This marks Bezos’s first operational role since stepping down as Amazon CEO in July 2021. The AI startup has already raised around $6.2 billion in funding and it aims to revolutionise manufacturing and engineering with AI applications in aerospace, automative and other sectors. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently announced his decision to return into a formal leadership role more than four years after leaving Amazon.
The billionaire will serve as co-chief executive (co-CEO) of Project Prometheus, a new AI company. Bezos will be sharing the CEO title with Vikram ‘Vik’ Bajaj, a scientist-entrepreneur whose career spans cutting-edge research biotech and venture capital.
The startup has already assembled nearly 100 employees, including researchers recruited from leading AI companies such as OpenAI, DeepMind and Meta, according to sources familiar with the company.
Technology and entrepreneurship, according to Vik Bajaj’s LinkedIn profile highlights his unique blend of science. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ AI startup targets aerospace and automotive manufacturing Bezos’s co-founder and co-CEO is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who previously worked closely with Google co-founder Sergey Brin at Google X, the tech giant’s experimental research division known as “The Moonshot Factory”. Bajaj is a physicist and biomedical scientist who has moved seamlessly between academia, biotech startups, and venture capital, building a reputation as a leader at the intersection of AI, healthcare, and advanced research infrastructure. He did his specialisation in magnetic resonance and advanced imaging techniques. He is best known for his work in biotechnology and computational sciences, having held leadership roles at Verily (Google’s life sciences arm) and GRAIL, a cancer-detection startup. The Times reports that Bajaj also co-founded health tech venture Verily and later led Foresite Labs before joining Project Prometheus.