Charlie Yuan
San Francisco, Hong Kong, Toronto
I invest in the AI build-out at Milton Maxwell, from private companies to the public markets. I also run SF Patchworks, an early-stage incubator. Earlier, I helped start Lyft’s Level 5 self-driving team. I began my career building graphics hardware at NVIDIA and AMD.
A little bit about me…
My home
Twenty years ago I flew out for an internship at NVIDIA. San Francisco has been home since. My loved ones are in Hong Kong and Toronto.
My roots
I was born in Tianjin. My family moved to Stockholm for my father’s studies, then to Toronto. I studied engineering at the University of Waterloo. Most of what I know about betting on an uncertain future, I learned from watching my parents do it first.
My love
I love Cecilia. We chase good meals together. The best hours of my week are the slow ones with her. I'd choose her in any life.
My play
I run most days. I take long walks when I can. I still play the video games I grew up on. I'm a regular fish at the poker table.
Silicon to the AI build-out.
Backing the AI build-out
I run Milton Maxwell with Alex. We back the AI build-out from private companies to the public markets. We hold concentrated longs in the companies at the frontier and short the incumbents being displaced. We also invest in AI-adjacent real assets and special situations.
I also run SF Patchworks with Alex and Bryant: a shared workspace in San Francisco for technical founders we know personally or by trusted reference.
Figuring out what’s next
At South Park Commons, I explored AI, design, real estate, and finance. At Adept.ai, a frontier lab, I worked with computer-automation models.
Self-driving
I helped start Lyft’s Level 5 self-driving team and grew it to a few hundred. We built the visualization, triage, and debugging tools behind the program.
Consumer software, at scale
At Cisco, Klout, Betable, and Lyft, I climbed the stack, from enterprise networking to consumer products used by millions.
Silicon
I started in hardware. At Waterloo I did co-op terms close to the metal: graphics at NVIDIA and AMD, ASIC verification at Ericsson, wireless protocols at BlackBerry. I finished with an MASc in distributed systems and cryptography.
Where I put my capital and my time.
Private companies
The frontier lab betting that safety and capability advance together.
Tribe.aiAI adoption is bottlenecked on talent; Tribe is the expert network that unblocks it.
NeuralacePersonal brain-computer interfaces are around the corner, and this is the team building them.
Cypress BatteryA new generation of batteries, built for the power demands of the AI era.
Marathon FusionFusion's unsolved bottleneck is the fuel cycle. Marathon is the team solving it.
FleetworksAI voice agents for the phone-call grind of freight brokerage.
TraydA back-office OS for construction's specialty trades: union rules, prevailing wages, and same-day pay.
SwiftlaneAccess control for offices and apartments, rebuilt software-first around face recognition.
Serene SleepA 15-minute palatal implant for snoring and mild sleep apnea, no masks or surgery required.
NeedleAn ad agency replacement that ships faster and costs less.
ArigladTurns the answers buried in support tickets into a self-maintaining knowledge base.
TriplyThe operating system for travel agencies, built in Nairobi for the African market.
VClubA Toronto poker room that doubles as a network for founders and investors.
Funds
A community of technologists in the minus-one-to-zero phase, with a fund attached.
IterativeY Combinator's accelerator model, ported to Southeast Asia.
Banana CapitalTurner Novak's solo-GP fund, small early checks into internet-first founders.
Sweet Spot CapitalAllen Gannett's solo-GP fund, writing pre-seed checks across sectors and geographies.
AngelList Access FundAngelList's flagship wrapper: broad exposure to its syndicates and rolling funds.
Mission St CapitalAn early-stage generalist fund grown out of the Mission Control hacker house.