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The top five companies on the 2025 CNBC Disruptor 50 list — Anduril, OpenAI, Databricks, Anthropic and Canva — have a combined valuation of just under $500 billion. This is more than the combined total valuation of almost every past Disruptor 50 list of the last 12 years.

OpenAI, the company that sparked a global arms race for new artificial intelligence capabilities, is the biggest contributor with its $300 billion value. But it is a race in which the other four companies in the top five (and more than two-thirds of the entire 2025 Disruptor 50) are very much key participants.

The piles of cash amassed by these startups is characteristic of a new era of the Disruptor 50 list, an era that began with the 2023 list and very much continues, with the Disruptors using their cash piles to fund their own growth organically, and (notably) inorganically. Databricks has been especially acquisitive, spending billions of dollars to buy other companies in the past year.

But valuation isn’t everything. The eye-popping values attained by the top five companies on this year’s list, and many others throughout the top 50, were technically less important factors in our ranking methodology than other measures of the companies’ growth, scalability, and their overall promise to keep on disrupting in the years to come.

Here’s how we chose the 2025 Disruptor 50:  

All private, independently owned startup companies founded after Jan. 1, 2010, were eligible to be nominated for the Disruptor 50 list. Companies nominated were required to submit a detailed analysis, including key quantitative and qualitative information. 

Quantitative metrics included company-submitted data on their sales, number of users, employee growth (or lack therof), and more. Some of this information has been kept off the record and was used for scoring purposes only. CNBC also brought in data from a pair of outside partners — PitchBook, which provided data on fundraising, implied valuations and investor quality; and IBISWorld, whose database of industry reports we use to compare the companies based on the industries they are attempting to disrupt. 

CNBC’s Disruptor 50 Advisory Board, a group of leading thinkers in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship from around the world, along with the newer Disruptor 50 VC Advisory Board, then ranked the quantitative criteria by importance and ability to disrupt established industries and public companies. This year, the two advisory boards found that scalability and user growth were the most important criteria, followed by sales growth and access to capital and community.

New for 2025, we can compare the way the two different advisory boards considered the importance of the list criteria. While the two boards mostly agreed, the VC group thought that the size of the industry being disrupted was much more important than the academics did, with the latter ranking access to capital and community as more important criterion than the group that provides said access.

The ranking model is complex enough to be sensitive to these differences of opinion, and perhaps more than ever, it makes good on the concept that companies must score highly on a wide range of criteria to make the final list. 

Nominated companies were also asked to submit important qualitative information about themselves, including descriptions of their core business model, ideal customers and recent company milestones. A team of CNBC editorial staff, including TV anchors, reporters and producers, and CNBC.com reporters and editors, along with many members of the Advisory Board, read the submissions and provided holistic qualitative assessments of each company. 

In addition, the VC Advisory Board assessed a small group of finalists as an additional component of the qualitative review. Specifically, we asked the VC group to assess some of the companies that would, if selected, be making the list for the first time, as well as to help in the consideration of high-scoring early stage firms, a group with lower valuations but promising business models poised for future growth. Importantly, these VCs were not permitted to provide an assessment of any company in their firm’s own portfolios.

In the final stage of the process, total qualitative scores were combined with a weighted quantitative score to determine which 50 companies made the list and in what order. 

The new generative AI era that began in 2023 has completely transformed the Disruptor 50 List. Twenty of this year’s 50 companies have made the list for the first time, while another 19 were first-timers in either 2023 or 2024. Put another way, only 11 of the 2025 honorees are pre-ChatGPT CNBC Disruptors. But for most of that group (Anduril, Databricks, and Canva chief among them), the embrace of the new era is what has kept them here.

Sign up for our weekly, original newsletter that goes beyond the annual Disruptor 50 list, offering a closer look at list-making companies and their innovative founders.

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Winklevoss-founded Gemini reportedly prices IPO at $28 per share, valuing the crypto exchange at $3.3 billion

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Winklevoss-founded Gemini reportedly prices IPO at  per share, valuing the crypto exchange at .3 billion

Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss (L-R), creators of crypto exchange Gemini Trust Co., on stage at the Bitcoin 2021 Convention, a cryptocurrency conference held at the Mana Convention Center in Wynwood in Miami, Florida, on June 4, 2021.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

Gemini Space Station, the crypto company founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, priced its initial public offering at $28 per share late Thursday, according to Bloomberg.

