Jeff Bezos Returns to Operations as Co-CEO of $6.2 Billion AI Startup Project Prometheus

Jeff Bezos will be co-CEO of AI startup Project Prometheus

Jeff Bezos is getting a new job. He'll reportedly become co-CEO of Project Prometheus, a new startup that he's partly funding. The company's exact plans are still unknown, but its focus is on AI that could improve manufacturing in fields including computing, automobiles, and aerospace. The New York Times reports that Project Prometheus is already one of the better funded early-stage start-ups in the world, with $6.2 billion in investment, in part from Bezos himself. In addition to financing the venture, he'll help run the company together with co-founder Vik Bajaj. He's a physicist and chemist who once worked at Google X, the company's experimental "moonshot factory," before running health tech company Verily, an Alphabet-owned venture spun out of that division. Project Prometheus reportedly has nearly 100 employees already, including former staff from OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta. With Bezos now among them, this will be his first formal operational role at a company since he stepped down as Amazon CEO in 2021, though since then he's taken a keen interest in his SpaceX rival Blue Origin, which last week completed the first successful landing of its New Glenn booster.

Jeff Bezos will head a new engineering-focused AI startup called Project Prometheus

Jeff Bezos is spearheading a new AI started called Project Prometheus, focused on his current interests in space and engineering, The New York Times reports. The company, which has yet to be made public, will reportedly have $6.2 billion in funding. Part of that sum will come from Bezos, who will act as co-CEO. Project Prometheus will reportedly focus on creating AI systems that gain knowledge from the physical world, rather than just processing digital information, like AI chatbots. In particular, the company will reportedly explore how AI can support engineering and manufacturing in areas such as vehicles and space technology. Bezos founded space technology company Blue Origin more than two decades ago. The company's New Glenn rocket had a successful second flight last week. He is joined by Vik Bajaj as co-founder and co-CEO. Bajaj is a physicist and chemist who worked on projects at Google X including Wing and what became Waymo. In 2018, he co-founded Foresite Labs, which supports entrepreneurs in the fields of AI and data science. Bajaj is still named as CEO of Foresite Labs on the company's website and his LinkedIn page -- the latter of which also shows his new titles at Project Prometheus. Bajaj lists his involvement in the new company as starting this month and puts San Francisco, London and Zurich as its locations. On its bare LinkedIn page, Project Prometheus' overview states only "AI for the physical economy." It also lists itself as a "Technology, Information and Internet" company with 51-200 employees. According to The New York Times, Project Prometheus has hired nearly 100 people, with some employees coming from fellow AI companies like OpenAI and DeepMind.

