Databricks co-founder Konwinski named TIME100 AI, commits $100M to challenge closed labs
lateinteraction · x · 2026-08-28
Andy Konwinski, co-founder of Databricks, Perplexity and Laude, has been named to TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI 2026. He gathered 100 AI researchers in San Francisco to discuss keeping the AI frontier open, arguing that leaving frontier models to a handful of private companies centralizes power — "the frontier closes through a series of decisions." The open-source framework he helped create as a Berkeley PhD student underpins Databricks, now a $190B company. In 2024 he launched the $150M Laude Ventures fund; in 2025 he committed $100M of his own money to the nonprofit Laude Institute, funding CS researchers. "The open science community needs a heavyweight contender in the ring with OpenAI and Anthropic," he says.
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