Adam D’Angelo

In a 2025 South Park Commons interview, D’Angelo recalled that he was introduced to QBasic through a friend in middle school, and later, in his last two years of high school, he met Mark ZuckerbergMark ZuckerbergMark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook, Chairman and CEO of Meta, and a co-founder of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. His work spans social networking, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.Open the full entry; the two worked together on a senior project that could recommend music based on the order in which songs were played.⁠[1]

In 2002, D’Angelo represented the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry at the International Olympiad in Informatics and won a silver medal. The official results database records a total score of 272 points and a rank of 34th out of 276 contestants.⁠[2]

While at the California Institute of Technology, he formed a team with Jacob Burnim and Nate Paymer that reached the 2003 ACMAustralian Community MediaAustralian Community Media (ACM) is an Australian regional and rural news publishing group with more than 100 brands, including The Canberra Times; in 2019 Nine sold it to a company controlled by interests associated with Antony Catalano and Thorney Investment Group.Open the full entry International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals; he was a first-year student at the time. In 2004, he, Burnim, and Po-Shen LohPo-Shen LohPo-Shen Loh is an American mathematician and professor of mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University whose research lies at the intersection of combinatorics, probability and computer science; he was for many years head coach of the US International Mathematical Olympiad team and founded the math-learning platform Expii and the pandemic contact-tracing app NOVID.Open the full entry competed again at the World Finals in Prague and placed seventh in the world; the university’s news report also noted the team’s 2003 world ranking as 13th.⁠[3][4]

A formal biography filed by Asana records that D’Angelo held several senior positions at Facebook from June 2005 to June 2008, including chief technology officer from November 2006 to June 2008. The biography confirms that he holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the California Institute of Technology, and the university’s 2011 magazine listed him as a member of the bachelor’s class of 2006.⁠[5][6]

D’Angelo began serving as a director of Asana in December 2008. The company’s later proxy statements cited his knowledge of the company’s history, his experience managing technology companies, and his board experience as the basis for his service; this directorship is a different responsibility from his later day-to-day management of Quora.⁠[5]

In April 2009, D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever began developing QuoraQuoraQuora is an American question-and-answer and knowledge-sharing website and the company that operates it, Quora, Inc., whose core product centers on users asking, answering, and voting to rank content; since 2022, the company has also offered Poe, a chat platform that aggregates AI models from multiple companies.Open the full entry, and in June they hired their first employee, Rebekah Cox; D’Angelo has served as CEO since June 2009. The team spent several months experimenting with the interface and the question-and-answer experience, and the service opened to the public in June 2010. The two founders wanted to build a knowledge platform that could keep attracting answerers with firsthand experience and maintain the quality of answers.⁠[7][5]

On February 2, 2011, Instagram announced a $7 million first funding round led by Matt Cohler of Benchmark Capital, with participants including D’Angelo, Jack Dorsey, Chris Sacca, and Steve Anderson. The $7 million was the total size of the round, and public reports did not give D’Angelo’s personal check or exit proceeds.⁠[8]

Contemporaneous reports on May 14, 2012 disclosed that Quora had closed a $50 million Series B round, of which D’Angelo personally invested $20 million, with other participants including Peter ThielPeter ThielPeter Thiel is an American entrepreneur and investor, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund and founded the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young people to leave college and build new things; his public skepticism of higher education, his support for Trump in 2016, and his funding of litigation against Gawker Media have drawn controversy.Open the full entry, MatrixMatrix PartnersMatrix Partners, now branded Matrix, is a US early-stage venture capital firm with roots in Hellman, Ferri Investment Associates, established in 1977. Matrix was founded in 1982 and invests in technology companies from the idea stage through Series A.Open the full entry, and Northbridge; the reports later added a correction that Benchmark had also participated. D’Angelo explained that the funding would be used to expand the team, technical infrastructure, and long-term development, and to keep a buffer against changes in the macroeconomic environment; the total size of the round should not be equated with his personal investment.⁠[9]

In an EconTalk interview recorded on July 19, D’Angelo summarized Quora’s mission as making knowledge that remains in people’s heads, or is locked behind specialized language, easier to access. He recalled that adding too many features early on created maintenance and testing burdens; when improving the product, the team combined personalized recommendations, user behavior data, and qualitative feedback rather than relying solely on managers’ intuition.⁠[10]

In the same interview he said that Quora had set up its experimentation framework about four years earlier and had by then run about 2,000 experiments, with 13 data scientists on a team of about 130 people. Experiments had to state a hypothesis in advance or be explicitly designated as exploration; new findings from exploration had to be confirmed through separate experiments. He also stressed that speed improvements affect user engagement, and that experiment analyses were shared internally to avoid mistaking natural user growth for evidence that every product change was effective.⁠[10]

