# People

Founders, executives, researchers, and board members on the registry. Each entry surfaces the canonical relation graph: current and prior company roles, foundings, board seats, investor positions, and education.

## All people (134)

- [Abhinav Gupta](/people/abhinav-gupta.md): Co-founder of Skild AI and professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute.
- [Adnan Esmail](/people/adnan-esmail.md): Co-founder of Physical Intelligence (hardware / engineering leadership); previously in Hardware Technologies at Tesla and SVP of Engineering...
- [Alex Kendall](/people/alex-kendall.md): Co-founder and CEO of Wayve, the London-based end-to-end autonomous driving company. PhD from the University of Cambridge.
- [Amar Shah](/people/amar-shah.md): Co-founder and initial CEO of Wayve (2017-2020, departed); now Founder & Partner at Dhyan Ventures. PhD in machine learning from the Univers...
- [Andrew Reiter](/people/andrew-reiter.md): Co-founder and Technical Fellow at Shield AI (its original CTO until 2018); previously at Draper Laboratory (visual-inertial guidance, auton...
- [Anita Szarek](/people/anita-szarek.md): Chief Financial Officer of Helsing (effective May 2026); previously CFO at Qonto and Pleo.
- [Anthony Tayoun](/people/anthony-tayoun.md): Co-founder and CFO of Dexai Robotics. Co-founded the company alongside CEO David Johnson to commercialize culinary robotics for food service...
- [Antoine Bordes](/people/antoine-bordes.md): Chief Scientist of Helsing; previously spent ~9 years at Meta / Facebook AI Research (FAIR), latterly as a co-managing director. PhD in AI f...
- [Areeb Malik](/people/areeb-malik-everestlabs.md): CEO of EverestLabs, stepping into the role after serving as investor and advisor. Previously co-founded Glacier (recycling robotics, 2019, w...
- [Ashok Elluswamy](/people/ashok-elluswamy.md): Tesla VP of AI Software who took over leadership of the Optimus program in June 2025; Tesla's first Autopilot engineer (since 2014). MS in R...
- [Babak Siavoshy](/people/babak-siavoshy.md): VP and General Counsel of Anduril; previously legal counsel and global data-protection officer at Palantir. (Some sources also list a CFO ti...
- [Barry Phillips](/people/barry-phillips.md): Chief Commercial Officer of Apptronik; previously CMO at Fetch Robotics (acquired by Zebra) and Group VP at Citrix.
- [Bernt Bornich](/people/bernt-bornich.md): Founder and CEO of 1X Technologies (formerly Halodi Robotics, founded 2014), a Norwegian humanoid robot company backed by OpenAI.
- [Brandon Tseng](/people/brandon-tseng.md): Co-founder and President of Shield AI; a former US Navy SEAL.
- [Brett Adcock](/people/brett-adcock.md): Founder and CEO of Figure AI (humanoid robots), which he founded in 2022. Previously co-founded eVTOL maker Archer Aviation and talent marke...
- [Brian Ichter](/people/brian-ichter.md): Co-founder of Physical Intelligence; previously a research scientist in Google DeepMind robotics.
- [Brian Peterson](/people/brian-peterson-shield.md): Chief Information Officer of Shield AI.
- [Brian Schimpf](/people/brian-schimpf.md): Co-founder and CEO of Anduril Industries; previously an engineering leader at Palantir Technologies.
- [Bryan Webb](/people/bryan-webb-clearpath.md): Co-founder, CFO, and COO of Clearpath Robotics (founded 2009, Kitchener, Ontario). University of Waterloo Mechatronics Engineering graduate....
- [Chandra Rangan](/people/chandra-rangan.md): Chief Marketing Officer of Shield AI.
- [Chelsea Finn](/people/chelsea-finn.md): Co-founder of Physical Intelligence and assistant professor at Stanford; previously at Google Brain. PhD from UC Berkeley.
- [Chirag Shah](/people/chirag-shah.md): VP of Software at Apptronik; previously a software executive at Amazon (Kindle, Alexa+).
- [Chris Walti](/people/chris-walti.md): Former lead of the Tesla team that became Optimus (departed 2022); co-founded and is CEO of warehouse-automation company Mytra.
- [Christian Brose](/people/christian-brose.md): President and Chief Strategy Officer of Anduril; previously Staff Director of the US Senate Armed Services Committee and a State Department ...
- [Corey Lynch](/people/corey-lynch.md): Director of AI at Figure AI; previously a research scientist in Google Brain robotics.
