Sam Altman
CEO, OpenAI
The roadmap before it becomes a press release — and it sets everyone else's agenda.
Model directionOpenAI roadmapAI strategy
AI founders to follow on X
Model direction, product trade-offs, pricing, and what breaks in production — the parts of AI that rarely make the launch post. Start with three and add more when your goal changes.
12 peopleXChecked
Follow opens Surfolks with that profile already filled in — you will be asked to create an account or sign in.
Start here
If you follow three, make it these.
Amjad Masad
CEO, Replit
The most concrete builder here: what AI software does in a user's hands, not a demo.
AI productsShippingPricing
Andrej Karpathy
Founder, Eureka Labs
The best explainer in the field. Long threads are usually worth the ten minutes.
ExplainersAI educationTechnical depth
Also on this list
9 more · same criteria
Guillermo Rauch (opens on X)CEO, Vercel
FollowWrites the trade-offs of putting models in a product, not just the launch.
AI infrastructureProduct surfaceDeploys
Harrison Chase (opens on X)CEO, LangChain
FollowThe clearest read on why agents break under real traffic.
AgentsEvalsProduction AI
Aidan Gomez (opens on X)CEO, Cohere
FollowWhat enterprises will actually buy — a counterweight to consumer AI hype.
Enterprise AIRetrievalEmbeddings
Clement Delangue (opens on X)CEO, Hugging Face
FollowFor anyone whose roadmap depends on open models.
Open modelsToolingOpen weights
Siqi Chen (opens on X)CEO, Runway
FollowFounder thinking in public: pricing tests, repositioning, what he got wrong.
Product experimentsPricingOperating notes
Jerry Liu (opens on X)CEO, LlamaIndex
FollowFor products that have to read messy documents, not tidy prompts.
RAGDocument parsingReal-world data
Ali Ghodsi (opens on X)CEO, Databricks
FollowWhere enterprise AI meets the data warehouse.
Data infrastructureEnterprise AIAgent accuracy
Andrew Ng (opens on X)Founder, DeepLearning.AI
FollowA steady, non-hype read on where companies actually adopt AI.
AI adoptionEducationPractical guidance
Emad Mostaque (opens on X)Founder, Schelling AI
FollowOpinionated and early — a source of directions, not settled fact.
Sovereign AIOpen modelsAgents
Pick by what you are trying to do
| If your goal is… | Follow | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Understand model direction | Sam Altman, Andrej Karpathy | Where capability is heading |
| Ship an AI product | Amjad Masad, Guillermo Rauch, Harrison Chase | Cost, latency, reliability |
| Sell AI to enterprises | Aidan Gomez, Ali Ghodsi | What procurement and data teams ask |
| Build on open models | Clement Delangue, Jerry Liu | Tooling and licensing |
| Learn the fundamentals | Andrej Karpathy, Andrew Ng | Explainers without the research degree |
Common questions
Who are the best AI founders to follow on X?
Start with Sam Altman (OpenAI) for direction, Amjad Masad (Replit) for what AI products actually ship, and Andrej Karpathy (Eureka Labs) for explainers. Harrison Chase (LangChain) and Aidan Gomez (Cohere) are the strongest follows for agents and enterprise AI.
Is this list paid or sponsored?
No. The selection is editorial and based on what each person publishes. Nobody on this page paid for placement, and the order is not a ranking by follower count.
Do I need an account to follow them?
You can read public posts on x.com, though replying needs an account. Surfolks collects the public posts of the people you add, so you can read their activity in one feed whether or not you engage directly.
How often is this collection updated?
It is reviewed roughly quarterly. The last review, including every handle check, was 8 November 2026. People are added only when they have been publishing consistently, and the date on the page always reflects the last check.
