4 of the 25 people with the most-cited recent papers also lead on career citations
Data as of
People with OpenAlex citations counted
2,104
Recent top 25 also in the career top 25 (ties included)
4
Median first-paper year, recent top 50
2002
Who wrote the recent papers that draw the most citations? We estimate that 4 of the 25 leaders for papers dated 2023–2025 also lead on career citations. 21 people enter the leading group when we use recent papers.
Key findings
4 of the 25 recent leaders also rank among the 25 career citation leaders.
Recent leaders started publishing 8 years later at the median.
19% of the 48 recent leaders with a known employer work at a company.
Who leads on recent papers?
We count citations through 15 October 2026 to papers dated 2023–2025. Career citations and h-index use the full author record. We exclude records flagged as uncertain and include ties at each cutoff.
The 2023–2025 papers of Pushmeet Kohli have 22,235 citationsCitations to papers dated 2023–2025, for the 15 people with the most. Each note gives the person's rank on career citations. Gray: also a career leader. Teal: outside the career leaders.
Bars for the 15 people whose papers from 2023–2025 have the most citations, labeled with their rank on career citations.
Source: People of Superintelligence career records from biographies and OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026. OpenAlex publication years, with date corrections supported by saved biographies.
Josh Abramson has career citation rank 1078th, the lowest among these 15 recent leaders. Google has employed 10 of the leading 10 people. Shared papers are a possible reason: OpenAlex gives every coauthor the full citation count.
For the 50 recent leaders, papers from 2023–2025 account for a median 15.4% of career citations. The corresponding median for the 50 career citation leaders is 0.6%. We calculate the share for each person before taking the median.
On 15 October 2026, we checked local records for 273 unique works saved for 40 people. Saved biographies support 2 publication-date corrections. We hold 2 candidate corrections for source evidence. The applied corrections remove 23,395 citations from 1 eligible person. We subtract each supported work's full citation count from its OpenAlex year and remove it from that year's paper count, with a lower bound of zero; per-year citation detail is unavailable. We retain later journal versions of earlier preprints. Further date and author errors can still change the ranks.
When did these researchers start?
Recent leaders started publishing 8 years later at the medianYear of the first sustained publication record for the top 50 ranks, including ties: median (dot) and middle half (bar).
Rows compare the year of the first sustained publication record for the top 50 ranks, including ties, by recent citations, career citations and h-index.
Source: People of Superintelligence career records from biographies and OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026. Start: the first publication year followed by another within 3 years.
Data table
List
People
First quarter
Median
Third quarter
Most cited 2023–2025 papers
50
1995
2002
2009
Most career citations
50
1983
1994
2006
Highest h-index
50
1976
1986
1990
The median start year for leaders on recent papers is 2002. The median start year for career citation leaders is 1994. The median start year for h-index leaders is 1986. Older papers have had more time to collect citations and pass the thresholds used in the h-index.
A start year needs another publication year within 3 years. We exclude starts before age 15, or before 1900 when birth year is unknown.
Where do the leaders work?
Companies employ 19% of recent leaders with a known employerTop 50 ranks, including ties, by the kind of the first listed current organization. UniversitiesCompaniesInstitutes and labs
Stacked bars split the top 50 ranks of each list, including ties, into people at universities, companies, and institutes and labs.
Source: People of Superintelligence career records from biographies and OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026.
Data table
List
Universities
Companies
Institutes and labs
No known current organization
Most cited 2023–2025 papers
27
9
12
2
Most career citations
23
12
8
7
Highest h-index
37
3
7
3
Universities employ 27 of the 48 recent leaders with a known employer (56%). We group each person by their first listed current organization.
These employers have the most people among the 50 recent leaders we compare here. We count a person once at each current organization.
Career data comes from the biographies on this site and from OpenAlex author records, as of 15 October 2026. People whose OpenAlex record may be incomplete or mixed are left out of citation figures.