Mayank Agrawal

Yo, have you heard of Mayank Agrawal? The guy’s actually a beast. He’s the co-founder and CEO of this startup called Roundtable, which just got into Y Combinator’s summer 2023 batch. Dude’s all about building the “proof-of-human” layer on the internet – basically, figuring out if you’re a real person or a bot, but in a super sneaky, invisible way using behavioral stuff and AI. It’s kinda wild, right? Like, they’re making sure bots don’t mess up our online world, tackling fraud and continuous login stuff.

And get this – Mayank’s background is no joke. He’s got a PhD from Princeton, where he was deep in cognitive science and AI. He’s published in big names like Science, PNAS, Nature Human Behaviour, all that high-impact science stuff. So, this isn’t just some tech bro throwing out buzzwords; he’s legit a brainiac who’s been pushing the boundaries of understanding how humans think and how AI can mimic or understand that.

Before all this, he went to Swarthmore – yeah, the small college known for being super smart – where he also ran cross country and track. I mean, the guy’s no stranger to discipline and hustle. And now he’s based in San Francisco, building this modern company with support from YC and Brickyard Ventures. Basically, he jumped into the startup game after crushing his research and academic career, and now he’s on a mission to fix some of the biggest problems online – bots, fraud, continuous authentication – using science and AI.

The cool part? This process shows he’s super driven by curiosity and a real desire to solve real-world problems with science. He’s not just in it for the tech fame; he genuinely wants to make the internet safer and more authentic. And that’s why he’s so important – he’s blending hardcore research with startup hustle to actually change how we interact online. No Cap, this guy’s the real deal.