A person familiar with the offering told the news service that the company priced the offering above its expected range of $24 to $26, which would value the company at $3.3 billion.

Since Gemini capped the value of the offering at $425 million, 15.2 million shares were sold, according to the report. That was a measure of high demand for the crypto company, which had initially marketed 16.67 million shares. Earlier this week, it increased its proposed price range from between $17 and $19 apiece.

A Gemini spokesperson could not confirm the report.

The company and the selling stockholders granted its underwriters — led by and Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley — a 30-day option to sell an additional 452,807 and 380,526 shares, respectively, per the registration form. Gemini stock will trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol “GEMI.”

Up to 30% of the shares offered will be reserved for retail investors through Robinhood, SoFi, Hong Kong-based Futu Securities, Singapore’s Moomoo Financial, Webull and other platforms.

Gemini, which primarily operates as a cryptocurrency exchange, was founded by the Winklevoss brothers in 2014 and holds more than $21 billion of assets on its platform as of the end of July.

Initial trading will give the market a sense of how long it can keep the crypto IPO party going. Circle Internet and Bullish had successful listings, but there has been a recent consolidation in the prices of blue chip cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether. Also, in contrast to those companies’ profitability, Gemini has reported widening losses, especially in 2025. Per its registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gemini posted a net loss of $159 million in 2024, and in the first half of this year, it lost $283 million.

This week, however, Gemini received a big vote of institutional confidence when Nasdaq said it’s making a strategic investment of $50 million in the crypto company. Nasdaq is seeking to offer its clients access to Gemini’s custodial services, and gain a distribution partner for its trade management system known as Calypso.

Gemini also offers a crypto-backed credit card, and last month, launched another card in partnership with Ripple. The latter garnered more than 30,000 credit card sign-ups in August, a new monthly high that was more than twice the number of credit card sign-ups in the prior month, according to the S-1 filing.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

(Learn the best 2026 strategies from inside the NYSE with Josh Brown and others at CNBC PRO Live. Tickets and info here.)

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OpenAI says nonprofit parent will own equity stake in company of over $100 billion

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OpenAI says nonprofit parent will own equity stake in company of over 0 billion

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella (L), speaks with OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman, who joined by video during the Microsoft Build 2025, conference in Seattle, Washington on May 19, 2025.

Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images

OpenAI on Thursday said its nonprofit parent will continue to have oversight over the company and will own an equity stake of more than $100 billion.

The artificial intelligence startup, recently valued at $500 billion, said this structure will make the nonprofit “one of the most well-resourced philanthropic organizations in the world,” and will allow the company to continue to raise capital.

OpenAI also announced it has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Microsoft, which outlines the next phase of their partnership. Microsoft has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI, backing the company as early as 2019, three years before the launch of of the chatbot ChatGPT.

“We are actively working to finalize contractual terms in a definitive agreement,” OpenAI said in a joint statement with Microsoft, which is also the company’s key cloud partner. “Together, we remain focused on delivering the best AI tools for everyone, grounded in our shared commitment to safety.”

In May, OpenAI bowed to pressure from civic leaders and ex-employees, announcing that its nonprofit would retain control even as the company was restructuring into a public benefit corporation. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit research lab in 2015, but has in recent years become one of the fastest-growing commercial entities on the planet.

OpenAI said Thursday it is working closely with the California and Delaware Attorneys General to establish its structure.

“OpenAI started as a nonprofit, remains one today, and will continue to be one – with the nonprofit holding the authority that guides our future,” the company’s Chairman Bret Taylor said in a statement Thursday.

The startup has been engulfed in a heated legal battle with Elon Musk, one of its co-founders. Musk has been trying to keep OpenAI from converting into a for-profit company as he competes in the generative AI market with his own startup, xAI.

OpenAI said its nonprofit is also opening applications for the first phase of a $50 million grant initiative that is aimed to support other nonprofit and community organizations across AI literacy, economic opportunity and community innovation.

