Why They Raised.
Why They're Known.
What this is
We mapped 473 people and 1,794 public ties across the AI industry. Then we looked at how their work became influence, how they are connected, how their companies depend on one another, and where they disagree. The interactive map and the companion book let you explore those patterns yourself.
From the book
- All eight authors of the 2017 Transformer paper had left Google by 2023. Their later paths run through Character.AI, OpenAI, Adept, Essential AI, NVIDIA, Sakana AI, and Cohere.
- Influence came when visible work met collaborators and an institution with reach. Anthropic, NVIDIA, and Harvey show three different combinations of prior work, teams, resources, and users.
- A supplier can also be a rival. Microsoft hosts and invests in OpenAI while selling Copilot against ChatGPT; Google invests in and supplies compute to Anthropic while Gemini competes with Claude.
- 4 of 18 selected deals included a technology license. Microsoft licensed Inflection AI and hired most of its team; Windsurf split between Google (team and license) and Cognition (product, IP, brand).
Counts describe the book's selected cast, not success rates for all founders. The book's Findings at a Glance lists six recurring patterns, each linked to its evidence.
Explore the full map and book
Search 473 people. See how they're connected. Read the companion book behind the map.