis Hassabis (@demishassabis): London chess prodigy turned game designer and neuroscientist; cofounded DeepMind and leads Google DeepMind; 2024 chemistry Nobel laureate.
1992 to 1994: teenage game designer (Theme Park co-designer) and later consultant, Bullfrog Productions. left to study at Cambridge, refusing Molyneux's large retention cheque
1994 to 1997: computer science undergraduate, University of Cambridge. graduated
1997 to 1998: early brainstorming on Black & White, Lionhead Studios. left to found his own studio
1998-07 to 2005: founder and managing director, Elixir Studios. studio closed after Republic underwhelmed
2005 to 2009: neuroscience PhD student under Eleanor Maguire, University College London. completed PhD
2009 to 2010: postdoctoral fellow, Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit. left to run DeepMind
2009 to 2009: visiting postdoctoral fellow with Tomaso Poggio, MIT
2009 to 2009: visiting postdoctoral fellow, Harvard University
2010 to 2023-04: Cofounder and CEO, DeepMind. DeepMind merged with Google Brain
2014-01 to now: executive after Google acquired DeepMind, Google / Alphabet
2021-11 to now: founder and CEO, Isomorphic Labs
2023-04 to now: CEO of merged lab, Google DeepMind
Shane Legg (@ShaneLegg): New Zealand mathematician who popularised the term AGI and cofounded DeepMind as chief scientist.
1999 to 2001: engineer at Ben Goertzel's start-up, Intelligenesis. company went bust
2003 to 2008: PhD student under Marcus Hutter, IDSIA. completed thesis on machine superintelligence
2008 to 2009: researcher applying RL to markets, Swiss Finance Institute
2009-04 to 2010: postdoctoral fellow, Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit
2010 to 2023-04: cofounder and chief scientist, DeepMind. merged into Google DeepMind
2023-04 to now: cofounder and chief AGI scientist, Google DeepMind
Mustafa Suleyman (@mustafasuleyman): North London activist turned tech leader; DeepMind cofounder, later Inflection cofounder and Microsoft AI chief.
2000s to now: policy staffer, London Mayor's Office. found it bureaucratic
2000s to now: cofounder of conflict-resolution consultancy, Reos Partners
2002 to 2004: philosophy and theology student, University of Oxford. dropped out
2004 to 2009: cofounder/organiser of counselling helpline, Muslim Youth Helpline
2010 to 2019-08: cofounder; head of Applied and policy, DeepMind. Departed
2016-02 to 2018-11: founder of DeepMind Health, DeepMind. unit absorbed by Google
2019-12 to 2022-01: vice president (no direct reports) in California, Google / Alphabet. quit to start Inflection
2022 to 2024-03: cofounder and CEO with Reid Hoffman, Inflection AI. moved to Microsoft
2024-03 to now: CEO of Microsoft AI, Microsoft
David Silver: Hassabis's Cambridge friend; reinforcement-learning leader behind AlphaGo, AlphaZero, AlphaStar and AlphaProof.
1994 to 1997: computer science undergraduate, University of Cambridge
1998 to 2003: cofounder and AI programmer, Elixir Studios. burned out, left for the south of France
2004 to 2009: PhD student under Richard Sutton, University of Alberta. completed PhD on computer Go
2009 to 2013-05: Royal Society research fellow, University College London. joined DeepMind full time
2010 to 2013-05: part-time consultant (returned his shares), DeepMind
2013-05 to 2023-04: principal scientist, RL lead, DeepMind. merger
2023-04 to now: RL lead; briefly led Gemini post-training, Google DeepMind
Koray Kavukcuoglu: Turkish LeCun alumnus; DQN coauthor, DeepMind research director and Gemini leader.
2012 to 2023-04: researcher, later VP research/research director, DeepMind. merger
2023-04 to now: CTO-level research leader on Gemini, Google DeepMind
John Jumper: Protein-motion obsessive who led AlphaFold 2 and shared the 2024 chemistry Nobel.
2008 to 2011: scientist, D. E. Shaw Research
2017-10 to 2023-04: AlphaFold team lead, DeepMind
2023-04 to now: director, Google DeepMind
Peter Thiel (@peterthiel): PayPal/Palantir founder and Founders Fund investor; Altman's mentor, Hydrazine backer and early OpenAI funder.
2005 to now: founder, Founders Fund
2015-12 to now: backer, OpenAI
Elon Musk (@elonmusk): SpaceX/Tesla founder, early DeepMind investor and AI-risk evangelist; named and cofunded OpenAI, then left and became its adversary.
