Bringing the biggest brains together across disciplines to better understand the brain.
Big Brain Lab is a research and product company focused on understanding the brain.
The brain is the organ we understand least. Nobody has read one, neuron by neuron, and nobody can yet say what a drug will do in a brain before giving it to an animal and then to a person.
Understanding it is not one discipline's job. It will take neuroscientists, computer scientists, chemists, microscopists, pharmacologists and the people who have learned to read artificial neural networks, working on the same problem at the same time. That is what we are building: a lab where the biggest brains across those fields work together on the brain, and the products that pay for the work.
Market
OpenThree problems worth solving, each bigger than the last. We describe the problems, not the solutions.
Research
OpenWhat we have done so far, written up pass or fail, every number with its unit and its source.
Fellows
OpenExperts across disciplines who want to work together to further our understanding of the brain. Apply to be one.
Dan Siroker
Co-Founder & CEO
Dan has been passionate about the intersection of computer science and neuroscience since he graduated from Stanford in 2005. Since then he has built two successful companies and gained the right experience to prepare him to lead this third, and most ambitious, endeavor.
In 2010, he co-founded Optimizely, a platform to democratize the scientific method. He grew it to 450 employees and $120 million in annual recurring revenue, a B2B software business with thousands of customers, some paying more than $1 million a year, and sold it for $300 million.
In 2018, he co-founded the Mind Emulation Foundation to fund and conduct scientific research in order to accelerate our path toward human mind emulation.
In 2020, he co-founded Limitless, a consumer AI hardware company whose Pendant was one of the most successful AI wearables in the world. He led a team that built hardware for 1/100 of the cost and 1/5 of the time that companies like Meta spend on hardware. Meta acquired Limitless in 2025.
Dan has raised over $250 million in venture capital from top-tier investors like a16z, Benchmark, First Round Capital, Y Combinator, and Sam Altman.
To the extent that Dan has been successful in his career it is because he has recruited a world-class team of experts in different fields and created a culture that enables them to reach their full potential.
If you want to help, apply to be a fellow.
A few hours a month, your honest opinion, and the problems below are a good start. We're all ears!
Become a fellow