The character arc of Aidan Gomez
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born in Toronto in the mid 1990s and raised in Brighton, Ontario. Between then and now sit a computer science and mathematics degree at Toronto, an internship at Google Brain in 2017 at the age of twenty, a co-authorship on the transformer paper, Cohere founded in 2019, a doctorate at Oxford in 2024, a board seat in 2025 and a twenty billion dollar merger in 2026. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Tap the line to pluck it. Hover or tap any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Aidan Gomez?
Twenty years old, and his name is on the paper.
He was born in Toronto and grew up in Brighton, Ontario, a town of a few thousand people. He took a bachelor's in computer science and mathematics at the University of Toronto.
In 2017, aged twenty, he took an internship at Google Brain. While he was there he was one of the co-authors of a paper called Attention Is All You Need, which introduced the transformer architecture. Almost every large language model since is built on it. It is difficult to overstate how unusual it is to be twenty and on that paper, and it is the pivot of the line: a summer job that turned out to be one of the most cited pieces of work in the field.
He did not stay at Google. In 2019, at about twenty three, he co-founded Cohere with Ivan Zhang and Nick Frosst, building AI for businesses rather than for consumers. By September 2025 the company had raised around one and six tenths of a billion dollars at a valuation above seven billion, and in April 2026 it acquired the German firm Aleph Alpha to form a combined entity valued at twenty billion. Meanwhile he finished what he had started: Oxford granted him the doctorate in 2024, five years after he founded the company. Time named him to its 2023 AI list and Maclean's put him first on its trailblazers list the same year, and in April 2025 he was elected to Rivian's board. His line is worth reading for the gap between the internship and the doctorate.
The moments
Aidan Gomez's timeline.
The 1990s
Born in Toronto
Milestone, and it changed his direction. A town of a few thousand people, a couple of hours east of the city.
The 2010s
Toronto, and two subjects
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Both subjects, which is what the next part needed.
Attention Is All You Need
Milestone, and it changed everything. Twenty years old, on an internship, and his name is on the paper the whole field now rests on.
Take the job, or start the company
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: found Cohere, taken, or take any research job he wanted. Cohere raised around one and six tenths of a billion dollars by 2025 and acquired Aleph Alpha in 2026.
He co-founded Cohere
Milestone, and it changed everything. About twenty three, and starting a company instead of taking any job he wanted.
The 2020s
Two lists in one year
Milestone. His own country put him first on its list.
He finished the doctorate
Milestone, and it changed everything. Five years after founding the company, he went back and finished the degree.
A board seat at Rivian
Milestone. Under thirty, on the board of a car company.
One and a half billion raised
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Six years from founding to that number.
Cohere bought Aleph Alpha
Milestone, and it changed everything. The company he started at twenty three, buying a European rival.
The line reaches today still adding to itself, which is why it is drawn now rather than at the end. What it has set moving is in the architecture itself: nearly every model anybody uses traces back to eight names on a paper, and one of them was twenty.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
His had a summer internship on it that changed an entire field. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Aidan Gomez: frequently asked questions
What people ask about his line.
What is Aidan Gomez's character arc?
What were the turning points in Aidan Gomez's life?
Did Aidan Gomez write the transformer paper?
What is Cohere, the company Aidan Gomez founded?
How old was Aidan Gomez when he co-wrote the transformer paper?
Does Aidan Gomez have a doctorate?
What has Aidan Gomez done recently?
Where does this timeline of Aidan Gomez's life come from?
More character arcs
Lives that rhyme with his.
Sources
- Aidan Gomez, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- Attention Is All You Need, Vaswani et al., 2017.