Jeff Bezos is one of the richest and most famous tech CEOs in the world, but he hasn’t been CEO of anything since 2021. That’s changing as he takes on the role of co-CEO of a new AI company, according to a New York Times report citing three people close to the company.
Grandiosely named Project Prometheus (not to be confused with the NASA project of the same name), the company will focus on using AI to achieve breakthroughs in research, engineering, manufacturing, and other areas that are dubbed part of the “physical economy” — unlike software applications that are probably the first thing most people think of when they hear “AI.”
Bezos’ co-CEO will be Dr. Vik Bajaj, a chemist and physicist who previously led life sciences work at Google X, an Alphabet-backed research group that worked on speculative projects that could lead to more product categories. (For example, he developed technologies that would later support Google’s Waymo service.) Bajaj also worked at Verily, another Alphabet-backed research group focused on life sciences, and Foresite Labs, an incubator for new AI companies.
