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Ex-Airbnb founders who just went stealth

13 founders who worked at Airbnb started a company in stealth in the last 1783 weeks.

Ex-Airbnb
Showing 13 of 13 founders

Alicia Zhou

Founder
Left
Airbnb
Senior Software Engineer
Before that
Went stealthOct 2026
Work
  • Senior Software Engineer at Airbnb2017-2021 · left Nov 2021
  • Engineering Manager at Zip2021-2026
  • Software Engineer Internship at New York Life2016-2016
Education
  • Cornell UniversityMEng

Sahana G S

Founder
Left
Airbnb
Software Engineer
Before that
Went stealthOct 2026
Work
  • Software Engineer at Airbnb2024-2025 · left Jun 2025
  • Senior Software Engineer at Brex2025-2026
  • Growth Engineer at Revolut2024-2025
  • Senior Software Engineer at Ramp2022-2024
  • Quantitative Research Engineer at Citadel2021-2024
Education
  • UC BerkeleyMaster's
  • Columbia UniversityBA

Gabriela Gresenz

Co-Founder & CTO
Left
Airbnb
Senior Software Engineer
Before that
Went stealthSep 2026
Work
  • Senior Software Engineer at Airbnb2025-2026 · until Sep 2026
  • Senior Software Engineer at Apple2022-2025
  • Software Engineer at Woven by Toyota2021-2022
  • Software Engineer Intern at Lyft2020-2020
  • Product Development at Coder Kids, Inc.2016-2019
Education
  • Vanderbilt UniversityMS
  • Vanderbilt UniversityBS

Jess Zhang

Founder CEO
Left
Airbnb
Data Scientist - Inference
Before that
Went stealthSep 2026
Work
  • Data Scientist - Inference at Airbnb2017-2020 · left May 2020
  • CEO at Blockus2022-2026
  • Data Science Manager at Roblox2020-2022
  • Data Scientist II at Kik Interactive, Inc.2016-2017
  • Data Scientist at Polar Mobile/Nova2015-2016
  • Mergers and Acquisitions Intern at Milliman2014-2014
  • Actuarial Analyst, Life Insurance - Co-op at John Hancock2014-2014
Education
  • University of Waterloo
  • Cass Business SchoolBachelor's
  • University of Oxford

Alexey Eryshev

Founder
Left
Airbnb
Software Engineering Lead
Before that
Went stealthLaunched Munito AI
Work
  • Software Engineering Lead at Airbnb2019-2025 · left May 2025
  • Engineering Team Lead at Mistral2025-2026
  • Software Engineer at Meta2025-2025
  • R&D Software Engineer at Criteo2017-2019
  • Software Engineer at CANAL+ Group2014-2017
  • Junior Researcher at Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics2010-2014
  • Software Engineer at CFT2012-2013
Education
  • Telecom ParisTechMaster's
  • Novosibirsk State University (NSU)Master's

Moneera Alateeq

Co-Founder
Left
Airbnb
Customer Experience & Revenue Operations Lead (SUPER HOST)
Before that
Went stealthSep 2026
Work
  • Customer Experience & Revenue Operations Lead (SUPER HOST) at Airbnb2019-2020 · left Jul 2020
  • Senior Communications Specialist (Storyteller) at Tamara2026-2026
  • Head of Events at Saudi Student Association at NYU2023-2025
  • Digital Marketing Specialist at Sol Health2023-2024
  • NYU x Microsoft AI Accelerator Challenge Winner, Team Leader at Microsoft2024-2024
  • Founder at TikTok2021-2022
  • Marketing Intern at Jamalon2019-2020
Education
  • NYUMaster's
  • Jami'at Al-Balqa Al-TatbiqiyyaBachelor's
  • Omareyah Schools

Ethan B Barman

Founder
Left
Airbnb
Quality Insight Analyst
Before that
Went stealthSep 2026
Work
  • Quality Insight Analyst at Airbnb2017-2019 · left Dec 2019
  • Sr Quality Analyst at Google2014-2017
  • Lead Quality Analyst at IBM2006-2009

Sandeep Dhankar

Founder and CTO
Left
Airbnb
Staff Software Engineer
Before that
Went stealthAug 2026
Work
  • Staff Software Engineer at Airbnb2024-2026 · left Apr 2026
  • Software Architect at Okta2022-2024
  • Principal Software Engineer/ Sr Engineering Manager at Zillow2018-2022
  • Senior Trust Engineer at Atlassian2017-2018
  • Staff Software Engineer at Financial Engines2014-2017
  • Principal Software Engineer at General Dynamics Information Technology2010-2014
  • research assistant at University of Delaware2008-2010
Education
  • University of DelawareMaster's
  • Savitribai Phule Pune UniversityBE
  • random school

