Hey! Glad to have taken you away from Insta for a couple minutes.
The cliffnotes are I'm from n. Minnesota, studied Sociology / CS at Harvard, dropped out for 4 years as a 22 year old doing YC. Made 20k a year for three years sleeping in a bunkbed with my cofounder. Got lucky in social consumer. Sold my company that piggybacked off a new app that started in China called TikTok.
Moved to Mexico, learned Spanish, volunteered as a sailing instructor at Community Boating in Boston, finished my degree. Joined MSFT to commercialize DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, and then was part of the founding team of MSFT Copilot.
I called the Uber to the wrong church while at a wedding in Edomex π
Some days you ride the camel. Some days you're tossed by the bull.
Some other stories in there: running 180 miles to Canada, winning Forbes 30u30, moving to SΓ£o Paulo and learning Portuguese, winning (and sadly not being able to do bcuz startups) the Schwarzman scholarship, working in Jordan, running an edtech nonprofit for 10 years, and starting the biggest college couch surfing website in the world. Got my start creating the biggest high school ultimate frisbee tournament in the Midwest. Almost ran Gen Z Product at Clubhouse. Now running the biggest hackathon in Minnesota.
Making friends in Brazil
LenΓ§Γ³is Maranhenses, Brazil
Sailing the Charles River, Boston
Forbes 30 Under 30
Birthday party at the community pool
Scoring frequent flyer points βοΈ
Harvard University Sociology & CS
Y Combinator W18Schwarzman Scholar Tsinghua (declined π’)SwipeHouse Founded & ExitedAs seen in
While I still lack 100 pounds from the bench press to be qualified, at least the products are making appearances! Scaled DALL-E image generation from 0 to 100M MAU at Microsoft. Promoted within 6 months. Hired as a VP exception during a company-wide freeze.
At the mothership in Redmond, WA
Years before with MSFT CEO Steve Ballmer. Was I demoted?
Former research assistant to MacArthur Genius Winner Prof. Matthew Desmond at Harvard. Published in Stanford and New America journals.
AI-powered crowdsourced image identification at eBay. Cited by eBay, Snap, Thinkspan, and Festo. Filed across the US, China, Korea, Japan, and Europe.
Mapped $310B+ in cross-border venture capital investment across 190 countries. Reached 2M+ readers.
Presenting generative AI models in Spanish β CDMX
Presenting remotely to Mackenzie University β SΓ£o Paulo
Mackenzie University SΓ£o Paulo audience
Chilling at YC Alumni Day
LP and Venture Partner at Pioneer Fund (fund behind Brex, Vanta, Snackpass, Boom). Personally investing in healthcare, robotics, compliance, and products that solve real pain points. Shoot me a message on LinkedIn if you're raising.
I work with seed-stage founders as an advisor and board member. I'm also a mentor at HBS Field X/Y. If you're looking for someone to join your board or advise your team, reach out β I'd love to chat. Learn more →
An extremely knowledgeable consultant who thinks outside the box. He's a fast learner so you don't waste any time having him come up to speed on your products or situation. He's effective at thinking about the near term and long term problems β and will give great advice on each.
By far one of our most helpful conversations. Luke created an environment in which we could be honest about our challenges. He helped us think outside the box on our model and distribution strategy and land on tactical next steps.
Luke provided incredible feedback and was very generous with his time. I appreciated how he was very direct β it's very hard to get unfiltered and constructive feedback as a founder.
A great person to run your ideas and thoughts by. Being a successful founder, he can save weeks if not months of trying things out and give you advice on what will and won't work.
Engaging with Luke was an exceptional experience. He combined deep knowledge with genuine warmth. His insights into different strategies and his rationale for recommending a specific path were incredibly valuable β bringing clarity to my plans.
His experience was insightful and a big help in evaluating and adjusting our game plan. The conversation inspired us to commit more time to business functions and fortify our weak areas.
Hugely insightful with the growth phase of a company β as he has been there before.
Luke gave practical advice on how I can test my business idea and what metrics I should focus on. I learned so much from his successful entrepreneurship journey.
Occasional updates on what I'm building, investing in, and learning. No spam, ever.
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