Sneha Revanur: The Teenager Who Founded Encode

Sneha Revanur founded Encode, a youth organization that advocates for artificial intelligence (AI) regulation. She says she started the group at 15, six years before a May 2026 interview. Its record includes opposing a California ballot measure in 2020 and filing an amicus brief against OpenAI's for-profit restructuring. The sources do not settle the exact founding month, and two critical outlets have profiled the group.

Who Sneha Revanur Is and What Encode Has Done

Sneha Revanur founded Encode around 2020, and she says she was 15 at the time. Encode is a youth organization that advocates for AI regulation, and Revanur is its founder and president. Her age at founding comes from her own account. Her Wikipedia page doesn't state the exact founding year.

Revanur was born in 2004 in San Jose, California, according to her Wikipedia page. The page's infobox lists her age as 21 to 22, which is consistent with that birth year. She attended Evergreen Valley High School, then Williams College, then transferred to Stanford University. Wikipedia doesn't give dates for the transfer.

Encode's own staff page lists her as "Founder & President," as of 21 October 2026. Roles at small advocacy groups change, so that title is dated to the day the site was read. Encode's own website and Revanur's Wikipedia page both use the name Encode.

A critic's profile places her at Evergreen Valley High School in San Jose at the time the group was founded. That same profile describes her as a Williams College student majoring in political economy. The profile is older than the Stanford transfer, so the Williams detail is historical, not current. For the organization itself, see our Encode AI explainer.

The dated record runs as follows. The 2020 item comes from Wikipedia and Princeton's Prize in Race Relations profile of her, and the 2025 item comes from an interview with her on the EA Forum.

• 2020: Encode's first initiative opposed California Proposition 25, according to Princeton's profile.
• 2022: Revanur was a delegate to the U.S. Senate Youth Program.
• 2023: She led a coalition of youth-led groups in a joint letter to congressional leaders and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The letter asked that young people be included on AI oversight and advisory boards.
• 7 September 2023: TIME named her to its inaugural TIME100 AI list. She was the youngest person on it.
• December 2024: The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) included her on its 100 Women list.
• 2025: OpenAI subpoenaed Encode's general counsel, Nathan Calvin, after Encode filed an amicus brief against OpenAI's for-profit restructuring.

An EA Forum interview with Revanur describes the subpoena. A sheriff's deputy arrived at Calvin's home during dinner. Revanur denounced the tactic but kept her response measured, citing the need for a long-term relationship with OpenAI.

InfluenceWatch quotes Politico calling Revanur "the Greta Thunberg of AI." InfluenceWatch has a conservative vantage point, so that label comes from a critic's profile, not a neutral source.

How Encode Started: The California Ballot Measure Fight

Revanur came to AI policy through California Proposition 25 in 2020, according to her Wikipedia page. The measure would have replaced cash bail with pretrial risk-assessment algorithms. It failed to pass.

Princeton's Prize profile says the organization's first initiative successfully opposed Proposition 25.

After Proposition 25 failed, the organization broadened its focus to AI-related surveillance, disinformation and job loss. Revanur concedes that the early volunteer-driven model struggled to turn energy into outcomes. That is why the group pivoted to coalitions of groups that already had a stake in the issue.

What She Argues and Who She Argues It To

Revanur argues that advocacy builds political power. Individual bills are one part of that work. For uncertain fights, she sums up her approach as "if you do everything, you will win."

State Laws as a Backstop

Revanur argues that state AI laws matter mainly because they build regulatory capacity. That capacity can be activated quickly if federal action stalls. She credits the coalition Encode assembled with holding off federal preemption of state AI laws.

She describes that coalition as deliberately unlikely. It includes conservatives, grieving parents, actors and AI safety researchers. For the youth-protection bills in this wider debate, see the Kids Safe AI Act explainer.

She also rejects the view that industry money decides AI policy. In her account, heavy anti-regulation spending works on low-salience issues, such as crypto, but not on a high-salience issue like AI. She calls that spending "fundamentally not an AGI-pilled strategy."

