TBPN launches the Metis List, ranking the world's top 100 AI researchers
Jul 29, 2025
Key Points
- TBPN publishes the Metis List, a curated ranking of the world's top 100 AI researchers built from Google Scholar data and input from major AI labs, already being used by Silicon Valley recruiters including Mark Zuckerberg.
- The list spans international representation across Canada, the UK, Australia, Russia, and China, with notable researchers including Jeff Dean, Yan LeCun, and Jürgen Schmidhuber.
- TBPN plans to expand the list into future projects including AI researcher trading cards tied to career moves, with an email signup for updates on upcoming drops.
Summary
TBPN published the Metis List, a curated ranking of the world's top 100 AI researchers available at metislist.com. The list started with Google Scholar's top 5,000 researchers and was narrowed using input from contacts at major AI labs, factoring in citation counts, papers written, and research interests.
The ranking builds on an unnamed list that has circulated in Silicon Valley and that Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly used for recruiting. Notable researchers on the list include Alan Turing (ranked 6), John Schulman, Jeff Dean (Google researcher who built MapReduce, BigTable, and TensorFlow), Jürgen Schmidhuber, and Yan LeCun. Shalto Douglas ranked 56.
The list includes international representation from Canada, the UK, Australia, Russia, and China. Most researchers have photos, though some chose to remain anonymous. Several experts invited to contribute ELO-style rankings declined to be named publicly, citing reluctance to pick favorites.
TBPN plans to use the list as a foundation for future projects, including trading card generation tied to researcher moves. The site includes an email signup for updates on future releases.