Testing AI to help rice farmers spot pests and track water use.
Aakash Bhalothia
Fortune Rice
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Aakash works on science and strategy at Fortune Rice. He helped launch a trial with RYNAN in Uttar Pradesh to track pests, water use, and methane. The goal is to give farmers useful information from their own fields.
He studied economics and computer science at Berkeley, worked as a researcher at Yale, and completed his economics PhD at UC San Diego in 2025. His research examined how migration and social networks affect people’s work.
Started Pinnie to help older adults book appointments and understand their care.
Aashay Patel
Pinnie Health
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Aashay co-founded Pinnie to help older adults book appointments, find specialists, and understand care instructions. Medicare covers some services; what a patient pays depends on their coverage.
In October 2026, Pinnie reported about 20,000 calls over six months and announced a free health-information text service. Caregivers can use it to ask questions on someone else’s behalf. Aashay studied at Berkeley and is based in New York.
He was on the U.S. Junior Olympic table tennis team.
Built Motion to turn written ideas into animated videos people can edit.
Adish Jain
Mosaic / Motion
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Adish co-founded Mosaic after struggling to edit a video with a friend from Tesla. Its Motion tool turns written ideas into animated videos, with scripts, scenes, voices, and music you can change. Mosaic announced a $3.8 million seed round in April 2026.
Before Mosaic, he built diagnostic software at Tesla and worked at AWS and Together. He graduated from Berkeley in 2020, taught coding, and co-built Leaf so teachers could make interactive coding tutorials.
Backed startups that help families find child care and power their homes.
Adithya Iyengar
Ramp / ex-The House Fund
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Adithya spent eight years at The House Fund supporting Berkeley founders. His investment list includes child-care company Upwards through the fund and energy company Base Power as an angel investor.
He studied electrical engineering and computer science at Berkeley. In May 2025, he announced his move to Ramp to build partnerships with venture capital firms. He now lives in New York and writes about startups and investing.
Used AI to move follow-up instructions from 118,000 patient records into a new system.
Aman Mohapatra
Beth Israel / Harvard
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Aman was the first author of a study that used AI to move doctors’ colonoscopy follow-up instructions into a new record system. It processed about 118,000 patient records. The AI copied existing instructions, with checks for errors.
He earned his MD at Chicago Medical School in 2024 and trained in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston. The study appeared in JAMIA Open in May 2026; its code is public too.
Building AI that helps inventors write patent applications.
Angela Gao
Fearn
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Angela co-founded Fearn and leads its technology team, building AI that helps inventors prepare patent applications. Before that, her research included ways to reconstruct videos of black holes.
She graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 2018, began her Caltech PhD in 2019, and interned at Google Research in 2022. She completed her PhD in 2025, studying how to recover information from images and measure uncertainty in the result.
Ani works on advertising for streaming services at Google. Before that, he built AI products for drug development at Formation Bio and co-founded Taste, an app where friends shared places to eat and drink.
After studying electrical engineering and computer science at Berkeley, he joined Facebook in 2018 and worked on ads, video, and Pages. He co-founded Taste in 2022 and joined Google in New York in June 2025.
Studied ways to help stroke survivors get therapy after leaving the hospital.
Henry Dong
UC San Diego / Kaiser
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Henry is a doctor training in internal medicine at UC San Diego after medical school at Kaiser Permanente. His 2024 research looked at getting more stroke survivors into rehabilitation outside the hospital.
Earlier, he studied attention at Berkeley. As first author of a 2021 paper, he tested whether brain signals could help identify when someone’s mind wandered. It was a small study of 14 people, exploring an idea rather than a clinical test.
Helps build AI tools at Snowflake that answer questions about company data.
James Isbell
Snowflake / ex-Mux, Google
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James works on data and AI at Snowflake. He co-wrote a 2025 guide to an assistant that helps sales teams prepare for customer meetings using company information.
He previously led data teams at Google and YouTube, then built Mux’s data and analytics function. His 2022 account explains the work behind it: hiring the team, connecting data tools, and helping people use the information in everyday decisions.
Helps freight teams use AI for shipment calls, emails, and paperwork.
Jeff Zhao
Pallet / ex-AtoB
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Jeff helps freight companies put Pallet’s AI tools to work. They handle routine calls, emails, shipment updates, and paperwork. His team’s work covers the rollout, how well the tools perform, and what to improve next.
He previously worked across product and operations at AtoB and studied at the University of Maryland. In March 2026, he shared how Pallet’s product managers help large freight companies deploy AI in their daily operations. His professional profile lists New York.
Co-founded Leland to connect people with coaches for school and career decisions.
John Koelliker
Leland
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John started by helping people apply to business school, then co-founded Leland in 2021 to connect more people with coaches for school and career decisions. In June 2025, Leland teamed up with LinkedIn to offer Premium members a month of access and a free career-coaching session.
He studied information systems at BYU and earned his Stanford MBA in 2022. Before Leland, he worked at Uber, LinkedIn, and Curated. Forerunner announced that it was leading Leland’s Series A in November 2024.
Co-founded Mux to make it easier to add video to apps and websites.
Jon Dahl
Mux
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Jon co-founded Mux to make it easier for developers to put video in their products. The company handles the work of preparing, playing, and measuring video.
His path started with philosophy graduate study, then software. He co-founded Zencoder in 2010 to convert video in the cloud. Brightcove bought it in 2012. He co-founded Mux in 2015 and writes about what the company is building and why.
Built Browserbase and Stagehand to help AI click, type, and use websites.
Paul Klein IV
Browserbase
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Paul founded Browserbase so software can use web browsers online. Its Stagehand tool helps AI click, type, and move around websites. Earlier, he co-founded Stream Club to make live video easier; Mux bought it in 2021.
He began his career at Twilio. Before introducing Browserbase in March 2024, he wrote an essay about browsers for AI and spoke with fifty potential customers. His writing follows that idea from an early question into a company.
Co-founded Bluebirds to help sales teams find customers. Salesforce bought it.
Rohan Punamia
Bluebirds → Salesforce
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Rohan co-founded Bluebirds to help sales teams find potential customers without jumping between tools. Salesforce announced its acquisition agreement in July 2025; Rohan later confirmed that the team had joined.
He studied at Berkeley’s Haas School and joined LinkedIn’s Strategy & Analytics program in 2017. Bluebirds went through Y Combinator in 2023 and raised a $5 million seed round led by Lightspeed. He has since shared its relaunch as Salesforce’s Prospecting Agent.
Helps build AI at Bland that handles phone conversations.
Zane Homsi
Bland / ex-Glean
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Zane helped build Glean’s voice assistant, which lets people ask questions and work with company information by speaking. He is now Bland’s founding product manager, working on AI phone conversations. In October 2026, he introduced Bland’s new dashboard for seeing how those calls are going.
He graduated from UVA’s McIntire School in 2019 and headed to LinkedIn in San Francisco. There, he moved through finance, operations, and business development into product management. His farewell essay marks the end of that chapter in May 2025.
