John Ciocca

Co-founder @ Purple | Thiel Fellow

[John Ciocca @JohnCiocca]

Excited to join an amazing class of Thiel Fellows!

[Thiel Fellowship @thielfellowship]

Congratulations to our newest class of Thiel Fellows!
https://t.co/snmZO6a7uA

[Varda Space Industries @VardaSpace]

We cooked. (Again.)

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Starship rocket booster caught by tower

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

Super Heavy, powered by Raptor

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster!

[Thiel Fellowship @thielfellowship]

THE THIEL FELLOWSHIP IN 2024

"Today's universities are as corrupt as the medieval Catholic Church. The Reformation is underway." - Peter Thiel

This year’s class understands the importance of the present moment. They reject the well-worn paths of red tape, digital distractions, and self-censorship. By refusing to sit idle while others succumb to conformity’s paralysis, they’re positioned to finally deliver on the future. And deliver they will.

WHO ARE THEY?

Adarsh Hiremath, Sunnyvale, CA - @adarsh_exe
Mercor is building AI vetting infrastructure to understand the exact tasks people are good at. Mercor's AI interviewer conducts superhuman interviews by asking questions tailored to every candidate's individual background.

Alexandra Debow, Hong Kong - @ali_debow
swsh will be there to capture your memories - every celebration, birthday, and vacation - with an AI-powered shared photo album, ensuring you can make those unforgettable experiences happen again and again.

Augustus Doricko, Stamford, CT - @ADoricko
Rainmaker is fulfilling humanity's role as responsible stewards of the Earth through pioneering advanced cloud-seeding technology to combat drought and transform deserts into habitable landscapes.

Brendan Foody, Menlo Park, CA - @BrendanFoody
Mercor is creating a unified global labor market capable of facilitating interviews and evaluations of everyone on Earth. Labor aggregation is the most impactful opportunity in history.

Charlie Wu, Fairfax, VA - @charliewu
Orchard Robotics is putting eyes on each of the billions of fruit in orchards, and using AI to help farmers feed the world with the best food they've ever grown.

Christopher Zhu, Boston, MA - @czhu1729
Etched is building the hardware for superintelligence, starting with transformer-specific AI chips that run models at unprecedented speeds and scale. Next-generation AI models are set to become GDP-scale investments, requiring the largest infrastructure buildout in history. Etched is creating a new computing paradigm to make this feasible.

Diogenes Casares, Woodside, CA - @DiogenesCasares
Stream seamlessly integrates the benefits of centralized exchanges with the decentralized nature of DeFi, enhancing liquidity and security while eliminating custodial risks and reshaping the landscape of crypto trading.

Felipe Meneses, Aracaju, Brazil - @felipebpm
Hyperplane is a data intelligence platform that empowers financial institutions to make multi-billion dollar decisions using specialized LLMs trained on consumer banking data, enabling the rapid creation of hundreds of state-of-the-art predictive models.

Gavin Uberti, Seattle, WA - @UbertiGavin
Etched was founded because the next 100x of scale requires silicon to be customized for a model's architecture. Flexible AI chips don't make sense in a world where training a single model costs more than designing an entire chip.

Govind Gnanakumar, Folsom, CA - @sandkoan
Automorphic is creating AI models that learn new information more efficiently than humans.

Jacob Rodriguez, Los Angeles, CA - @jacob_d_rod
Oligo is revolutionizing the production of space-grade hardware and orbit-ready spacecraft through making the process as efficient and accessible as manufacturing car parts.

Joseph Semrai, Queens, NY - @josephsemrai
Explore Interfaces is developing a contextual LLM-based operating system, enabling hyper-personalized applications and challenging long-held assumptions about the interaction between computers, devices, and our daily lives, ushering in a new era of human-computer interaction.

Luke Farritor, Lincoln, NE - @LukeFarritor
The Vesuvius Challenge is accelerating the reading of the Herculaneum Papyri, the last surviving library of the Roman Empire.

