Riyan M

Medical Doctor // AI Engineer

Co-Founder & CEO @ Sonder (backed by a16z speedrun)

prev. YC-Backed Founder | Senior AI Engineer @ Anterior (backed by Sequoia)

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@GlebSidora Congrats 🚀

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@dimakhanarin Let's go!

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@marcussegal @speedrun Thank you chief 🫡

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

You had to learn to use a computer. What if it learned to be you?

Introducing Sonder Labs, an applied AI lab building your digital twin.

Today, we’re excited to share that a16z @speedrun is backing us.

Our work starts with vision models small enough to live privately on your laptop - always on, seeing what you see. The more your twin learns about your workflows, priorities, and relationships, the less you have to explain.

And when it sees a way to help, it prompts you before you prompt it.

Ajit and I met deploying some of healthcare’s earliest LLM systems at Anterior. Working alongside nurses, we saw early what the rest of knowledge work is now confronting. There’s already more intelligence than we know how to use. We’re the bottleneck.

The tools we use capture what we produce, but lose much of what makes it ours: the iterations and rejected options behind the final result, the taste that defines what good looks like, and the intent behind our decisions. And the work doesn’t stay still. Priorities shift, workflows evolve, and exceptions become routine.

Your world can’t be described once. It has to be learned continuously.

Generic models are powerful, but they can pull work toward the average. We’re betting on AI that helps people become more themselves: sharper in taste, bolder in judgment, and more distinctive in how they work.

Thank you to @JoshLu for believing in our bet on open-weight models way back when it wasn’t obvious, and to @_CallMeMacy and @fromevanwang for keeping our feet on the ground and getting us in front of the right people.

Oh, and we’re hiring! If you or someone you know is obsessed with on-device inference, teaching models how people work, or shaping how humans and AI work together, message us.

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@nrol_ling @nvidia @OrukLabs @hoid_ai @openwhispr impressive results!

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@gabrielste1n The future is local

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@Francescostl @speedrun Let’s go 🔥

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@_CallMeMacy Gang

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@JoshLu @speedrun A picture tells a thousand words :) thank you Josh!

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@momcilo02 @ppadjin @Zelja__ @speedrun @hoid_ai Models will speciate over time, and in turn, so will their inference needs. In a world where time is money for GPUs I’m absolutely bullish 🚀

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@maxccummings @brianyoungilcho @speedrun This team is inevitable. Congrats 🚀🚀

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@kepano Which keyboard piano do you use?

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@danifesto Done

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

@MaxPrilutskiy @lingodotdev @Cornell @ycombinator @TechCrunch @ProductHunt The demo during the batch was mindblowing! Awesome to see how far you've taken it from there 👏

[David Lieb @dflieb]

I've been telling my story of how we turned Bump into Google Photos to new YC founders at the start of each batch. I hope sharing it more broadly inspires even a few founders to go build the future for all the rest of us.

Full video in the replies.

[Riyan M @doc_moo]

The people’s Group Partner 👑

[David Lieb @dflieb]

I’ve had the fortune to build things that lots of people have used, but I’m not sure I’ll find a more rewarding moment than a founder telling me “Thanks for changing my life” <3

Grateful to @paulg and @jesslivingston for doing this for me 15 years ago, and to all the YC partners and founders over the years who’ve strengthened and grown this community.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

One theme in the YC batch I think will actually turn out to be the main theme in this age of AI: human in the loop is here

Human augmentation will be much more a prime theme than human replacement

A doctor with an AI can provide far better primary care than without

[Usama Syed, MD @usamasyed]

My team and I are so excited to be part of @ycombinator Fall Cohort working on the most important problem in the world - healthcare.

Our company, OpenClinic, helps doctors launch their own digital clinics that are 99% AI and 1% doctor. This unlocks millions of latent doctor hours worldwide, bridging the supply/demand mismatch that has always plagued healthcare.

It’s an incredibly tough challenge, but as a team including 3 medical doctors, we know there’s nobody better to do it.

DMs open if anyone has questions!