Who She Argues It To

In 2023, Revanur led the joint letter to Congress and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She supports giving young people a formal voice in AI oversight. For how age rules apply to AI chatbots, see our chatbot age requirements explainer.

At the state level, she credits California Senate Bill (SB) 1047 with priming the legislature. She says it also built coalition relationships and drew Governor Newsom's attention. SB 1047 was vetoed. She says Governor Newsom's expert commission later informed SB 53, which passed.

She credits California state senator Scott Wiener as SB 53's sponsor. She also names Alex Bores and Andrew Gounardes as sponsors of New York's RAISE Act, which passed.

The 2028 Warning

Revanur argues that 2028 could be among the most consequential presidential elections. Her reason is the risk of power concentration. She describes advocacy work as balancing "soldier and scout" roles, which means persuasion on one side and analytical rigor on the other.

Her Current Role and Funding

Encode's website lists Revanur as "Founder & President," as of 21 October 2026. The most recent interview in these sources was recorded on 26 and 28 May 2026.

On 22 April 2026, the Washington Examiner published an investigation saying Encode runs coordinated campaigns with the Secure AI Project. The campaigns promote AI regulation in Nebraska, Tennessee and Utah. The Examiner describes those three states as Republican-controlled.

How Encode Says It Is Funded

Encode's website says the organization is funded by individual donors and philanthropic foundations. It names these funders:

• the Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund
• the Archewell Foundation
• the Heising-Simons Foundation
• the We Are Family Foundation
• the Future of Life Institute
• the Survival and Flourishing Fund
• America's Promise Alliance

The same page says Encode doesn't accept funding from corporations, foreign governments, or executives at top AI companies. The sources used here don't give dollar amounts for any of these funders.

No salary or compensation figure for Revanur was confirmed in any source used here, so this page doesn't state one. Whether she is currently enrolled at Stanford isn't published in those sources either.

The Criticism of Encode and Revanur

The main criticism comes from InfluenceWatch and from a Washington Examiner investigation. Both are critical sources, and the framing below reflects that. For the wider groups on both sides of this fight, see our who is fighting AI guide.

InfluenceWatch's Conservative Framing

InfluenceWatch profiles advocacy groups from a conservative vantage point. It characterizes Encode as pushing for "governance and censorship" of AI. It says the group claims "algorithms are being used as tools of oppression." It files Encode under "Identity Politics" and describes its funders and affiliates as left-leaning.

InfluenceWatch says the group was initially funded primarily by the Omidyar Network. It lists current funders as the Omidyar Network, America's Promise Alliance, the We Are Family Foundation, the Princeton Prize in Race Relations and individual donations. It doesn't give dollar amounts. Encode's own funder list doesn't include the Omidyar Network or the Princeton Prize in Race Relations.

The Washington Examiner Investigation

The Washington Examiner investigation, published 22 April 2026, describes Encode AI as a nonprofit with "staffing and financial ties to the Left." It reports the coordinated campaigns in Nebraska, Tennessee and Utah described above. The piece is critical in its framing. The article as read for this page doesn't name a critic responding on the record.

The Skeptic's Case on SB 53

Revanur acknowledges a skeptic's case about SB 53. The skeptic argues the law changed little, because many companies already published safety plans voluntarily. Her answer is that the law's value lies in the state-level capacity it builds.

What Stays Unsettled

No source used here confirms the founding month. The founding year rests on 2020 in Wikipedia and in InfluenceWatch, and on the "six years ago" Revanur gives in her 2026 interview. Her age at founding is her own account, so it is attributed rather than a registry fact.

Her current Stanford enrollment and her pay aren't published in these sources. The critics' funding claims come without dollar amounts, so the size of any funder's role isn't settled.

Sources

• Sneha Revanur, Wikipedia
• EA Forum interview with Sneha Revanur
• Encode, official website
• Princeton's Prize in Race Relations, profile of Sneha Revanur
• InfluenceWatch, Encode Justice profile
• Washington Examiner investigation, published 22 April 2026