Leopold Aschenbrenner
Leopold Aschenbrenner is an AI researcher and investor whose work spans existential risk, model alignment, and AI strategy. He graduated as Columbia College’s 2021 valedictorian and researched economic growth and existential risk at Oxford’s Global Priorities Institute. At OpenAI, he coauthored Weak-to-Strong Generalization, which tested how weak supervision could support stronger models. His 2024 essay series Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead examined deep-learning trends and international competition; he also founded an AGI-focused investment firm. As of October 2026, he is founder and chief investment officer of Situational Awareness LP.
- Now at
- Situational Awareness LP
- Works
- 5
- Citations
- 25
- h-index
- 1
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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2020
The Risks of Stagnation
In 2020, he publishes The Risks of Stagnation, an essay based on his paper on existential risk and economic growth. It discusses artificial intelligence among technologies that could threaten human survival.
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2021
Columbia and Oxford research
Columbia College names him its 2021 valedictorian; he studies economics and mathematics-statistics. In 2021, he starts an economics research fellowship at Forethought Foundation and a research-affiliate role at Oxford’s Global Priorities Institute.
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2022
Leaving the FTX Future Fund
He joins the FTX Future Fund and resigns with its team in November 2022 when FTX’s collapse leaves them unable to work or process grants.
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2023
Weak-to-strong generalization
At OpenAI, he works on the Superalignment team and coauthors the 2023 paper Weak-to-Strong Generalization, which studies whether weak model supervision can elicit the capabilities of stronger models. The paper finds that strong models trained on weak labels can outperform weak supervisors, while simple fine-tuning still falls short of full capabilities.
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June 2024
Situational Awareness essays
In June 2024, he publishes the essay series Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead, which covers deep-learning trends, international competition, and The Project. He launches Situational Awareness LP, an AGI-focused hedge fund built around the essay’s AI thesis.
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2025
Existential risk and growth
In December 2025, he coauthors Existential Risk and Growth with Philip Trammell, a working paper that models how technological development may reduce existential risk by speeding up solutions and increasing willingness to pay for safety.
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As of October 2026
Leading Situational Awareness
By March 2026, he runs a multibillion-dollar hedge fund built on his essay’s thesis. As of October 2026, he is founder and chief investment officer of Situational Awareness LP, an investment firm focused on artificial general intelligence.
Sources and credits
Photo: forourposterity.com; Leopold Aschenbrenner - FOR OUR POSTERITY; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: forourposterity.com. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.
- The Risks of Stagnation (Article for Works in Progress)
- Columbia College Announces 2021 Valedictorian and Salutatorian
- The 2021 Cohort
- How former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner turned a viral AI prophecy into profit, with a $1.5 billion hedge fund and outsize influence from Silicon Valley to D.C.
- The FTX Future Fund team has resigned
- OpenAI thinks superhuman AI is coming -- and wants to build tools to control it
- Weak-to-Strong Generalization: Eliciting Strong Capabilities With Weak Supervision
- For Our Posterity — by Leopold Aschenbrenner
- Existential Risk and Growth
- The Rhine Group — Leopold Aschenbrenner
- Why Leopold Aschenbrenner’s AI hedge fund is betting big on power companies and Bitcoin miners to fuel the ‘superintelligence’ race