Upstarts · 2 min · Apr 16, 2026

Gomez wants Cohere to IPO for broader ownership and scrutiny

Aidan Gomez · Co-founder & CEO, Cohere

Aidan Gomez wants an IPO to let private citizens own Cohere and to make its finances public.

In this episode

30:18 Cohere chose independence over the easier growth path5 min
21:48 Gomez sees AI-driven growth as a defense against scarcity4 min
25:13 AI sovereignty depends on a diverse supply of providers4 min
36:31 Cohere keeps humans involved in sensitive AI decisions3 min
4:13 North lets staff build automations without creating a new product3 min
18:49 Cohere began with a bet on training a model on the whole web2 min
8:17 Rural internet scarcity led Gomez into hands-on AI research5 min
39:33Gomez wants Cohere to IPO for broader ownership and scrutiny2 min

Up next · Modern WisdomAI can develop abilities its builders did not explicitly teach 4:43

“People can see your finances, you know, you have to report them, you have no other choice, you're way more, you're better governed because you're under higher scrutiny.”

Aidan Gomezat 40:22 · Upstarts

Takeaways

Gomez wants individual investors to be able to own shares.
Public reporting adds scrutiny to Cohere's finances.
He says impact matters more to him than personal valuation.

About this segment

Aidan Gomez wants an IPO to let private citizens own Cohere and to make its finances public. He values participation and scrutiny beyond the valuation itself.

Aidan Gomez is co-founder and CEO of Cohere.

Co-founded Cohere, the sovereign AI company, and co-authored the Transformer paper, Attention Is All You Need.

Alex Konrad, Host · Founder & editor, Upstarts Media
Ran Forbes' Midas List for ten years and co-created its Cloud 100 list; founded Upstarts in 2025.

From “Cohere's Aidan Gomez: The Canadian Founder Taking AI Models To The World, Not Just Big Tech”, Apr 16, 2026. Watch the full episode

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

39:40
When you think about your overarching mission or sort of what winning or success would look like, is it measured by impact? Is it measured by the scale of how big Cohere grows? I don't know if a trillion dollar IPO is a goal for you as it seems to be for some of your peers, but is that something that you'd be happy to have incidentally? When you think where this ends up, what's on the vision board?
40:03
Yeah, I don't care about the valuation of the IPO or I do care about IPO because I think people need to be able to, private citizens need to be able to take a stake in a company. I just think that's good. Like if we stay private forever and it's only like institutional investors. have access to taking ownership of Cohere. That's a bad outcome. And the other good thing about IPOing is just the, you get additional scrutiny. People can see your finances, you know, you have to report them, you have no other choice, you're way more, you're better governed because you're under higher scrutiny. And so I think Cohere should IPO on the basis of those two things, better governance, more scrutiny, and the fact that more people will get to participate.
40:50
But I don't, like, obviously I want the valuation to be fair and high for my investors. For your investors, not for you, though. I don't know. I'm, like, rich enough already. It's okay. I don't know if it really matters that much anymore. But it matters to me the impact that Cohere has in the world and that we're able to support this broader mission of helping countries be more resilient. in particular helping democracies be more resilient no matter what comes so if we can contribute to that mission if we can help countries become more sovereign to have more autonomy to be able to feel like they're on more secure footing so that they can push back against bad behavior and make decisions that are right for the values that they believe in that's a success and I think we'll get paid along the way