John Schulman
About John Schulman
John Schulman is an AI researcher and co-founder of OpenAI. His homepage says he led the creation of ChatGPT and, from 2022 to 2024, co-led OpenAI's post-training team, which built models for ChatGPT and the OpenAI API.
He announced in August 2024 that he was joining Anthropic. In February 2025 he left to join Thinking Machines Lab, where he is co-founder and chief scientist. At Anthropic he worked on the Alignment Science team.
Schulman studied physics at Caltech and received his PhD in computer science from UC Berkeley, advised by Pieter Abbeel. His work there covered robotics and reinforcement learning.
Schulman is not a fund manager. Public databases list him as an individual angel investor with a small number of disclosed rounds. Crunchbase lists three personal investments: Supermaven, Prime Intellect and RadixArk. CB Insights and Tracxn record his Supermaven investment in September 2024.
He has not published an investment thesis, and no source gives a check size or fund size.
RadixArk is a Palo Alto AI infrastructure company that commercializes the open-source SGLang inference engine. It announced a $100M seed round at a $400M valuation in May 2026. Accel and Spark Capital led the round, and Schulman was among the named angel participants.
In September 2024 Schulman joined a $12M round in Supermaven, an AI coding tool. Bessemer Venture Partners led that round. Crunchbase also lists a Series A investment by Schulman in Prime Intellect. It does not give a date or amount in the public view.
His disclosed angel investments are in AI infrastructure and AI developer tools. They range from Series A to a seed round, and all are with US-based companies. The Supermaven and RadixArk rounds were led by institutional firms, and he joined as one of several angels. He has made no public statement about check size or what he looks for in a pitch.
- RadixArk: open-source AI inference and training infrastructure built around SGLang. He was an angel in its $100M seed, announced May 2026.
- Supermaven: AI coding tool. He joined its $12M round led by Bessemer in September 2024.
- Prime Intellect: AI company listed on Crunchbase as a Series A investment. The date is not public in the source.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Schulman
- people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~joschu
- crunchbase.com/person/john-schulman-950d
- cbinsights.com/investor/john-schulman
- tracxn.com/d/people/john-schulman/__4OjxGekKTh7kgjiU_E2kXnIMmx8y19ENjI
- thesaasnews.com/news/supermaven-raises-12-million-in-funding
- finsmes.com/2026/05/radixark-raises-100m-in-seed-funding.html
- app.dealroom.co/news/note/radixark-raises-100m-seed-to-make-ai-inferen
Investing activity
John Schulman appears in 1 AI deal tracked by the Lounge deals desk, rounds totalling $100M. The rounds are mostly Seed, with a median round size of $100M. The most recent is RadixArk (Seed, $100M, Jan 2026).
John Schulman most often invests alongside Spark Capital, Accel, AMD and Hock Tan, and the companies they back on Lounge are mostly in AI Infrastructure.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about John Schulman
Does John Schulman invest in AI startups?
Yes, as an individual angel. Crunchbase lists Supermaven, Prime Intellect and RadixArk. He was a named angel in RadixArk's $100M seed round.
What stage does John Schulman invest at?
His disclosed deals are one seed round (RadixArk) and Series A rounds (Supermaven, Prime Intellect). In the rounds with public detail, institutional investors led and he joined as an angel.
What is John Schulman's check size?
It is not public. None of the sources found state his check sizes.
What does John Schulman do besides angel investing?
He is co-founder and chief scientist of Thinking Machines Lab. He previously worked at Anthropic and co-founded OpenAI.
How can founders reach John Schulman?
He has a personal site at joschu.net and posts on X as @johnschulman2. No public investor contact or pitch process was found, so a warm introduction is the likelier route.
Is John Schulman an angel investor?
Yes. John Schulman invests personally as an angel.
What AI companies has John Schulman invested in?
John Schulman's AI investments include RadixArk. The 1 round on Lounge are listed on this page with amounts, dates and co-investors.
Who does John Schulman co-invest with?
John Schulman's most frequent co-investors on Lounge are Spark Capital (1 deal), Accel (1 deal), AMD (1 deal), Hock Tan (1 deal) and Soumith Chintala (1 deal).