This Week’s Top Talent Pools

SpaceX (Nasdaq: SPCX) exercised a call option to acquire AI coding startup Cursor (Anysphere) for $60 billion in shares, per an SEC filing — the largest acquisition ever of a VC-backed startup. Cursor raised $3.38B since 2022 from Thrive Capital, a16z, OpenAI Startup Fund, Accel, DST Global, Coatue, and Nvidia. ARR surpassed $3B by May 2026.

  1. Arvid Lunnemark in SF (Founder @ Integrous Research)

    1. Role: Co-Founder @ Anysphere (3.5 yrs)

    2. Other Experience: Quant @ Jane Street, SWE @ Stripe, MIT CS

    3. Description: "We are a research lab devoted to protecting individual human freedom before, during, and after the start of the superintelligence era"

    4. Contact: Site

  2. Shayan Pardis in SF (Stealth)

    1. Role: Research Engineer @ Cursor (<1 yr)

    2. Other Experience: Undergraduate Researcher @ MIT CSAIL, ML Research Intern @ Backflip, SWE Intern @ Citadel

    3. Description: "Something new"

    4. Contact: [email protected], Site

  3. Colin Zhao in SF (Potential Founder)

    1. Role: Engineering and Research @ Anysphere (<1 yr)

    2. Other Experience: MTS @ Etched, Co-Founder & CTO @ Toppings

    3. Description: Left Etched 1/25. UCLA class of '27

    4. Contact: [email protected]

Databricks is reportedly considering a new funding round that could value the data + AI lakehouse platform at $165–175 billion, per The Information. The company's annualized revenue run rate exceeded $5.4B (up 65% YoY) as of its last $5B raise at $134B in February.

  1. Clemens Mewald in SF (Stealth)

    1. Role: Director of PM, ML & DS @ Databricks (3.5 yrs)

    2. Other Experience: CEO @ Brain Co ($30M from Elad Gil), Head of Product @ Instabase, PM Lead of ML @ Google AI & Brain, MIT MBA

    3. Description: Left Brain Co on 1/26. "Something new"

  2. Rajkumar Sen in SF (Potential Founder)

    1. Role: Engineer @ Databricks (2.5 yrs)

    2. Other Experience: CTO & Founder @ Arcion Labs ($18M from Bessemer —> acq by Databricks), Sr Director of Engineering @ MemSQL

    3. Description: "Unemployed" since 2/26

    4. Contact: [email protected]

  3. Ajay Saini in SF (Stealth)

    1. Role: Sr Engineering Manager @ Databricks (2.5 yrs)

    2. Other Experience: Early Eng @ MosaicML ($18M from Radical Ventures —> acquired by Databricks for $1.3B), SWE @ Rubrik, MIT MEng + BS CS

    3. Description: "Building" since 3/26

  4. Sean O'Bannon in SF (Co-Founder @ Cranston AI)

    1. Role: ML @ Databricks (<1 yr)

    2. Other Experience: Co-Founder & CTO @ ReMatter ($20M from Founders Fund, Index Ventures), Stanford MS + BS CS

    3. Description: "A new kind of accounting company"

  5. Markus De Shon and Julian Shalaby in SF (CEO & Co-Founder @ Perj Security)

    1. Role: Director of Detection Engineering & SWE @ Databricks (4.5 yrs)

    2. Other Experience: Sr Security Eng @ Netflix, Sr Security Eng @ Google, Founder & Principal Threat Scientist @ E8 Security ($24M raised —> acq by VMware), Chief Scientist @ SecureWorks, Georgia Tech PhD Nuclear Physics

    3. Description: "Robust persistence detection for the cloud"

  6. Jason Kim in SF (Founder & CTO @ Verve Market)

    1. Role: Sr SWE @ Databricks (4 yrs)

    2. Other Experience: Founding Engineer @ Snackpass ($95M from A16Z, GC, Craft, YC), SWE @ Thumbtack, Yale BS CS

    3. Description: "Shop thousands of products from local grocery stores, matched to the way you eat"

  7. Max Allen in NYC (Stealth)

    1. Role: SWE Intern @ Databricks (<1 yr)

    2. Other Experience: Staff SWE & Founding Fraud Team Eng @ Ramp, SWE @ Neeva, SWE Intern @ Airbnb, Contrary VP, MIT BS CS

    3. Description: Stealth since 10/25

  8. Paul Ogilvie in Scranton (Potential Founder)

    1. Role: Eng Director & Founded ML Platform Teams @ Databricks (6 yrs)

    2. Other Experience: Sr EM @ LinkedIn, CMU PhD

    3. Description: "Making Machine Learning Easy"

Fox agreed to buy Roku in a roughly $25 billion deal, combining its Tubi, Fox One, and Fox Nation streaming businesses with the largest connected-TV streaming platform.

  1. Sandro Catanzaro in Boston (Stealth)

    1. Role: Head of Publisher Media Strategy @ Roku (3 yrs)

    2. Other Experience: PM @ The Trade Desk, Founder & Chief Innovation Officer @ DataXu (invented RTB, $88M raised; acq by Roku for $150M), Consultant @ Bain, MIT Sloan + MS Aero

    3. Description: Stealth since 1/26

Salesforce is acquiring Fin (formerly Intercom), the AI customer service company whose software resolves customer queries across chat, email, WhatsApp, phone, and Slack, for about $3.6 billion.

  1. George Ezenna in SF (Stealth)

    1. Role: Product Engineer @ Intercom (2 yrs)

    2. Other Experience: Co-Founder @ CloudTrucks ($180M+ raised from Tiger Global, Caffeinated Capital), MIT CS + Cambridge

    3. Description: Stealth since 5/26

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