- [Damien Bardon](/people/damien-bardon.md): Director, Humanoid Management System at Figure AI; previously Head of Avionics at Archer Aviation and Airbus.
- [Dan McCloskey](/people/dan-mccloskey.md): VP of Hardware at Wayve.
- [Daniel Chu](/people/daniel-chu.md): Chief Product Officer of Apptronik; previously Chief Product Officer at Waymo (first autonomous ride-hailing launch) and at 23andMe and Goog...
- [Dar Sleeper](/people/dar-sleeper.md): VP of Growth at 1X Technologies; previously a product manager at Tesla (Cybertruck launch).
- [Dave Perry](/people/dave-perry.md): VP of Marketing at Apptronik; previously an executive at Paramount+ and Amazon.
- [David M.S. Johnson](/people/david-johnson-dexai.md): Co-founder and CEO of Dexai Robotics, maker of Alfred, a culinary robot for commercial kitchens. Previously spent seven years at the Charles...
- [David McCall](/people/david-mccall.md): Principal Industrial Designer at Figure AI; previously a senior automotive designer at Rivian, Audi and Faraday Future.
- [Deepak Pathak](/people/deepak-pathak.md): Co-founder and CEO of Skild AI and assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University. PhD from UC Berkeley.
- [Dennis Jackson](/people/dennis-jackson.md): Engineering Director (development fleet software) at Wayve; previously an embedded AV software lead at Cruise.
- [Dino Mavrookas](/people/dino-mavrookas.md): Co-founder and CEO of Saronic, the autonomous surface-vessel company; a former US Navy SEAL.
- [Doug Lambert](/people/doug-lambert.md): Co-founder and COO of Saronic; previously Head of Engineering at Liquid Robotics and VP Engineering at Terradepth.
- [Dustin Freckleton](/people/dustin-freckleton.md): Co-founder and CEO of Happy Health (Happy Ring); a physician (MD).
- [Eliot Horowitz](/people/eliot-horowitz.md): Founder and CEO of Viam (founded 2020, New York). Previously co-founded MongoDB (Nasdaq: MDB) in 2007 with Dwight Merriman and Kevin Ryan (a...
- [Elon Musk](/people/elon-musk.md): CEO of Tesla, which develops the Optimus humanoid robot. Joined Tesla in 2004; not an original Tesla founder. Separately the founder and CEO...
- [Emma Baillie](/people/emma-baillie.md): Chief People Officer of Wayve.
- [Erez Dagan](/people/erez-dagan.md): President of Wayve; previously spent ~20 years at Mobileye, including EVP of Product & Strategy.
- [Eric Jang](/people/eric-jang.md): Former VP of AI at 1X Technologies (departed January 2026); previously a research scientist at Google Brain.
- [Frank Dimina](/people/frank-dimina.md): Chief Revenue Officer of Shield AI.
- [Gary Steele](/people/gary-steele.md): CEO of Shield AI (since May 2025); previously CEO of Splunk (through its $28B Cisco acquisition) and founding CEO of Proofpoint.
- [Geordie Rose](/people/geordie-rose.md): Co-founder of Sanctuary AI; previously founded quantum-computing pioneer D-Wave Systems and AI company Kindred. Stepped down from the Sanctu...
- [Goutham Subramanian](/people/goutham-subramanian.md): VP of Software at Saronic; previously at Anduril.
- [Gundbert Scherf](/people/gundbert-scherf.md): Co-founder and co-CEO of Helsing, the European defense-AI company; previously a German Ministry of Defence official and a McKinsey partner.
- [James Wells](/people/james-wells.md): CEO of Sanctuary AI (current); rose from Chief Commercial Officer and VP Corporate Development, becoming CEO after co-founder Geordie Rose s...
- [Jamie Shotton](/people/jamie-shotton.md): Chief Scientist of Wayve; previously Partner Director of Science at Microsoft (Kinect body tracking, HoloLens 2). PhD in computer vision fro...
- [Jason Ma](/people/jason-ma.md): Co-founder and CTO of Dyna Robotics; previously a research scientist at Google DeepMind, NVIDIA AI and Meta AI; lead author of the Eureka pa...
- [JD Ambati](/people/jd-ambati.md): Founder of EverestLabs (Jagadeesh Ambati), an AI and robotics company automating material recovery facilities via the RecycleOS platform. Ov...
- [Jeff Cardenas](/people/jeff-cardenas.md): Co-founder and CEO of Apptronik (founded 2016), the Austin humanoid robotics company spun out of the UT Austin Human Centered Robotics Lab.
