Origin
Born in Boston. I live in San Francisco.
My path has moved through disciplines that may appear unrelated: competitive ballroom dance, machine learning, product design, football operations in Rome, company building, photography, and french ring.
I've started multiple companies, raised venture capital, experienced rapid user growth (both ways), navigated litigation, experienced market collapses, managed a company wind-down (and emergency board meetings), lived through a bank run (got our money out of SVB), rebuilt teams, changed direction, and started again.
Raised in Boston by my mother, I grew up in a family of two. This is the quiet thread woven throughout my story, shaping my perspective long before my professional journey began.
World Cup Team
I hold two world titles for the United States in ballroom dancing. Together, my partner and I made history by becoming the first American-born couple to win a world title. As a two-time World Champion and three-time U.S. National Champion, I was inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame. I was also a member of Team USA's World Cup team and the U.S. National Team.
At Worlds, when my partner and I reached the podium, the World Dance organizers couldn't find the national anthem - Americans won so rarely they didn't have it on hand. During the delay, it was a moment I'll never forget. What a privilege it was to represent our country.
After Worlds, I had the unique opportunity to be a guest performance on Dancing with the Stars.
Juniors
Dancing with the Stars
Team USA
On the floor
Worlds
MIT
At 17, I co-authored & published machine learning research at the Poggio Lab within MIT's Center for Brains, Minds and Machines, advised by Tomaso Poggio. As a team of five research scientists, we built NLP algorithms that detect language patterns in misinformation. You can try a demo here.
Our team was awarded at NeurIPS 2018 and featured in MIT News.
Many of my lab colleagues went on to become pivotal team members at Google DeepMind and OpenAI. Fun fact: Tomaso Poggio also mentored Demis Hassabis before he founded DeepMind.
At the time we were building, the term LLM didn't exist yet.
AS Roma
In 2019, I worked at AS Roma, reporting directly to Club President and Owner Jim Pallotta (also a co-owner of the Boston Celtics) and Chief Strategy Officer Paul Rogers. I joined during one of the most emotionally charged periods in the club's modern history - within weeks of each other, the iconic Francesco Totti resigned and team captain Daniele De Rossi's contract was not renewed.
The reaction in Rome was intense. Fans viewed the departures as the end of an era and a fracture in the club's historic identity. The news sparked widespread protests across Rome, international media attention, and an unprecedented rupture between the club's leadership and its devoted fanbase.
At Roma, I built an internal tool that aggregated supporter sentiment across social platforms and the global media ecosystem. It gave club leadership the ability to distinguish authentic fan sentiment from media narratives. The tool provided a real-time view of supporter opinions and informed leadership on communications and helped executive decision-making during this defining moment.
Working under Jim is something I'll never forget. He stayed decisive with the whole city against him, and the pressure never seemed to reach him.
Me wearing Romolo in the office
Stanford
At Stanford, I self-designed my major, Computational Creativity, in the School of Engineering under David Kelley, inspired by Creativity, Inc. and “The Road to Self-Renewal.” Through my major, I study how AI can augment human creativity.
I left Stanford to co-found two companies.
This past year, David asked me to speak at a celebration marking his 50 years at Stanford. He was honored at Bing Concert Hall. It's one of my favorite memories from my time there.
David has changed my life in many ways. I'm very grateful to him.
Memento from David
At the d.schoolDavid's Creative EssentialsBing Concert Hall
Founding
Two years into my undergrad, I left Stanford to co-found my two companies.
Rover & Linen. Solo-founded. Built a semantic search engine for the blockchain. We took the underlying primitives we created and applied it to a different industry, which became Linen. Our team comes from Stanford, MIT, McKinsey, and infrastructure companies like Vercel.
We're backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Flex Capital, and angel investors from Apple, Airbnb, Square, Stripe, and Coinbase. Notable angels include Soleio, Terrence Rohan, Lenny Rachitsky, Molly Mielke McCarthy, Badrul Farooqi, Michael Curtis, Michael Abbott, and Nemil Dalal.