Sean Joyce

Co-Founder
Left
Airbnb
Chief Trust Officer
Before that
Went stealthJul 2026
Work
  • Chief Trust Officer at Airbnb2019-2019 · left Oct 2019
  • Global Cybersecurity and Privacy Leader, US Cyber, Risk and Regulatory Leader at PwC2019-2026
  • U.S. Cybersecurity and Privacy Leader at PwC2013-2019
  • Deputy Director at Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)1987-2013
Education
  • Dartmouth CollegeMaster's
  • Boston CollegeBachelor's

Natalia Golunga V

Founder/Product Designer and Manager
Left
Airbnb
R&D
Before that
Went stealthMar 2026
Work
  • R&D at Airbnb2019-2020 · left Mar 2020
  • Product Designer at Tropic2025-2026
  • Product Designer at GlideFast Consulting2023-2025
  • Product Designer at NERIC (ESM/CSM SaaS Tools)2023-2025
  • Lead Product Designer at Good Luck Yogi2023-2024
  • Lifestyle Mentor at Vegan Outreach2020-2024
  • UX/UI Design Mentor at Avocademy (YC W22)2023-2023
Education
  • UC Berkeley
  • Los Angeles City CollegeCertificate
  • Los Angeles City College

Dai Li

Co-Founder & CTO
Left
Airbnb
DS Lead - Trust: Safety/Risk
Before that
Went stealthJan 2026
Work
  • DS Lead - Trust: Safety/Risk at Airbnb2017-2020 · left Jan 2020
  • Director, Monetization GenAI & RankingAI at Meta2022-2025
  • Sr. Director of Engineering, Ads at Tencent2021-2022
  • Head of DS, Ads ML&Experimentation at Meta2020-2021
  • Founding Technical Advisor at WeHome2016-2018
  • Sr. Data Scientist / Tech lead at Airbnb2015-2017
  • Sr. Data Scientist at The Meet Group2013-2015
Education
  • Duke UniversityMaster's
  • University of RochesterMaster's
  • Fudan UniversityBS

Evan P. Thomas

Founder & CEO
Left
Airbnb
Group Product Manager
Before that
Went stealthJan 2025
Work
  • Group Product Manager at Airbnb2018-2019 · left Jan 2019
  • Vice President of Product, UX & Analytics at Automatiq2026-2026
  • Vice President, Product & UX at Epiq2024-2026
  • Vice President, Product & UX @ PWCC (Acquired 2023) at Fanatics2022-2024
  • Director of Product, Category Expansion at StockX2021-2022
  • Sr. Mgr, Product Strategy & UX at eBay2019-2021
  • Group Product Manager - Buyers at eBay2012-2018
Education
  • University of OregonBS

Oliver Bolton

Founder
Left
Airbnb
Staff Software Engineer
Before that
Went stealthJan 2024
Work
  • Staff Software Engineer at Airbnb2019-2023 · left Jul 2023
  • Lead Software Engineer at Hugo (acq. by Calendly)2016-2019
  • Software Engineer at Qwilr2015-2016
  • Software Engineer at App.io2013-2015
  • Lawyer at MinterEllison2012-2013
  • Software Engineer at eStats Capital2006-2011
  • Summer Clerk at MinterEllison2009-2010
Education
  • University of SydneyLLB
  • Bradfield School of Computer Science
  • College of Law

Built on Crustdata. Build your own.

Crustdata tracks hundreds of millions of professional profiles. This directory is one saved search: "current title includes founder, current company is Stealth", re-run every week. Point the same search at your own market.

Get an API key 
# the one request behind this page
curl https://api.crustdata.com/watch/person/search \
  -H "authorization: Bearer $CRUSTDATA_KEY" \
  -H "x-api-version: 2025-11-01" \
  -d '{
    "filters": { "op": "and", "conditions": [
      { "field": "experience.employment_details.current.company_name",
        "type": "[.]", "value": "stealth" },
      { "field": "experience.employment_details.current.title",
        "type": "(.)", "value": "founder" }
    ]},
    "fields": ["basic_profile", "experience", "education"],
    "config": { "trigger": { "type": "interval", "every_hours": 168 } }
  }'
# [.] = exact phrase, (.) = all words. Each week it returns only the new matches.

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About this list

What "stealth" means here: the person's current job is a founder title (Founder, Co-Founder, Founder & CEO…) at a company listed as "Stealth", "Stealth Startup" or similar, because they haven't announced it yet.

Where it comes from: public professional profiles, via the Crustdata API. A new search runs every week and adds whoever newly matches. Profiles can take a few weeks to show up, and start dates are by month.

The company on each row is the most recent job before going stealth, with the title they held there. Where we can, we skip internships, advisor seats and freelance stints. On a "former employer" page it shows the job at that employer instead. Click a row for their full work history and education.