Founder · Mentor · Writer

I turn AI and engineering into companies.

I’m building Whelk. Your private AI. Formerly the Chief AI Officer and CTO who took BuildOps to a unicorn by rebuilding it around AI. I scaled Weedmaps past 300 engineers to IPO, and built and sold a company for $550M as its VP of Engineering. I write here every week or two.

BuildOps → unicorn, as CAIO/CTO

Weedmaps → 300+ eng, IPO

ShopKeep → $550M, as VPE

Building

// grazier ventures

Flagship

Whelk

Private AI. The app for people who run their own AI models, on their own hardware. Native on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android. Nothing leaves hardware you own.

Meet Whelk →

Aqen

The AI cofounder I build everything else with.

Civic-SLM

A small language model trained on my city’s public records.

Highball

A transit tool I built because I wanted it.

Latest writing

every other week

Read all essays →

Mentorship · TideHelm

I work with founders, investors, and CTOs on the calls that shape an engineering org for years: the first VP Eng hire, post-Series B scaling, a platform rewrite, technical diligence, CTO succession.