Samson Koelle

Can’t sleep on Samson Koelle, dude’s a straight-up tech wizard with a crazy process. So, he jumps into the scene as a co-founder of Uberduck, which is basically this great AI platform for text-to-speech and voice cloning. Started that bad boy in 2021 with William Luer and Zach Wener, who’s now running the show as CEO. The thing’s based in Seattle, and they got into Y Combinator W22, like, they crushed it early on and raised some serious funding from YC in March 2022.

But here’s the kicker, Samson isn’t some random startup guy. He’s got a legit academic background. PhD in statistics from the University of Washington, a BA in math from Columbia, no joke. His research? Deep as hell, interpretable machine learning, computational biology, neural connectomics, hematopoiesis. Basically, he’s been diving into how brains and biology work at the tiniest levels, all with AI tech. He’s not just about startups; he’s obsessed with cracking complex systems and making them do some seriously cool shit.

At Uberduck, he was the engine behind the AI pipelines, developing and deploying models for synthetic speech, training them, evaluating them, building all the infrastructure needed for data, training, inference, the whole shebang. That’s some advanced shit. The tech he built is transforming how voice tech works, making it more realistic, more accessible, more fun.

Fast forward to August 2024, and he’s now working as an Applied Scientist at Amazon Connect. Basically, he’s taking that deep AI know-how and applying it at one of the biggest tech giants out there. Dude’s on a mission to push AI boundaries, whether it’s in a startup or at Amazon.

What does all this say about him? To me, it’s clear Samson’s driven by curiosity and a real love for tech that changes how we interact. He’s someone who jumped into AI because he saw its possible to change voice and communication. His academic background shows he’s someone who loves digging into the toughest problems, not just chasing fame or quick wins. He’s about building real tech that matters.

So, yeah, Samson Koelle isn’t just some guy who started a cool startup. He’s a legit innovator, a deep thinker, someone who’s been working on the cutting edge of AI and machine learning for years. And now, he’s taking all that genius and applying it to make voice tech better than ever, at Uberduck, then at Amazon. No cap, he’s the real deal, a tech nerd turned industry mover, and I’d bet we’re gonna hear a lot more from him soon.