In a 2023 interview with SemaforSemaforSemafor is a global digital news company founded by Justin B. Smith and Ben Smith that launched in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa in October 2022; it is known for its “Semaform” story structure separating facts, reporter analysis and other views, and earns most of its revenue from advertising, sponsorship and events.Open the full entry, D’Angelo said he was invited to join the OpenAI board in 2018, and that learning about the development of artificial intelligence was one of his reasons for accepting. The directorship coexisted with his role as Quora’s CEO, and when discussing AI risk he clearly distinguished between speaking on behalf of Quora and speaking on behalf of OpenAI.⁠[11]

On December 3, 2018, D’Angelo disclosed on behalf of Quora that about 100 million users had been affected by unauthorized access to its systems, and that potentially compromised data included names, email addresses, encrypted passwords, and data from linked networks that users had authorized for import. The company discovered the incident on November 30 and began notifying affected users and logging them out, while also notifying law enforcement and retaining digital forensics and security firms to assist with the investigation; the company said anonymously written questions and answers were not affected.⁠[12]

On April 13, 2022, the Web3 app Context announced a $19.5 million seed round led by Variant Fund and Sam AltmanSam AltmanSam Altman is an entrepreneur and investor, and the co-founder and chief executive officer of OpenAI. He previously served as president of Y Combinator and founded the location-based social service Loopt. He also helped found Tools for Humanity and Merge Labs, has invested in energy and life sciences ventures, and has driven public discussion of AI governance, employment, and wealth distribution.Open the full entry, with participation from D’Angelo, Dragonfly Capital, Dom Hofmann, and others. The app uses a feed to display the on-chain activity of wallets a user follows, and it launched a new feature to find wallets linked to the accounts a user follows on Twitter. Reports did not disclose D’Angelo’s personal investment amount or any later exit return.⁠[13]

According to D’Angelo’s account to Semafor, Quora tried using generative AI to answer questions on the site directly, but the quality at the time was not yet as good as that of excellent human experts; instant answers and follow-up questions, however, suited a chat interface. The team began developing the standalone app Poe in August 2022. He envisioned Poe as a gateway connecting different models and applications, and hoped it would run separately from Quora while each drove traffic to the other; these were his product judgments and plans for development at the time.⁠[11]

On November 17, OpenAI announced that Sam Altman was departing as CEO, with Mira MuratiMira MuratiMira Murati is an Albanian-born engineer and business executive who served as chief technology officer of OpenAI from 2022 to 2024, briefly acting as interim CEO in November 2023. In 2025 she founded the artificial intelligence company Thinking Machines Lab, where she is CEO.Open the full entry serving in the interim. The directors listed in the announcement included Ilya SutskeverIlya SutskeverIlya Sutskever is a computer scientist who studied under Geoffrey Hinton, helped develop AlexNet and sequence-to-sequence learning, and is a co-founder and former chief scientist of OpenAI. As a board member in 2023 he took part in removing Sam Altman, and after leaving OpenAI in 2024 he founded Safe Superintelligence, which he has led as CEO since 2025.Open the full entry, D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner. The board said at the time that Altman had not been consistently candid in his communications and that it had therefore lost confidence in him; this was the board’s explanation at the time and is not an independent finding regarding D’Angelo’s personal motives or any wrongdoing.⁠[14]

On November 29, OpenAI formally announced that Altman had returned as CEO, with a new initial board chaired by Bret Taylor and composed of Taylor, Larry Summers, and D’Angelo. D’Angelo was the director from the previous board who continued to serve on the new initial board. The announcement also set out plans for an independent review and for improving corporate governance and building out the board.⁠[15]

On January 9, D’Angelo announced on Quora’s official blog that the company had raised $75 million from a16zAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry, saying the round valued the company at $500 million, below its previous peak; he attributed this to rising interest rates and changes in capital markets. a16z’s announcement confirmed that its Growth team led the round and that David GeorgeDavid George (a16z)David George is a venture capitalist and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). After joining from General Atlantic in 2019, he built and leads a16z’s growth-stage investing practice, leading or participating in investments in companies such as SpaceX, OpenAI, Stripe, Roblox and Databricks.Open the full entry would join the board. The company’s funding and valuation are not figures for D’Angelo’s personal assets.⁠[16][17]