Past
Axel → Binocular. We started with Axel, a DeFi API that let any developer add lend, stake, yield, or swap to their app in a few lines of code, then pivoted to Binocular, a filter-first query language for the blockchain. Raised a $5M seed led by Kleiner Perkins, Abstract Ventures, and Polychain Capital, with participation from Circle (USDC), Stanford University (endowment), and Balaji Srinivasan, among others.
Interlude
Six months between starting my first and second company, a room stacked with books, and one entirely unscheduled detour into French Ring. The reading I intended, the French Ring I did not.
The stack:
- For thirteen years we had a table in the large conference room at Pixar that we call West One. The table was long and skinny, like one of those things you'd see in a comedy sketch about an old wealthy couple that sits down for dinner.
Creativity, Inc. - Six months, a room stacked with books, and one entirely unscheduled detour. The reading I intended, the rest I did not. Some of it stayed with me longer than the rest, and this is the shelf it left behind.
All You Need to Know About the Music Business - I'm going to talk about self-renewal. One of your most fundamental tasks is the renewal of the organizations you serve, and that usually includes persuading the top officers to accomplish a certain amount of self-renewal.
“The Road to Self-Renewal” *absolute must-read - Aging means losing things, and not just eyesight and flexibility. It means watching the accomplishments of your youth be diminished, maybe in your own eyes through perspective, maybe in the eyes of others through cultural amnesia.
The Cost of These Dreams: Sports Stories and Other Serious Business - First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack.
The Things They Carried - There is a significant price to pay to be the best. I have tried to describe my anguish, but the words come up short. Something stirred inside me, something I had learned over many years: I must stand and fight again.
The Score Takes Care of Itself - For a moment late in 2018, one bitcoin, which physically amounts to a few electrons blipping on a tiny bit of silicon, was worth $20,000 — the same as a pound of gold. Libertarian technologists saw an apotheosis. Everyone else saw a bubble.
Kings of Crypto - It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
Matilde (Italian Edition) - Six months, a room stacked with books, and one entirely unscheduled detour. The reading I intended, the rest I did not. Some of it stayed with me longer than the rest, and this is the shelf it left behind.
Making the Cut at Pixar - Six months, a room stacked with books, and one entirely unscheduled detour. The reading I intended, the rest I did not. Some of it stayed with me longer than the rest, and this is the shelf it left behind.
How to F*ck Up Your Startup - For more than a decade I owned a restaurant called Eleven Madison Park. In 2006, it was a middling brasserie. By the time it sold in early 2020, it had been named the best restaurant in the world.
Unreasonable Hospitality - ...among others
Side quests
French Ring & Willow
I traveled to Ohio for five weeks to train with Andy Kruger, a world champion French Ring trainer, working with Malinois and other working dogs, inspired by an unexpected foster dog that came into my life. Her name is Willow.
Et Jolie
I built Et Jolie around a concept called "The Smalls" - petite bags made to fit inside your larger totes and purses. I spent a lot of time in Downtown LA in the fabric district, working with my seamstresses and finding "end of the roll" fabrics from couture houses. I launched this brand when I was at Stanford, and you can check it out at shopetjolie.com.
I designed and produced the campaign end-to-end. You can watch it below. Shot in Central Park.
In motion · 01Adelina & Jhonatan, photo by me
Last looks
In motion · 02Under the elms
Touch-ups
In motion · 03Adelina on the viewfinder, photo by me
In motion · 04Over the shoulder
By the fountain
Sitting pretty
Pink tweed, up close
Lilac & violet
In step
Polka dots
Bethesda angel
Morning light
Under the terrace
Fountain side
Looking back
The trio
Cheek to cheek
Photography
My love for cameras began at Stanford, a class called Computers & Photography taught by the one and only Hector Garcia. My partner and I then saved up for a used Leica Q3, and it comes with us almost everywhere. My favorite photographer is Greg Williams.
Places & People
SFMOMA
Venice
At the piano
The surfer
The MET
Out & about
The Art of Loving
Found in SF after Config
Number 10
Buzz & Woody
The poster shop
The fan
The gown
Cursor Compile 2026
The exhibition
Gelato
Et Jolie Archive (shot on my Sony Alpha)
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