A 24-year-old former OpenAI researcher now runs one of the fastest-growing hedge funds on the planet. Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness LP has ballooned to over $20 billion in assets under management, a figure that would have sounded absurd when the fund launched with a few hundred million dollars in late 2024.
The fund has posted returns exceeding 1,000% since inception. Year-to-date in 2026, it’s up roughly 270%. Those are not typos.
From OpenAI intern to hedge fund heavyweight
Aschenbrenner worked on OpenAI’s Superalignment team, the group tasked with figuring out how to keep superintelligent AI from going sideways. He left in April 2024, reportedly after clashing with leadership over safety concerns and information security.
He published a sprawling essay titled “Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead” in June 2024, laying out his thesis that demand for AI compute was about to explode in ways most investors hadn’t yet priced in.
