Stories
Indian-Origin CTOs Lead AI Race at OpenAI, Anthropic Without IIT Degrees
- •Vijaye Raji (OpenAI) and Rahul Patil (Anthropic), both Indian-origin, are shaping the global AI race as CTOs.
- •Neither Raji nor Patil attended an Indian Institute of Technology, instead pursuing engineering degrees from other Indian colleges.
- •Raji, CTO of Applications at OpenAI, oversees engineering for ChatGPT and Codex, joining after OpenAI acquired his startup Statsig.
- •Patil, CTO of Anthropic, leads engineering across product, infrastructure, and security, having previously held senior roles at Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Stripe.
- •Both executives were recognized in TIME's inaugural Executives of the Year: Tech & Data list for their impact on technology.
Key Questions Answered
Vijaye Raji serves as the CTO of Applications at OpenAI. In this position, he oversees product engineering for ChatGPT and Codex, alongside management of data, experimentation, growth, infrastructure, and integrity functions.
Rahul Patil is the CTO of Anthropic, where he oversees engineering across product, compute, infrastructure, inference, data science, and security. Before joining Anthropic in October 2025, he held senior infrastructure and technical roles at major firms like Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Stripe.
Vijaye Raji joined OpenAI after the company acquired his software startup, Statsig, in 2025 in a deal valued at approximately $1.1 billion. Following the acquisition, OpenAI announced in September 2025 that he would take on the role of CTO of Applications.