Pavel Asparouhov, Salt Lake City, UT - @Pavel_Asparagus
Silna is streamlining patient intake and building a more efficient infrastructure to allow providers to focus on world-class care and to ease the trillion-dollar tax burden that is the US healthcare system.

Peter Hansen, Chester, England
Januus is mapping cryptowallets to physical locations and people on a global scale.

Robert Wachen, Potomac, MD - @robertwachen
Etched is solving the compute cost and speed bottlenecks hampering every company on this list. Specialized AI chips are inevitable and will change the world.

Surya Midha, San Jose, CA - @suryamidha
Mercor is utilizing AI vetting to create opportunities for millions of smart people who were previously undiscovered due to society's misplaced reliance on flawed signals like the prestige on someone's resume.

Tarun Amasa, Manhattan, NY - @TarunAmasa
Endex is building the first autonomous and super-intelligent financial analyst.

Walden Yan, Avon, CT - @walden_yan
Cognition AI is an applied AI lab focused on reasoning. Their flagship product Devin, an AI software engineer and teammate, is ushering in a new era of economic prosperity.

Yash Patil, Austin, TX - @ypatil125
OpenAI research engineer evaluating language models and creating systems for machines to collaborate with less human oversight.

SOME THINGS CAN'T WAIT.
The future won’t build itself. Stop misallocating your potential and apply for the fellowship today.

[Thiel Fellowship @thielfellowship]

Welcome to the Fellowship! https://t.co/ak4u4RzFSW

[John Ciocca @JohnCiocca]

@nickabouzeid @tryramp @RivetTax 🚀🚀🚀

[Financial Health Network @finhealthnet]

We hope you’ll join us at #EMERGE #Insights next month in Philadelphia where you can hear from these leaders on how we can create a more equitable #finhealth landscape for people with disabilities.

Register today!
https://t.co/MtNyhHmPma
#equity #inclusion

[John Ciocca @JohnCiocca]

@akshayadinesh19 @Stanford @spellboundio Congrats!

[Flourish Ventures @FlourishVC]

It's always fun to see one of Flourish's own moderating a panel with a portfolio company. Great conversation on improving #FinHealth for millions by bringing innovation to gov. assistance systems w/ @EmmalynShaw moderating w/ Propel's @JimmyChen & @JohnCiocca at #Money2020USA

[John Ciocca @JohnCiocca]

@Bfaviero @tuskventures @circle_ventures @galaxyhq @GumiCryptos @0xPolygon @SolanaVentures @avalabsofficial @ycombinator @shimacapital LETS GOOO!!! 🚀 Congrats @Bfaviero @arundotai 🍁 Maple for life!

[John Ciocca @JohnCiocca]

@tamarachayo You as well!

[John Ciocca @JohnCiocca]

Excited to join an amazing class of Thiel Fellows!

[Thiel Fellowship @thielfellowship]

Congratulations to our newest class of Thiel Fellows!
https://t.co/snmZO6a7uA

[Thiel Fellowship @thielfellowship]

Congratulations to our newest class of Thiel Fellows!
https://t.co/snmZO6a7uA

[John Ciocca @JohnCiocca]

@iankar_ @harryhurst would 100% be a vibe

[John Ciocca @JohnCiocca]

Super excited to partner with @gil_akos and the Astra team!

[Gil Akos @gil_akos]

There is nothing more important than access when it comes to personal finance – we are thrilled that we can help @trypurple on their mission by providing bank transfers to automate their users’ finances!

[Astra @astra_finance]

Exciting news!

@trypurple, the first and only banking offering specifically built to support those with disabilities, will partner with Astra for bank-to-bank transfers and savings automation for their customers.

[Financial Planning @finplan]

"People with disabilities ... are still able to participate in the financial system. Right now they are discouraged from doing so." @JohnCiocca of @trypurple https://t.co/f2K8yimZdl

[John Ciocca @JohnCiocca]

@sarthakgh Can’t wait!

[Sar Haribhakti @sarthakgh]

.@JohnCiocca will be participating in the inaugural group for On Deck fintech : https://t.co/4VyGg07cTy