Jeff Bezos Creates A.I. Start-Up Where He Will Be Co-Chief Executive

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the world's wealthiest people, is throwing his money and time into an artificial intelligence start-up that he will help manage as its co-chief executive. The company, called Project Prometheus, is coming out of the gates with $6.2 billion in funding, partly from Mr. Bezos, making it one of the most well-financed early-stage start-ups in the world, said three people familiar with the company who spoke on condition of anonymity because details have not yet been made public. This is the first time Mr. Bezos has taken a formal operational role in a company since he stepped down as chief executive of Amazon in July 2021. Though he is deeply involved in Blue Origin, a competitor to Elon Musk's SpaceX, his official title at the space company is founder. Since leaving Amazon, Mr. Bezos has received as much attention for his personal life as his businesses, including an extravagant celebrity-filled wedding in Venice earlier this year. He has also become more closely involved in Blue Origin and has shown increasing interest in the race to build artificial intelligence. His new company now firmly plants him in the middle of that competition. Project Prometheus is entering an increasingly crowded A.I. market, with smaller companies trying to carve out niches in a race with industry giants like Google, Meta and Microsoft and pioneering companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. The new company has until now kept a low profile, and when it was started is not even clear. Project Prometheus is focusing on technology that dovetails with Mr. Bezos' interest in taking people to outer space. The company is focusing on A.I. that will help in engineering and manufacturing in a number of fields, including computers, aerospace and automobiles. It is unclear where Project Prometheus will be based. Mr. Bezos' co-founder and co-chief executive is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who worked closely with Google's co-founder Sergey Brin at Google's X, a research effort often called "The Moonshot Factory." Google X produced a wide range of ambitious projects, including Wing, a drone delivery service, and the self-driving car that became Waymo. In 2015, Dr. Bajaj was among the founders of Verily, a research lab dedicated to the life sciences that, like Waymo and Wing, is operated by Google's parent company, Alphabet. Three years later, Dr. Bajaj co-founded and became chief executive of Foresite Labs, an effort to incubate new A.I. and data science start-ups. He recently left that job to focus on Project Prometheus, according to the three people who spoke on condition of anonymity. Project Prometheus is among a wave of companies focused on applying A.I. to physical tasks, including robotics, drug design and scientific discovery. This year several prominent researchers left Meta, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other big A.I. projects to found a company called Periodic Labs, which is focused on building A.I technology that can accelerate new discoveries in areas like physics and chemistry. Last year, Mr. Bezos invested in Physical Intelligence, a start-up that is applying A.I. to robots. But the $6.2 billion in funding behind Project Prometheus potentially gives it an advantage in the expensive race to build A.I. technologies. Earlier this year, Thinking Machines Lab, founded by a group of former OpenAI employees, raised $2 billion in funding. Project Prometheus has already hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers poached from top A.I. companies such as OpenAI, DeepMind and Meta, the three people said. A number of well-known A.I. companies -- including OpenAI, Google and Meta -- are already working on technologies meant to accelerate work in the physical sciences. Two researchers at Google DeepMind, the company's primary A.I. lab, recently won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on a project called AlphaFold, which can help accelerate drug discovery in small but important ways. Executives at these companies and others in the field often say that large language models -- the technologies that power chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT -- will soon achieve significant scientific breakthroughs. OpenAI and Meta say their technologies are already approaching this goal in areas like math and theoretical physics. But companies like Periodic Labs and now Project Prometheus aim to build A.I. models that learn in more complex ways than chatbots do. Large language models learn their skills by analyzing massive amounts of digital text. By pinpointing patterns in Wikipedia articles, news stories and other information culled from across the internet, these systems learn to mimic the way people put words together. They can even learn to write computer programs and solve math problems. The new companies are focusing on systems that can also learn from the physical world. Periodic Labs, which has $300 million in backing, plans to build its own lab in Northern California where robots will run scientific experiments on an enormous scale. By analyzing this physical trial and error, A.I. systems can learn to perform experiments largely on their own -- at least in theory. Project Prometheus will explore similar work, according to the people familiar with the company's plans.

NYT: Jeff Bezos co-CEO of new AI venture Project Prometheus

Project Prometheus is already backed with $6.2bn, partly funded by Bezos, reports the New York Times. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and one of the world's wealthiest men with a net worth of $256bn, is set to become the co-CEO of a new AI venture called Project Prometheus, reports the New York Times. According to the publication, Project Prometheus will apply AI to physical tasks, including in robotics, drug development and scientific discoveries. The company will focus on AI that assists engineering and manufacturing in a number of sectors, including in computers, aerospace and automobiles. The New York Times reports that Project Prometheus is already backed with $6.2bn, partly funded by Bezos. Vik Bajaj, the company's co-founder, will be leading the company as co-CEO alongside Bezos. Bajaj, a physicist and chemist, was previously the chief scientific officer (CSO) at Google Life Sciences, the chair and CSO at Verily and held a number of academic positions at University of California, Berkley and Stanford University's School of Medicine. More recently, Bajaj led Foresite Labs as its co-founder and CEO. He left the company to start this new project with Bezos, sources told the publication. According to Project Prometheus' LinkedIn page, Nal Kalchbrenner, an angel investor and a former research scientist with Google, is listed as the company's founding member of technical staff. Moreover, sources say that the company has already hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers poached from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta. Although, it is unclear when Project Prometheus was founded and where it will be based. Bezos' new venture is one among a growing list of companies attempting to tackle AI for physical tasks. Earlier this year, several former researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other large AI projects left to start a new venture called Periodic Labs, which also focuses on accelerating scientific discoveries. Last year, the Amazon founder also invested in a start-up applying AI to robots, called Physical Intelligence. Meanwhile, Amazon's new operations technologies Blue Jay and Project Eluna are furthering the company's venture into utilising physical AI. Also, in a recent earnings call, SoftBank chief financial officer Yoshimitsu Goto referenced taking "bold steps" into physical AI with the acquisition of ABB Robotics for around $5.4bn, as well as with its continued investments into OpenAI and Arm. Project Prometheus is Bezos' first formal operational role in a company since he stepped down as Amazon CEO in 2021. Though he is strongly involved with space-tech company Blue Origin as its founder. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news. Jeff Bezos. Image: Daniel Oberhaus via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Jeff Bezos to co-lead AI startup in first operational role since Amazon

