Goodbyes are hard—though maybe less so in tech, where executives rack up serious experience at top companies before spinning off to launch their own ventures. While this has been a familiar pattern historically, 2025 has been no exception.
Several big names have stepped away from their roles to chase their entrepreneurial dreams, and here are some of the most significant moves you need to know about and also watch out for in 2026.
Naveen Rao: Former VP of AI at Databricks
An entrepreneurial endeavour is familiar to Naveen Rao, who joined Databricks in 2023 after his startup MosaicML was acquired by the company for $1.3 billion.
Before that, he founded Nervana, which was acquired by another giant of a company, Intel, for a reported $400 million in 2016.
Last month, he announced his departure from Databricks to launch his startup, called Unconventional AI. The startup will address some of the challenges related to computing for AI workloads.
Recently, reports stated that the startup is in talks to raise a billion dollars at $5 billion valuation, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
Besides, Databricks itself is an early investor in the startup, with CEO Ali Ghodsi saying, “If anyone can pull this off, it’s Naveen.”
Rao will continue advising Databricks while leading the new venture.
Thomas Dohmke: Former CEO of GitHub
After spending more than a decade at Microsoft, leading its GitHub division, Thomas Dohmke recently announced his departure as the CEO.
While he continues to guide the company with the transition, Dohmke is working on a stealth startup. As of today, little to no information is known about what Dohmke is up to.
Since starting his career in 1998, Dohmke has founded several startups. Notably, he launched ‘HockeyApp’ in 2011, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2015. This product provided mobile crash analytics and beta distribution services for smartphone applications.
Besides Microsoft, Dohmke has worked with global corporations such as DaimlerChrysler and Robert Bosch.
Mira Murati: Former CTO of OpenAI
Late last year, Mira Murati announced her departure as the CTO of OpenAI after six years, citing that she wanted to “create the time and space” for her own exploration. At the beginning of this year, she announced ‘Thinking Machines Lab’, and has raised $2 billion in investments since.
Murati has been joined by several other OpenAI employees. Notably, John Schulman, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, left last August to join Anthropic and is now with Thinking Machines.
Unlike her former colleague Ilya Sutskever, who also left OpenAI to start a company (Super Safe Intelligence) and raise a billion dollars, Murati has released a product. The recently announced ‘Tinker API’ is the first offering from Thinking Machines.
It helps AI and machine learning researchers and developers access compute easily, enabling them to focus on data and algorithms for their projects. Tinker handles the heavy lifting of organising and managing compute, while researchers can concentrate on other core aspects of their work.
Igor Babuschkin: Co-Founder of xAI
Igor Babuschkin, the co-founder of xAI, recently announced his departure from the Elon Musk-led AI startup to pursue a new venture of his own.
While the name may not win points for creativity, ‘Babuschkin Ventures’ will focus on supporting AI safety and research startups. This move aligns with calls from industry veterans for more cautious approaches to AI development.
In explaining his decision, Babuschkin said he believes AI could help solve some of science’s most challenging problems, including quantum gravity and the Riemann hypothesis.
During his two years at xAI, Babuschkin led engineering across Infrastructure, Product, and Applied AI teams, and played a key role in building the company’s Memphis supercluster.
Before xAI, Babuschkin held positions at both Google DeepMind and OpenAI.
Liam Fedus: Former VP of Research & Post Training at OpenAI
After more than two years of working at OpenAI, William (Liam) Fedus left the company this March. Fedus is now working on his materials science startup called Periodic Labs, which aims to build ‘AI scientists and autonomous laboratories for them to operate’.
Joining Fedus as the co-founder was Ekin Dogus Cubuk, the former Google DeepMind researcher.
Alongside them, over 20 researchers have left Meta, OpenAI, and Google DeepMind to join Periodic Labs, according to a recent report from the New York Times.
The startup has secured over $300 million in seed funding from a16z and others. The report added that it plans to build its own lab in Menlo Park, California, where ‘physical robots will run scientific experiments on an ‘enormous scale’.
Devi Parikh, Dhruv Batra, Abhishek Das: Former Meta AI Engineers/Researchers
The trio of Devi Parikh, Dhruv Batra and Abhishek Das are more than just co-founders of Yutori.
They all worked in senior roles at Meta.
Parikh and Batra spent over seven years as senior directors of generative AI and fundamental AI research, respectively, at Meta. Meanwhile, Das spent around five years at the company.
In 2024, Parikh and Das started Yutori, and were soon joined by Batra.
Earlier this March, the company emerged from stealth to raise $15 million in funding, led by Radical Ventures.
The startup’s mission is to build AI assistants and agents that can reliably perform “everyday digital tasks” on the web.
This includes ordering groceries, making reservations, planning a group travel, and so on. “Ultimately, we want to give everyone an AI chief-of-staff,” the company said while announcing its funding last year.
Ganesh Venkataramanan: Former Head of Tesla Dojo
Ganesh Venkataraman, former senior director of Tesla’s Autopilot hardware, stated on LinkedIn that he is still working on a stealth project. A recent Bloomberg report revealed more about his mission.
As per the report, his startup, called DensityAI, is set to come out of stealth soon and is in talks to raise “hundreds of millions” of dollars in funding. Venkataramanan is joined by former Tesla employees Bill Chang and Benjamin Floering in this endeavour.
DensityAI is working on chips, hardware and software that will power AI data centres. The report added that “roughly” 20 members who previously worked in Tesla’s autonomous driving project have joined the startup.
More to Come?
It will be particularly intriguing to see what the likes of Dohmke, Rao and others develop in their respective ventures.
Both have demonstrated proven abilities in creating successful products that attracted acquisitions from big technology firms, raising high expectations for their future projects.
Meanwhile, existing offerings like the Tinker API will undergo market validation to determine if adoption rates indicate real demand for these emerging solutions.
However, with only a few weeks remaining before the year ends, it remains to be seen whether more big names will make similar moves.
The post Top 7 AI Startups Built by Former Big Tech Leaders in 2025 appeared first on Analytics India Magazine.