2013-03 to 2014-01: investor (Series C, $5m), DeepMind. Google acquisition
2015-04 to 2015-12: ethics and safety board member/host, DeepMind. cofounded rival OpenAI
2015-12 to 2018-02: Cofounder, cochair and main funder, OpenAI. Lost CEO contest to Altman and left, withdrawing his funding
2023-03 to now: Founder, xAI
Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman): LinkedIn cofounder and PayPal mafia member; OpenAI donor, LP co-lead investor, financial backstop after Musk.
2002 to now: Cofounder, LinkedIn
2015-08 to now: ethics and safety board participant, DeepMind
2015-12 to now: Founding donor, later investor and board member, OpenAI
2017 to now: Board member, Microsoft
2018 to 2023-02: Board member, OpenAI. Stepped down over conflict after cofounding Inflection
2022 to now: Cofounder, Inflection AI
Larry Page: Google cofounder; argued with Musk that superhuman AI was simply the next stage of evolution.
1998 to 2015: cofounder and CEO, Google / Alphabet. became Alphabet CEO
2015 to 2019: CEO, Google / Alphabet
Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai): Google CEO who apologized for how Gebru left.
2015 to 2019-12: CEO of Google, Google / Alphabet
2019-12 to now: CEO of Google and Alphabet, Google / Alphabet
Jeff Dean (@jeffdean): Senior Google engineer who vetted DeepMind's code before the acquisition; later Google AI leader.
2018-04 to now: head of Google AI, Google / Alphabet
2023-04 to now: chief scientist / Gemini co-lead, Google DeepMind
Yann LeCun (@ylecun): Hinton's former postdoc, NYU professor and Facebook AI chief; 2018 Turing Award co-winner.
2013-12 to now: founding director of Facebook AI Research, later chief AI scientist, Meta
Timnit Gebru: AI ethics researcher; questioned Musk's AI-extinction focus at a Stanford event, later a central critic.
2016 to now: Cofounder, Black in AI
2018 to 2020-12-02: Co-lead, ethical AI team, Google / Alphabet. Forced out after refusing to retract Stochastic Parrots paper
2021-12 to now: Founder, Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR)
Satya Nadella (@satyanadella): Microsoft CEO; OpenAI's biggest backer, offered to hire Altman and Brockman during the ouster.
2014-02 to now: CEO, Microsoft
Sam Altman (@sama): Loopt founder, YC president, OpenAI cofounder and CEO; briefly ousted in November 2023 and reinstated days later.
2003 to 2005: Computer science undergraduate (dropped out), Stanford University. Left to run Loopt after raising VC money
2005 to 2012: Cofounder and CEO, Loopt. Sold the company for about $43.4M; survived two attempts by senior staff to have him fired
2012 to now: Founder of personal investment fund, Hydrazine Capital
2014 to 2019-03: Partner, then president succeeding Paul Graham, Y Combinator. Stepped down from the presidency
2014 to now: Board member and major shareholder, Reddit
2015-12 to 2018-02: Cofounder and cochair, OpenAI. Musk quit; Altman became president of the nonprofit
2018-02 to 2023-11-17: President of the nonprofit after Musk's exit, OpenAI. Became CEO of OpenAI LP
2019 to now: Cofounder, Tools for Humanity (Worldcoin)
2021 to now: Investor ($375M), Helion Energy
2021 to now: Investor ($180M), Retro Biosciences
2021-05 to now: Controller of the fund, OpenAI Startup Fund
2023-11-19 to 2023-11-21: Announced as head of a new advanced AI unit, Microsoft. Returned to OpenAI instead
2023-11-21 to now: CEO (reinstated, initially without board seat), OpenAI
Greg Brockman (@gdb): Stripe's first CTO, OpenAI cofounder, CTO then president; Altman's closest ally.
2008 to 2010: Student, Harvard University. Transferred to MIT
2010 to 2010: Student, MIT. Dropped out
2010 to 2015: Early engineer, then CTO, Stripe. Left to commit to OpenAI after the Rosewood dinner
2015-12 to 2022: cofounder, CTO/president, OpenAI. Became president
2023-11-21 to 2023-11-17: Individual contributor; led GPT-4 data and training push; reported to Murati, OpenAI. Removed from board and quit in protest of Altman's firing
2023-11-19 to 2023-11-21: Announced as co-lead of new AI unit with Altman, Microsoft. Returned to OpenAI
Ilya Sutskever (@ilyasut): Deep-learning researcher, OpenAI cofounder and chief scientist; voted to fire Altman, then recanted.