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‘We will do better.’ Microsoft CEO Nadella admits company has to rebuild trust with employees

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'We will do better.' Microsoft CEO Nadella admits company has to rebuild trust with employees

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella departs following a meeting of the White House Task Force on AI Education in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Sept. 4, 2025.

Eric Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told employees in a meeting on Thursday that the company has work to do to smooth relations with employees after announcing several rounds of layoffs and a mandated partial return to in-person work.

In the meeting that was held online, an employee asked executives to speak about a perceived lack of empathy in the company’s culture as of late and steps Microsoft is taking to rebuild trust with its workforce.

“I deeply appreciate that, the question and the sentiment behind it,” Nadella said, in audio that was obtained by CNBC. “I take it as feedback for me and everyone in the leadership team, because at the end of the day, I think we can do better, and we will do better.”

Nadella’s comments come after Microsoft slashed 9,000 jobs in July, following smaller reductions in the months prior. On Tuesday, Microsoft said workers living near its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, must come into the office three days a week, starting in February, with a broader rollout to follow.

Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s human resources chief, said at Thursday’s meeting that reception to the return-to-office announcement has been mixed, with some workers feeling like they’re losing autonomy. But she said that employees in and around Seattle already come in, on average, 2.4 times each week.

Like most of the tech industry, Microsoft went fully remote during the pandemic, and made particular use of its internal Teams video and chat offerings, which gained rapid adoption during that period. Microsoft has been slower than many of its peers to put a mandate in place for coming back to the office. Amazon, one of Microsoft’s top rivals, called employees back to offices five days a week in January.

While Nadella and the executive team are taking criticism from some staffers, Wall Street is applauding the company’s growth and execution. The stock is up almost 20% this year, outperforming the broader market, pushing Microsoft’s market cap to $3.7 trillion, which trails only Nvidia among the world’s most-valuable companies.

In July, Microsoft reported a 24% increase in net income to $27 billion. The company’s gross margin was under 69%, compared with 71% in late 2023. It’s rapidly building and renting data center infrastructure to meet artificial intelligence demand.

AI infrastructure build-up is a long-term story as adoption is only consumer based now

Nadella said at the meeting that with remote work, new employees and those who are early in their careers don’t always feel a sense of apprenticeship or mentorship.

“Management is just mostly all remote, but the interns are all, you know, in one location,” he said. “And so those are things that just will break a social contract.”

Microsoft didn’t immediately provide a comment.

Even with Microsoft’s rapid expansion, Nadella said the company is feeling the pressure. It’s a common theme in the software industry, as concerns proliferate about the impact of AI and its potential to automate work.

“We have some very, very hard work ahead of us, and that hard process of renewal is essentially what we have to do,” Nadella said. “You have to be hardcore in terms of an intellectual honesty about what really needs to happen.”

Microsoft’s Azure cloud business grew 39% in the latest quarter, but revenue in the Windows and devices business increased by just 2.5%.

“Some of the biggest businesses we built may not be as relevant going forward,” Nadella said. “Some of the margin that we love today may not be there tomorrow, and that means you have to be way ahead of all of those going away, right?”

Microsoft, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in April, will retain its core values as it confronts market realities, Nadella said.

“Capital markets have one simple truth,” he said. “There is no permission for any company to exist forever.”

That wasn’t the only contentious topic at the meeting.

Employees are awaiting details from a third-party investigation after The Guardian said in August that Israel’s military used Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure to store Palestinians’ phone calls as part of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Microsoft has fired five employees following protests at its headquarters in Redmond, according to a statement from the group No Azure for Apartheid.

Microsoft President Brad Smith, whose office the protesters entered, addressed the issue on Thursday. He said that he and Coleman met with Jewish Microsoft employees, who have been harassed and threatened and have seen their public information shared online.

“We don’t get to control what happens outside Microsoft, but we need to be clear about one thing,” Smith said. “There is no room for antisemitism at Microsoft, and as a company and as a community, we will protect this group and defend them from that.”

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Nebius Co-Founder: $17.4 B Microsoft deal highlights surging AI infrastructure demand

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