Hey, I'm Zach

Building Portal (SPC F25). Previously doing a self-directed incubator.

Some anecdotes

Cold-messaging my way to SPC founder fellow +
Was pitching TalkMode to Microsoft/OpenAI & thought getting the CPO of Anthropic to say it was a good idea would help. Saw an SPC hackathon with Anthropic - but got rejected. DM'd 15 SPC members, got in with 12 hours notice, booked a flight immediately. Convinced them to let me be the only solo hacker, won finalist with Yellow Pages from my nonprofit hackathon, got to go to event with CPO of Anthropic - asked him about computer use/accessibility which he said was a great idea - used in pitch later. Months later accepted as SPC member then founder fellow a week in.
Referred to OpenAI & cold dm'ing the VP +
Was referred to OpenAI then told I was too green by a hiring manager, so cold dmed my way to the VP who I sent a video saying I'd prove a new version of RLHF worked better - in 4 days I built a fullstack site to test it with A/B tests from scratch, sat in starbucks near Seattle University to test it with 30+ Gen Z including grad students and sent them a summary of findings.
Microsoft AI political maneuvering to save a feature +
Was told to let an Edge feature die. Instead, bundled the PR with a Copilot fix, convinced 5 marketing directors to launch a campaign for a feature before it even shipped—then used that momentum to force product leadership to greenlight it. Saved the feature and led to a 7x retention gain.
Hosting the world's first agents for nonprofits hackathon +
Organized the world's first AI Agents for Good Hackathon from scratch.
Urgent care visits, agents, and startups +
While dealing with the political maneuvering:
  • Led competitive analysis on AI Agents for Microsoft for 6 months (built a competitive analysis agent myself).
  • Caught & fixed two separate bugs that would have broken Windows Copilot for millions of users.
  • Acted essentially as principal applied scientist assigning work items (at some points reviewing PRs) to a team of 5 scientists representing the Edge org alongside GPMs from Windows & Bing in reporting & analyzing core Copilot metrics daily directly to leadership.
  • Balanced all of this while building TalkMode, living in a spider-infested Airbnb with bronchitis.
Built Apple's Workout Buddy 2 years earlier +
Back in 2023, my favorite app while learning how to run was WeavRun, an IOS app that changed the pace of the music playing when you sped up. One issue I had is that when I'd go running I'd often fall below the pace I wanted to go at but didn't get real-time feedback or motivation during the moment. I emailed the company with the feature idea, got a meeting with the Head of Product 4 days later, and came to that meeting with a full working prototype having learned Swift over the weekend. I got design feedback and an offer to be added as a developer to WeavRun so I could use it after they shut it down! I also had a buzzing mode instead of noise for folks with limited hearing. 2 years later Apple launched Workout Buddy - validating the pain point.