Cohere vs OpenAI: Founders, CEOs and History
Cohere was founded in 2019 by Aidan Gomez, Ivan Zhang, Nick Frosst and is led by Aidan Gomez. OpenAI was founded in 2015 by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman and is led by Sam Altman.
Company facts
Founders
Cohere
Aidan Gomez
Aidan Gomez is co-founder and CEO of Cohere. As a Google Brain intern he co-authored 'Attention Is All You Need' (2017) with seven other researchers.
Ivan Zhang
Ivan Zhang is a co-founder of Cohere. Before Cohere he co-founded FOR.ai, an open research collective, with Aidan Gomez. At Cohere he has worked on the engineering and infrastructure that serve the company's models to enterprise customers.
Nick Frosst
Nick Frosst is a co-founder of Cohere. He was Geoffrey Hinton's first hire at Google Brain's Toronto lab, where he published research on capsule networks and adversarial robustness.
OpenAI
Sam Altman
Sam Altman co-chaired OpenAI at its 2015 founding and became CEO in 2019. He negotiated the Microsoft partnership, oversaw the ChatGPT launch in 2022, survived the board's brief attempt to remove him in November 2023, and led the October 2025 recapitalization…
Elon Musk
Elon Musk was an early co-chair and funder of OpenAI and left its board in February 2018. He later founded rival xAI in 2023 and sued OpenAI, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman in 2024, arguing the company abandoned its nonprofit mission.
Greg Brockman
Greg Brockman left his role as Stripe CTO to co-found OpenAI in 2015 and serves as president.
Ilya Sutskever
Ilya Sutskever was OpenAI's chief scientist from 2015 to May 2024, overseeing work behind the GPT series and ChatGPT. He voted to remove Sam Altman in November 2023, then said he regretted it. After leaving OpenAI he co-founded Safe Superintelligence Inc.
CEOs and their tenures
Cohere
- Aidan Gomez2019–present
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Sets company strategy, fundraising and partnerships; led the 2026 Aleph Alpha merger agreement.
Source - Martin Kon2023–2025
President and Chief Operating Officer
Former YouTube CFO who scaled Cohere's go-to-market; stepped down in 2025 and moved into an advisory role.
Source - Joelle Pineau2025–present
Chief AI Officer
Former head of Meta's FAIR research lab; leads Cohere's AI research and model strategy.
Source - Francois Chadwick2025–present
Chief Financial Officer
Former Uber and KPMG executive overseeing finance as Cohere prepares for larger fundraises and a potential IPO.
Source - Phil Blunsom2025–present
Chief Technology Officer
Moved from chief scientist to CTO in 2025.
Source
OpenAI
- Greg Brockman2015–present
President and Co-founder
Former Stripe CTO; returned from a 2024 sabbatical and remains president.
Source - Mira Murati2018–2024
Chief Technology Officer and interim CEO (former)
Served as interim CEO for two days in November 2023; left OpenAI in 2024.
Source - Sam Altman2019–present
Chief Executive Officer
Co-founder and CEO who turned OpenAI from a research lab into a consumer and enterprise platform; briefly removed by the board in November 2023 and reinstated days later.
Source - Fidji Simo2025–2026
CEO of Applications (former)
Former Instacart CEO who ran ChatGPT and other applications; stepped down from the full-time role in July 2026 for health reasons and stayed on as an adviser.
Source - Vijaye Raji2025–present
CTO of Applications
Statsig founder who joined via the 2025 acquisition to head product engineering for ChatGPT and Codex.
Source
Timeline: Cohere and OpenAI side by side
2015OpenAI
OpenAI founded as a nonprofit
OpenAI launched in December 2015 as a nonprofit AI research lab.
2017Cohere
Aidan Gomez Co-Authors 'Attention Is All You Need'
Aidan Gomez and Google Brain colleagues published the landmark paper introducing the Transformer architecture.
2019Cohere
Cohere Founded in Toronto
Aidan Gomez, Ivan Zhang, and Nick Frosst founded Cohere to build privacy-first enterprise language models.
2019OpenAI
Capped-profit entity and Microsoft deal
OpenAI created a capped-profit subsidiary and received a $1 billion investment from Microsoft.
