Already rich, already successful, why the last wave of tech winners is grinding again

A remarkable trend is surfacing among successful tech entrepreneurs: many are returning to the grind, driven by the fear of missing out on the pivotal advancements in artificial intelligence. This resurgence is not merely about personal gain; it reflects a collective enthusiasm to capitalize on what could be a transformative era for the industry. Take Tom Blomfield, for instance. The co-founder of GoCardless and Monzo has chosen to step away from his mentoring role at Y Combinator to join Anthropic’s compute team—not in an executive capacity, but as a technical staff member. He is far from alone in this pursuit. Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger has also made the leap to Anthropic, taking on the role of Chief Product Officer this year. Meanwhile, Andrej Karpathy, a key figure in AI who has held prominent positions at OpenAI and Tesla, recently joined Anthropic’s pre-training team, emphasizing the critical nature of the next few years in the realm of large language models. In a different vein, Chamath Palihapitiya, known as the “SPAC King,” has stepped back into full-time operations after a decade, taking the helm at 8090 Labs, an enterprise AI coding startup, supported by a substantial $135 million Series A funding round led by Salesforce Ventures. Palihapitiya expressed his conviction on social media, stating, “I am convinced that what we are building now is even more important, so there was no decision to make except to be all in.” Eric Wu, who previously led Opendoor, has also embraced this wave of AI enthusiasm by launching NavigateAI, a tool designed to assist construction workers, backed by $25 million in seed funding. In a recent conversation, Wu shared his motivation, revealing, “I knew if I looked back in 10 years and didn’t do something related to it, I would probably regret that.” The eagerness of these seasoned professionals to engage in the AI sector is particularly evident in the titles they are adopting. Both Anthropic and OpenAI employ the term “Member of Technical Staff” for their teams, regardless of hierarchy. This is the same title that Blomfield will carry, reflecting a commitment to flattening traditional corporate structures in favor of collaboration and innovation. Even Peter Bailis, who briefly served as Workday’s CTO, transitioned to a similar role at Anthropic after less than a year, showcasing the allure of the AI field for established leaders. As these tech veterans dive back into the fray, it becomes clear that the race in AI is just beginning, and they are determined to be at the forefront of this groundbreaking journey.