Alumni spotlight

• Came to CMU-SV to become a founder, leveraging the Silicon Valley location and entrepreneurship courses to build startup skills.
• Pivotal moment: Decided to forgo returning to a software engineering job after the launch of ChatGPT inspired him to build and release a viral AI app.
• Turned side project into a startup, grew user base and revenue, and joined the VentureBridge accelerator to go full-time as Founder & CEO of Addy AI.

Looking back, how did your career path evolve while at CMU-SV?

I came to CMU-SV because I wanted to start a company. I was a Software Engineer with a CS Bachelor's degree and zero entrepreneurship background. However, the best thing about CMU-SV is that you're in the center of Silicon Valley and every major technological shift. Even though I was in the MS in Software Engineering program, I tried to register for as many entrepreneurship classes as I could. Those classes brought in successful founders and engineering leaders to share their stories, how they got started, their mistakes, and the steps they took. Seeing their journeys up close basically handed me a DIY playbook for launching a startup.

Was there a moment during your time here when you realized that you wanted to be a founder instead of seeking a software engineering role? What helped lead to that insight?

I took a leave of absence from my Software Engineering job to attend CMU and was scheduled to return to work after graduation. But ChatGPT was launched during my second semester at CMU. I remember attending one of the networking events in San Francisco organized by CMU T&E the week ChatGPT launched, and everyone was talking about AI. There was so much excitement and hope for AI at this event that returning to a software engineering job felt too great an opportunity cost. That's the moment I decided to start a company. So the next day, I built an AI application on YouTube Live, launched it, and it went viral, gaining over 10k users in one week. I kept working on the application part-time until graduation, and 6 months later, it had more users, revenue, and based on user feedback, I had a lot of ideas on how to evolve the app. I applied to the VentureBridge accelerator, and luckily, I got in - and decided to focus full-time on being a founder.