- [Jen Betz](/people/jen-betz.md): Chief Financial Officer of Saildrone; previously CFO of Element Energy and a corporate controller at Maxim Integrated.
- [Jerry Pratt](/people/jerry-pratt.md): Founding CTO of Figure AI (departed mid-2024); previously a senior research scientist at IHMC for ~20 years; later co-founded Persona AI.
- [Joe Chen](/people/joe-chen.md): Co-founder of Anduril Industries; previously a hardware product lead at Oculus VR and a paratrooper in the US Army National Guard.
- [John Hayes](/people/john-hayes-ghost.md): Co-founder and CEO of Ghost Autonomy (founded 2017), an autonomous driving software company for consumer vehicles. Previously co-founded Pur...
- [John Morgan](/people/john-morgan-saronic.md): Head of Manufacturing at Saronic; previously spent ~9 years leading Raptor engine production at SpaceX.
- [John Mustin](/people/john-mustin.md): President of Saildrone; a retired US Navy Vice Admiral and former Chief of Navy Reserve.
- [Jorge Milburn](/people/jorge-milburn.md): VP of Sales at 1X Technologies; previously Global Head of Growth at Tesla.
- [Justin Birtz](/people/justin-birtz.md): VP of People Operations at Apptronik; previously in people operations at iRobot and Cellino.
- [Kaity Fischer](/people/kaity-fischer.md): VP of Commercial and Operations at Wayve.
- [Karol Hausman](/people/karol-hausman.md): Co-founder and CEO of Physical Intelligence; previously a senior research scientist in Google Brain / Google DeepMind robotics and adjunct f...
- [Kay Sheils Kingsbury](/people/kay-kingsbury.md): Chief Financial Officer of Apptronik; previously CFO at ICON Technology and an investment-banking MD. MBA from Stanford GSB.
- [Kevin Garell](/people/kevin-garell.md): SVP of Services & Support at Apptronik; previously led Global Services & Support at Boston Dynamics.
- [Kingsley Afemikhe](/people/kingsley-afemikhe.md): Chief Financial Officer of Shield AI.
- [Kyle Edelberg](/people/kyle-edelberg.md): Chief Engineer at Figure AI; previously an engineer at Boston Dynamics and NASA JPL.
- [Lachy Groom](/people/lachy-groom.md): Co-founder of Physical Intelligence; investor and operator, previously an early executive at Stripe.
- [Lael Odhner](/people/lael-odhner.md): Co-founder and CTO of RightHand Robotics (founded 2014, Cambridge MA). PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Yale University. Developed the iRo...
- [Leif Jentoft](/people/leif-jentoft.md): Co-founder and former Chief Strategy Officer of RightHand Robotics (founded 2014, Cambridge MA). PhD in Bioengineering from Harvard Universi...
- [Lindon Gao](/people/lindon-gao.md): Co-founder and CEO of Dyna Robotics; previously founder and CEO of checkout-automation company Caper AI (acquired by Instacart).
- [Luis Sentis](/people/luis-sentis.md): Co-founder and Scientific Advisor of Apptronik; associate professor at UT Austin and a former NASA Johnson Space Center contractor. PhD from...
- [Mathew DeDonato](/people/mathew-dedonato.md): Director of Robotic Systems at Figure AI; previously at Woven Planet / Toyota Research Institute.
- [Mathieu Letombe](/people/mathieu-letombe.md): CEO of Withings, the French connected-health-device company. Not a company founder.
- [Matt Grimm](/people/matt-grimm.md): Co-founder and COO of Anduril Industries; previously at Palantir Technologies.
- [Matt Steckman](/people/matt-steckman.md): President and Chief Business Officer of Anduril (formerly Chief Revenue Officer); previously in business operations at Palantir and Chief Re...
- [Max Warburton](/people/max-warburton.md): Chief Financial Officer of Wayve; previously an adviser to the Mercedes-Benz board and a Managing Partner / auto analyst at Bernstein.
- [Michael Yang](/people/michael-yang-shield.md): Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary of Shield AI.
- [Milan Kovac](/people/milan-kovac.md): VP Engineering Tesla (Optimus humanoid robot program) 2022-2025; led Tesla Optimus hardware and controls development; departed June 2025 to ...
- [Mohi Khansari](/people/mohi-khansari.md): Head of Robot Learning at 1X Technologies; previously a founding member / lead of imitation learning at Everyday Robots (Google X) and a tec...
- [Mohit Kumar](/people/mohit-kumar.md): Co-founder and CEO of Ultrahuman, the Indian metabolic-health and smart-ring company.