2021Cohere
Series A Funding & Multi-Cloud Platform Launch
Raised $40 million Series A led by Index Ventures, debuting its commercial developer API for text generation and embeddings.
2022Cohere
Strategic Partnership with Oracle Cloud
Formed historic alliance with Oracle, making Cohere the primary generative AI engine embedded across Oracle Cloud Applications.
2022OpenAI
ChatGPT launch
ChatGPT launched on November 30, 2022 and reached 100 million users faster than any prior consumer app.
2023Cohere
Series C Funding at $2.2B Valuation Led by Inovia
Raised $270 million in Series C funding with participation from NVIDIA, Oracle, and Salesforce Ventures.
2023Cohere
Debut on Amazon Bedrock & Release of Embed v3
Integrated models into Amazon Bedrock and launched Embed v3, establishing leadership in multilingual search.
2023OpenAI
Board crisis
The nonprofit board removed Sam Altman in November 2023; he returned as CEO within days and the board was rebuilt.
2024Cohere
Launch of Command R and Command R+
Released Command R (March) and Command R+ (April) for enterprise RAG and tool use.
2024Cohere
$500M Series D Funding at $5.5B Valuation
Closed $500 million Series D led by PSP Investments, with participation from Cisco, AMD, and Fujitsu, reaching a $5.5B valuation.
2025Cohere
Command A, North and ~$7B valuation
Launched Command A and North, raised $500 million at $6.8 billion, and reached about $7 billion after a September extension.
2025OpenAI
Acquired Jony Ive's io
OpenAI agreed to buy hardware startup io for just under $6.5 billion in an all-equity deal.
2025OpenAI
Recapitalization into OpenAI Group PBC
In October 2025 the for-profit became a public benefit corporation controlled by the OpenAI Foundation; Microsoft received about 27%.
2026Cohere
Reports $240M ARR for 2025
Investor memo showed about $240 million ARR, beating its $200 million target.
2026Cohere
Aleph Alpha merger announced and signed
Announced in April 2026 with a ~$565 million (€500 million) Schwarz Group commitment; definitive agreement signed September 16, 2026.
2026OpenAI
$122B funding round
OpenAI closed $122 billion in committed capital at an $852 billion post-money valuation on March 31, 2026.
2026OpenAI
Run rate nears $70B
Axios reported in September 2026 that annual recurring revenue was nearing $70 billion.
Acquisitions
Cohere
- Reliant AI2026Undisclosed
- Aleph Alpha2026Undisclosed
- Ottogrid2025Undisclosed
OpenAI
- io Products2025$6.5B
- Statsig2025$1.1B
- Rockset2024Undisclosed
- Global Illumination2023Undisclosed
Questions about Cohere vs OpenAI
Who is the CEO of Cohere Inc. and OpenAI?
Cohere Inc. is led by Aidan Gomez and OpenAI is led by Sam Altman. Both serve as the top executive responsible for the company's strategy, operations, and financial performance.
When was Cohere Inc. founded vs OpenAI?
OpenAI was founded in 2015 — 4 years before Cohere Inc., which was founded in 2019. OpenAI's longer operating history gives it a deeper track record but also potentially more institutional inertia compared to the younger Cohere Inc..
How many employees does Cohere Inc. have compared to OpenAI?
OpenAI employs approximately 4,500 people. A verified employee count for Cohere Inc. is not currently available.
Where are Cohere Inc. and OpenAI headquartered?
Cohere Inc. is headquartered in Canada and OpenAI is headquartered in United States. Their different home markets mean they may face different regulatory frameworks, tax regimes, and currency exposure.
Who founded Cohere Inc. and OpenAI?
Cohere Inc. was founded by Aidan Gomez, Ivan Zhang, Nick Frosst. OpenAI was founded by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever.
Which company has a longer operating history — Cohere Inc. or OpenAI?
OpenAI has been operating for approximately 11 years, making it the more established of the two companies. Cohere Inc. has been in operation for around 7 years. A longer operating history often signals greater institutional resilience and brand recognition, though it can also mean slower adaptation to new market conditions.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the Cohere vs OpenAI overview