D’Angelo said the new funding would go entirely to Poe and was expected to be paid mainly to creators of bots on the platform; Quora had more than 400 million monthly unique visitors and, excluding Poe, had become cash-flow positive. He defined Poe’s two missions as giving users convenient access to a wide range of AI products, and enabling developers to build products with existing or their own models and reach a mass audience. The traffic, cash flow, and funding plans above are the company’s own statements at the time.⁠[16]

On March 8, OpenAI released a summary of the WilmerHale review, which said the 2023 removal stemmed from a breakdown in trust between the prior board and Altman, not from product safety, the pace of development, the company’s finances, or its statements to investors and customers. The summary noted that the prior board had broad discretion to remove him, but that Altman’s conduct did not mandate removal; the original decision process was rushed and lacked a full investigation and an opportunity to respond. A special committee supported Altman and Greg BrockmanGreg BrockmanGreg Brockman is a software engineer and entrepreneur, co-founder and president of OpenAI, and a former chief technology officer of Stripe. His work spans payment infrastructure, engineering organizations and large AI systems, alongside public discussion of AI development and governance.Open the full entry continuing to lead the company.⁠[18]

On May 28, OpenAI announced the formation of a Safety and Security Committee with D’Angelo, Bret Taylor, Nicole Seligman, and Sam Altman as members, initially tasked with a 90-day review of processes and safeguards. On September 16, OpenAI announced that the committee would become an independent board oversight committee chaired by Zico Kolter, with members including D’Angelo, Paul Nakasone, and Seligman, and with oversight authority to delay model releases over safety concerns.⁠[19][20]

On October 28, 2025, OpenAI announced an updated structure: the nonprofit is called the OpenAI Foundation, and the for-profit business became OpenAI Group PBC. The website, as consulted in September 2026, still listed D’Angelo as an independent director of the Foundation. The website explains that the Foundation appoints the Group’s directors through special governance rights and continues to oversee safety work; D’Angelo was also among those described at the time as concurrently serving as Group directors.⁠[21]

Asana disclosed that D’Angelo, Matt Cohler, and Lorrie Norrington submitted their resignations as directors on April 14, effective at the annual meeting of stockholders on June 8; D’Angelo would not stand for reelection. The company described this as an orderly board refreshment and said none of the three had any disagreement with the company on operations, policies, or accounting. The announcement provided for ending his directorship, which began in December 2008.⁠[22]

On April 16, D’Angelo announced on Quora’s official blog that several teams would be reduced. He said that the question-and-answer product Quora was profitable and cash-flow positive, while Poe’s growth had previously been supported by Quora; the company decided that Poe would raise the funds needed for its growth independently, and therefore downsized the Poe team and the sales, general, and administrative functions supporting both products, and carried out a reorganization. The announcement did not disclose the number of layoffs and made clear that both products and future products remain the company’s focus.⁠[23]

CerebrasCerebrasCerebras Systems is an AI computing company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, known for its Wafer-Scale Engine chips, which turn an entire silicon wafer into a single processor, and for the CS-series systems and inference cloud services built on them. Founded in 2015 by Andrew Feldman and four other co-founders, it depended heavily on Abu Dhabi’s G42 for revenue in its early years, shifted from 2025 toward high-speed inference for customers such as OpenAI and AWS, and listed on Nasdaq in May 2026 under the ticker CBRS.Open the full entry’s website lists D’Angelo as an investor. On May 26, The Sacramento Bee reported that the EyesOnOpenAI coalition had written to California Attorney General Rob Bonta asking for an investigation into OpenAI’s procurement deal with Cerebras and possible conflicts of interest arising from personal shareholdings of the executives and directors involved. The report also quoted OpenAI spokesperson Jamie Radice as responding that the relevant interests had been disclosed and reviewed through the existing conflict review process before the deal was approved. This event records a request for an investigation and the company’s response, and should not be described as a finding that D’Angelo broke the law; public materials also do not give his personal investment amount or realized return.⁠[24][25]

On September 22, a16z’s recruiting newsletter announced the Horowitz Andreessen Academy program, saying it had received $42 million in funding led by a16z, and included D’Angelo in its list of angel investors. The program, led by Gagan BiyaniGagan BiyaniGagan Biyani is an edtech entrepreneur, a co-founder of Udemy, Sprig, and Maven, and currently the CEO and a board member of the Horowitz Andreessen Academy. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, he worked early on online courses and food delivery, and later built Maven, which is centered on expert-taught courses in which learners study together as a cohort. In September 2026, he announced plans for a new education program in San Francisco for high school graduates.Open the full entry, plans to begin classes in 2027 and is aimed at young entrepreneurs after high school graduation. The $42 million is the program’s entire round of funding; the newsletter did not disclose D’Angelo’s personal investment, and planned classes should not be described as already under way.⁠[26]