Indian entrepreneur Dharmesh Shah sells domain os.ai to Perplexity AI
Dharmesh Shah, the Indian-origin entrepreneur, and HubSpot founder and CTO, announced that he had sold the domain name os.ai to Perplexity AI.
In a LinkedIn post, Shah confirmed the acquisition and revealed that he was already a Perplexity shareholder before the deal, and is now a “somewhat larger shareholder” following the transaction.
This comes on the heels of his earlier sale of chat.com to OpenAI in December last year, a deal that drew headlines for reportedly exceeding $15 million.
Shah revealed this acquisition in a LinkedIn post, where he said, “Decades ago we saw the PC wars and then, the battle for the browser. After that, the fight for the mobile OS. It makes complete sense for an OS for AI to exist. Every big technology shift brings a new kind of OS. It is inevitable and exciting.”
Although the transaction amount has not been disclosed, he had reportedly purchased the domain for $150,000 earlier this year.
Perfect home
In an earlier post on X, Shah stated that while he wasn’t in the business of selling domains, OpenAI was the perfect home for the chat.com domain, prompting him to go ahead with the sale. He also revealed that he is an investor in OpenAI. In a LinkedIn post from two years ago, he claimed to have purchased the domain for $10 million.
Jaspreet Bindra, co-founder of AI&Beyond, described the domain acquisition as a bold statement by Perplexity co-founder and CEO Arvind Srinivas, signalling his ambitions go well beyond just search.
“He’s been vocal about building an OS that allows users to do almost everything,” Bindra said.
“He’s clarified that Perplexity isn’t merely in the search business, but in the knowledge business. This move could indicate a shift from a traditional search bar within a browser toward a more expansive OS vision.”
Bindra added that it aligns with the growing belief that the world is entering a new era of computing.
“Andrej Karpathy, a founding member of OpenAI, calls this ‘Software 3.0’, where the OS of devices is powered by large language models (LLMs), rather than traditional OS like Android, Windows, or iOS. On the other hand, os.ai is also a strong memorable brand asset. Shah appears to be sitting on many lucrative domains.”
Published on July 14, 2025