The morning after Elon Muskβs 2022 acquisition of Twitter (now X), reporters encountered two males with containers exterior the corporateβs headquarters. One launched himself as just lately laid-off Twitter engineer βRahul Ligma.βΒ
His actual identify is Rahul Sonwalkar however the prank went viral.
Whereas he by no means labored for X, he’s really very a lot a techy. Sonwalker spent a number of years working as an engineer at Uber.Β HeΒ even went by way of Y Combinator at the moment, engaged on a logistics startup that he later scrapped earlier than pivoting.Β Β
The now 27-year-old needs to attract consideration to his extra severe endeavor: Julius, the AI knowledge analyst startup he based about two years in the past.Β
The device, which might analyze and visualize intensive datasets and carry out predictive modeling from pure language prompts, has attracted over 2 million registered customers.
βI wished to construct one thing that might make knowledge science very accessible to everybody,β Sonwalkar advised Trendster.
Whereas a few of Juliusβ performance can also be out there on ChatGPT, Anthropicβs Claude, and Googleβs Gemini, Iavor Bojinov, an assistant professor at Harvard Enterprise College (HBS), favored the device a lot that he needed to persuade Sonwalkar to switch Julius particularly for HBSβ new required course known as Knowledge Science and AI for Leaders.
Β βWe had achieved a head-to-head comparability throughout quite a lot of platforms, together with ChatGPT, and Julius ended up performing the very best,β Bojinov advised Trendster.
The adoption by HBS, an academic establishment that breeds about 1,000 future enterprise leaders yearly, is clearly an enormous win for Julius, which is at present a workforce of 12 workers.
Sonwalkar has additionally raised a seed spherical led by Bessemer Enterprise Companionsβ Talia Goldberg, Trendster discovered from somebody conversant in the deal. However Sonwalkar wouldnβt focus on the small print.Β
Bessemer didnβt reply to a request for remark.
Did Sonwalkarβs βRahul Ligmaβ stunts open doorways when he was first constructing Julius?
Β βSomewhat bit within the early days, however to be sincere, not as a lot just lately,β he stated.