Matt Schrage

Yo, have you heard of Matt Schrage? Dude’s a total beast in the startup world, and his story is just one of those “no bullshit, straight up grind” kinda tales. So, Matt’s based in SF, right? He’s a programmer, a tinkerer, always digging into sh*t, the kind of guy who’s into building cool tools just ’cause he loves making stuff that actually helps people code better.

He’s a YC alum from the S20 batch, that’s the Summer 2020 crew, which is no joke in itself. But here’s where it gets wild: he’s the co-founder of Fig, a startup that basically makes your terminal smarter. Think visual apps, shortcuts, autocomplete, stuff that makes developers’ lives way easier. It’s like taking the command line from being this intimidating, cryptic thing to something way more accessible and productive. That’s his baby.

And get this, Fig was so good, it caught the eye of Amazon Web Services, and they acquired it in August 2023. Holy shit, that’s the real deal right there. That’s not just some side project; that’s a legit big change that got snapped up by one of the biggest tech giants out there.

But Matt’s story isn’t just about building tools. Before all this, he was into history and philosophy at Harvard, yeah, dude studied that deep stuff. And he even took a course at MIT on “How to Make (Almost) Anything.” So, he’s got this mix of hardcore technical skills and a mind that’s always questioning, always curious. Plus, he’s worked at other startups, like on the Labs R&D team at Foursquare, so he’s been in the trenches, experimenting, pushing boundaries.

What really stands out about Matt? It’s his curiosity and willingness to jump into the unknown. He’s got this obsession with the history of measurement, he even wrote his undergrad thesis on audience measurement. That’s some deep, nerdy sh*t, but it shows he’s all about understanding how systems and metrics work, which totally feeds into how he thinks about building better tools.

He’s also into obscure programming languages and speculative futures, always chasing the future trend before it’s mainstream. That hunger to explore, tinker, and innovate, that’s what’s made him successful. His process from studying philosophy and history to creating tools that get picked up by giants like AWS? That’s the pure hustle.

Bottom line: Matt Schrage isn’t just some coder. He’s a visionary builder who’s always pushing the envelope, blending curiosity, deep tech knowledge, and a relentless drive. He saw a problem, the clunky terminal experience, and turned it into a killer product that got bought by AWS. That’s the kind of story that shows what happens when you combine passion, curiosity, and a no-limits mindset. No cap, he’s someone to watch.