Jeff Bezos will take an active leadership role as co-chief executive officer of a new artificial intelligence startup called Project Prometheus, the New York Times reported Monday (via Reuters). The company focuses on AI applications for engineering and manufacturing, including computers, automobiles, and spacecraft. With $6.2 billion in funding, Project Prometheus ranks among the most well-financed early-stage startups globally. This marks Bezos' first formal operational position since stepping down as Amazon CEO in July 2021. His co-CEO will be Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who previously worked with Google co-founder Sergey Brin at the "Moonshot Factory" (X). Project Prometheus has already recruited nearly 100 employees, including researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta. Bezos is entering a highly competitive AI market dominated by companies like OpenAI, Meta, and Google, as well as numerous emerging startups. The firm aims to leverage cutting-edge AI to accelerate innovation in hardware and manufacturing processes.

Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos Launches AI Startup Project Prometheus | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The company, dubbed "Project Prometheus," is launching with $6.2 billion in financing, some of it from Bezos himself, the New York Times (NYT) reported Monday (Nov. 17), citing three sources familiar with the project. The report notes this is the first time Bezos has taken an official operational role in a company since leaving Amazon four years ago. Project Prometheus has already hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers recruited from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta, the sources said. The NYT says the company has thus far kept a low profile, and it's unclear when it was even started or where it will be based. According to the report, Project Prometheus is part of a wave of companies working to apply AI to physical tasks like robotics or drug design. This year saw the launch of Periodic Labs, a company founded by veterans of Meta, OpenAI, DeepMind and other major AI players, focused on developing AI that can boost discoveries in fields like chemistry and physics. That company plans to build its own lab in Northern California where robots will conduct scientific experiments on a massive scale. By examining these efforts, AI systems can, in theory, learn to carry out experiments largely on their own, the report added. Project Prometheus will delve into similar work, according to the sources familiar with the company's plans. The company is working on AI to assist in engineering and manufacturing in fields such as computers, automobiles and aerospace, aligning with Bezos' interest in space travel, the report added. Joining Bezos as co-founder/co-CEO is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who worked with Google's co-founder Sergey Brin at Google's X. That project produced Wing, a drone delivery service, and the self-driving vehicle that became Waymo. In other AI news, PYMNTS spoke recently with Trulioo CEO Vicky Bindra for the "What's Next in Payments: The Year of the CEO" series. He characterized 2025 as the year in which CEOs came to terms with what artificial intelligence truly means for their companies. "Is it machine learning? Is it agents? Or is it generative AI? They're sort of connected," he said. "But people talk about them as very different blocks. Your ability to be either influenced, supported or disintermediated by any of these technologies is what's causing the biggest concern or opportunity for businesses."

Jeff Bezos to co-lead AI startup in first operational role since Amazon, NYT reports

(Reuters) -Jeff Bezos will serve as co-chief executive officer of a new artificial intelligence startup that focuses on AI for engineering and manufacturing of computers, automobiles and spacecraft, the New York Times reported on Monday. The company, called Project Prometheus, has garnered $6.2 billion in funding, partly from the Amazon founder, making it one of the most well-financed early-stage startups in the world, the report said, citing three people familiar with the company. This is the first time Bezos has taken a formal operational role in a company since he stepped down as the CEO of Amazon in July 2021. Though he is involved in Blue Origin, his official title at the space firm is founder. With the new startup, Bezos is entering a crowded AI market with several smaller firms attempting to break through with new software and products while in a race with industry mainstays such as the Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Meta and Google. Reuters could not independently verify the report. Bezos and a representative did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Bezos' co-chief executive is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who worked closely with Google's co-founder Sergey Brin at Google's X, a research effort often called "The Moonshot Factory," the report said. Project Prometheus has already hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers from top AI firms such as OpenAI, DeepMind and Meta, according to the Times. (Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)