- [Mustally Hussain](/people/mustally-hussain.md): Chief Financial Officer of 1X Technologies; previously Global Treasurer at Lucid Group and senior finance roles at Hyundai Capital and Natio...
- [Natalie Wiegand](/people/natalie-wiegand.md): VP of Global Expansion and Integration at Saronic; previously on the early executive-search team at Tesla and Chief of Staff / VP People at ...
- [Nathan Michael](/people/nathan-michael.md): Chief Technology Officer of Shield AI (since 2018); previously a robotics faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University.
- [Nicholas Paine](/people/nicholas-paine.md): Co-founder and CTO of Apptronik; PhD in robotics from the UT Austin Human Centered Robotics Lab.
- [Nick Stoner](/people/nick-stoner.md): VP of Growth at Saronic; previously a senior director of the maritime business at Anduril and a US Navy special-operations officer.
- [Niklas Koehler](/people/niklas-koehler.md): Co-founder of Helsing, the European defense-AI company.
- [Olivia Norton](/people/olivia-norton.md): Co-founder, CTO and CPO of Sanctuary AI; previously led the Vancouver AGI group at Kindred AI.
- [Pal Naess](/people/pal-naess.md): Chief Business Officer of 1X Technologies.
- [Palmer Luckey](/people/palmer-luckey.md): Founder of Anduril Industries (defense technology, founded 2017); previously founded virtual-reality company Oculus VR (acquired by Facebook...
- [Pat Martinson](/people/pat-martinson.md): Co-founder and VP of Hardware at Clearpath Robotics (founded 2009, Kitchener, Ontario). University of Waterloo Mechatronics Engineering grad...
- [Patrick DePriest](/people/patrick-depriest.md): Chief Financial Officer of Saronic; previously CFO of Merlin Labs.
- [Per Selvaag](/people/per-selvaag.md): VP of Design at 1X Technologies; previously Chief Designer at Peugeot and a lead designer at BMW.
- [Peter Chen](/people/peter-chen.md): Co-founder and CEO of Covariant; joined Amazon in August 2024 as part of Amazon's license-and-hire deal.
- [Petteri Lahtela](/people/petteri-lahtela.md): Co-founder and former CEO of Oura; Finnish health-technology entrepreneur.
- [Phuong Nguyen](/people/phuong-nguyen.md): Former CTO of 1X / Halodi Robotics (left 2023); later founded Physical Robotics. PhD in robotics from the University of Ulsan.
- [Pieter Abbeel](/people/pieter-abbeel.md): Co-founder of Covariant and professor at UC Berkeley; joined Amazon in August 2024 when Amazon licensed Covariant's models and hired several...
- [Quan Vuong](/people/quan-vuong.md): Co-founder and researcher at Physical Intelligence (cross-embodiment learning); previously a software engineer at Google DeepMind. PhD from ...
- [Raquel Urtasun](/people/raquel-urtasun.md): Founder and CEO of Waabi (founded 2021); previously chief scientist at Uber ATG and a professor at the University of Toronto. PhD from EPFL.
- [Richard Jenkins](/people/richard-jenkins.md): Founder and CEO of Saildrone; inventor of the wing-sail and holder of the world land-speed sailing record.
- [Rob Flenniken](/people/rob-flenniken.md): VP of Vehicle Software at Wayve; previously ~3 years at Cruise scaling its robotaxi fleet software.
- [Rob Lehman](/people/rob-lehman.md): Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Saronic; a 21-year US Marine Corps officer (Lt. Col.); previously at Northrop Grumman and ManTech...
- [Robert Fink](/people/robert-fink.md): Chief Technology Officer of Helsing; previously a founding engineer at Palantir and an architect of its Foundry data platform.
- [Robert Kleist](/people/robert-kleist.md): European Managing Director of Saildrone; previously in the Royal Danish Navy and VP Sales at Weibel Scientific.
- [Rocky Duan](/people/rocky-duan.md): Co-founder and CTO of Covariant; joined Amazon in August 2024.
- [Ryan Tseng](/people/ryan-tseng.md): Co-founder and CEO of Shield AI; previously founded wireless-power company WiPower (acquired by Qualcomm).
- [Samer Al Moubayed](/people/samer-al-moubayed.md): CEO and co-founder of Furhat Robotics (founded 2014, Stockholm). PhD in Computer Science from KTH Royal Institute of Technology; Masters in ...
- [Sarah Gates](/people/sarah-gates.md): VP of Global Affairs and Assurance at Wayve.