2003 to 2012: Student under Geoffrey Hinton, University of Toronto. Cofounded DNNresearch
2008 to 2013: PhD student under Hinton, University of Toronto
2012 to 2013-03: Cofounder, DNNresearch. Acquired by Google for $44M
2013 to 2015-12: Research scientist, Google Brain. Turned down escalating Google counteroffers to join OpenAI
2013 to 2015-12: research scientist (Google Brain), Google / Alphabet. left to cofound OpenAI
2015-12 to 2024-05-14: Cofounder; research director, later chief scientist, OpenAI. Resigned after failed ouster of Altman; return later blocked
2023-07 to 2024-05-14: Co-lead of Superalignment, OpenAI. Left OpenAI
2024-06 to now: Cofounder, Safe Superintelligence (SSI)
Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy): OpenAI founding scientist poached by Musk to lead Tesla AI; urged OpenAI to attach to Tesla.
2015-12 to 2017-06: Founding research scientist, OpenAI. Poached by Musk to run Tesla's AI division
2017-06 to now: Director of AI, Tesla
John Schulman: OpenAI founding scientist who led the RLHF chat project that became ChatGPT; later left for Anthropic.
2015-12 to 2024-08-05: Founding research scientist; led ChatGPT RLHF effort, OpenAI. Took over post-training and Superalignment remnants
2024-05 to now: Co-lead of post-training; absorbed Superalignment, OpenAI
2024-08 to now: Researcher, Anthropic
Jakub Pachocki: Long-tenured OpenAI researcher who quit in protest of Altman's firing and returned.
2017 to 2023-11-17: Senior researcher (quit during ouster), OpenAI. Quit in protest Nov 17, returned with Altman
2022 to now: Promoted to more senior research role by Altman, overlapping Sutskever, OpenAI
2024-05-14 to now: Chief scientist, OpenAI
Dario Amodei: AI researcher at the 2015 founding dinner; later OpenAI research leader who left to cofound Anthropic.
2015 to 2016-07: Researcher, Google Brain. Left to join OpenAI
2016-07 to 2020-12: Lead of AI safety research, OpenAI. Promoted to director of research
2018 to 2020-12: Director of research, then VP of research; led Nest team for GPT-3, OpenAI. Left to found Anthropic
2021 to now: Cofounder and CEO, Anthropic
Daniela Amodei: Stripe's first recruiter; OpenAI VP of people/engineering manager; Anthropic cofounder and president.
2018 to 2020-12: Engineering manager and VP of people, OpenAI. Left to cofound Anthropic
2020 to 2020-12: VP of safety and policy, OpenAI. Left to cofound Anthropic
2021 to now: Cofounder and president, Anthropic
Jan Leike (@janleike): OpenAI head of alignment; DSB member; later co-led Superalignment and left for Anthropic.
2021 to 2024-05: alignment lead; superalignment co-lead, OpenAI. left for Anthropic
2023-07 to 2024-05-14: Co-lead of Superalignment, OpenAI. Resigned, saying safety had taken a backseat to products
2024-05 to now: alignment researcher, Anthropic
Mira Murati (@miramurati): OpenAI CTO; named interim CEO when Altman was fired, then backed his return.
2018 to 2020: Hardware strategy and research oversight, later CTO, OpenAI. Promoted to VP of Applied
2020 to 2022-05: VP of Applied and partnerships, then oversaw Research too, OpenAI. Promoted to CTO
2023-11-17 to 2023-11-17: CTO (resumed after The Blip), OpenAI. Named interim CEO by the board
Helen Toner (@hlntnr): Australian researcher at Georgetown's CSET; OpenAI board member who voted to fire Altman, then stepped down.
2021 to 2023-11-21: Independent board director, OpenAI. Stepped down as part of Altman's reinstatement deal
Tasha McCauley: Entrepreneur and RAND scientist; OpenAI board member who voted to fire Altman and then stepped down.
2018 to 2023-11-21: Independent board director, OpenAI. Stepped down as part of Altman's reinstatement deal
Adam D'Angelo (@adamdangelo): Quora cofounder/CEO and OpenAI independent director; the only board member to stay after Altman's return.
2018 to now: Independent board director, OpenAI
Boris Cherny (@bcherny): Engineer and author of Programming TypeScript who built the first Claude Code prototype at Anthropic and leads it.
2017 to 2024: engineer, later principal engineer, Meta
2024-09 to 2025-07: built Claude Code, Anthropic. Joined Anysphere, the maker of Cursor.
2025-07 to 2025-07: chief architect, Anysphere (Cursor). Back at Anthropic about two weeks later.
The data behind the figure is a dataset of its own, with a page on what each record holds, where every fact comes from, and how I compiled it: People of the AI labs, 1955 to 2026.
References
Karen Hao, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI (Penguin Press, 2025).
Sebastian Mallaby, The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence (Penguin Press, 2026).