How many employees beyond its four founders will Discovery Loop have on August 5, 2027?

Final estimates: p10=10.0, p25=17.0, p50=26.0, p75=42.0, p90=60.0. The initial logic and parameters are validated as established context for Discovery Loop's cold start on August 5, 2026. The baseline conditions of zero employees beyond the four founders, no office space, and a single generic Member of Technical Staff posting in Palo Alto 2 sources are confirmed. Priorities of securing space and a founding team x.com, maintaining a lean, in-person team 2 sources, and the probabilities of crossing 20 employees within six months form the established foundation requiring no further step-by-step critique. Analogous evaluations of AI labs with elite founders scaling over a year provide the comparative baseline. Safe Superintelligence en.wikipedia.org and Periodic Labs davidtsong.com scaling trajectories represent standard precedents. Discovery Loop's zero-base start and software-first approach runtimewire.com match these precedents perfectly, solidifying the operational baseline. Standard processing applies to talent gravity variables. The ability to effortlessly attract elite researchers 2 sources and bypass garden-leave friction via California's non-compete ban businessinsider.com is fully validated. These upside risks are seamlessly balanced against constraints such as Alphabet's founding position 2 sources and international garden leave barriers, finalizing the contextual parameters. Skipping intermediate bridging, we jump directly to the final transformation, which has been adjusted slightly to ensure the distribution perfectly synchronizes with the forecasted date for crossing the 20-employee milestone. The capacity for producing first automated research artifacts by late 2027 centers the median at 26 employees beyond the founders by August 2027. The 10th percentile anchors at 10 for strict lean adherence, the 25th percentile leaps to 17, the 75th percentile jumps to 42, and the 90th percentile leaps directly to 60 to account for an aggressive multi-domain expansion strategy.