- [Sergey Levine](/people/sergey-levine.md): Co-founder of Physical Intelligence and associate professor at UC Berkeley; previously a research scientist at Google Brain. PhD from Stanfo...
- [Sharyl Givens](/people/sharyl-givens.md): Chief People Officer of Shield AI.
- [Silvius Rus](/people/silvius-rus.md): Senior VP of Engineering at Wayve; previously an Engineering Director at Google (datacenter compute + TPU infra). PhD from Texas A&M.
- [Simone Fabris](/people/simone-fabris.md): VP of Product and Delivery at Wayve.
- [Soo Cho](/people/soo-cho.md): Chief People Officer of Saronic; previously head of people / employment counsel at Palantir and COO at Merlin Labs.
- [Steve ODea](/people/steve-odea.md): Chief Operating Officer of Apptronik, leading engineering, manufacturing, field service and IT.
- [Suzanne Gildert](/people/suzanne-gildert.md): Co-founder and former Chief Science Officer / CTO of Sanctuary AI; departed in 2024 to found Nirvanic. Previously at D-Wave Systems.
- [Tan Min](/people/tan-min.md): Chief Brand Officer of UBTECH Robotics (not a board director).
- [Ted Stinson](/people/ted-stinson.md): CEO of Covariant (promoted from COO after Amazon licensed Covariant's models and hired its other founders in 2024); co-leads the standalone ...
- [Tianhao Zhang](/people/tianhao-zhang.md): Co-founder of Covariant who remained to lead the company after Amazon hired its other founders in 2024.
- [Tom Alexander](/people/tom-alexander.md): Chief Government Relations Officer of Saildrone; previously at the White House and the Department of Defense (acting Assistant Secretary for...
- [Tom Hale](/people/tom-hale.md): CEO of Oura (smart ring); previously CEO of SurveyMonkey and MeUndies. Not a company founder.
- [Torsten Reil](/people/torsten-reil.md): Co-founder and co-CEO of Helsing; previously founded animation-technology company NaturalMotion.
- [Trae Stephens](/people/trae-stephens.md): Co-founder and executive chairman of Anduril Industries and a partner at venture firm Founders Fund; previously at Palantir Technologies.
- [Vatsal Singhal](/people/vatsal-singhal.md): Co-founder of Ultrahuman; previously co-founded logistics company Runnr / Roadrunnr.
- [Vibhav Altekar](/people/vibhav-altekar.md): Co-founder and CTO of Saronic; previously an early engineer at Anduril (Royal Australian Navy Ghost Shark) and at Twitter.
- [Vijay Badrinarayanan](/people/vijay-badrinarayanan.md): VP of AI at Wayve; previously Director of Deep Learning & AI at Magic Leap; co-author of SegNet. PhD from INRIA; postdoc at Cambridge.
- [Vikram Kothari](/people/vikram-kothari.md): VP of Manufacturing & Hardware at 1X Technologies; previously led Dragon/Starship/Raptor supply chain at SpaceX and hardware supply chain at...
- [Volkmar Uhlig](/people/volkmar-uhlig.md): Co-founder and CTO of Ghost Autonomy. PhD in Computer Science from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany). Previously co-founder and CT...
- [Wang Xingxing](/people/wang-xingxing.md): Founder and CEO of Unitree Robotics (founded 2016), the Hangzhou-based quadruped and humanoid robot maker.
- [Wei Hongxing](/people/wei-hongxing.md): Founder and Chairman of AUBO (Beijing) Robotics Technology, founded 2015 under China's 863 high-technology research program. Former aerospac...
- [Will Ahmed](/people/will-ahmed.md): Founder and CEO of WHOOP; conceived the company as a Harvard undergraduate.
- [William (Junghoon) Ryu](/people/william-junghoon-ryu.md): CEO of Doosan Robotics since August 2021. Previously held corporate strategy and sales roles at Doosan Group (joined 2007), including VP of ...
- [Xiong Youjun](/people/xiong-youjun.md): Co-founder, CTO and executive director of UBTECH Robotics; also GM of the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center. Doctorate from Huazhong ...
- [Yaro Tenzer](/people/yaro-tenzer.md): Co-founder and CEO of RightHand Robotics (founded 2014, Cambridge MA). Originally served as CEO from founding through early 2023, then stepp...
- [York Yang](/people/york-yang.md): Co-founder of Dyna Robotics; previously at Caper AI.
- [Zhou Jian](/people/zhou-jian.md): Founder, chairman and CEO of UBTECH Robotics (founded 2012), the Shenzhen humanoid and service robot company.

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