Students Learn About AI and Entrepreneurship from CEO and Co-Founder William Bryk '14

Students received a visit from Ramaz alumnus William Bryk ’14, CEO and co-founder of Exa, a search engine built specifically for AI agents and LLMs. Recently, Exa raised $250M in Series C funding at a $2.2B valuation, led by Andreessen Horowitz. William told students that his career goal was to do something impressive enough that Ramaz would want him to come back to speak! Former president of the robotics club, he also told current members that the club taught him valuable leadership skills that he uses to inspire his employees and run his company.

Attendees included students in engineering, design, and economics classes, as well as other students and faculty interested in technology and entrepreneurship. In his talk, William taught students and teachers about AI and search engines. He discussed the students’ concerns about various aspects of AI, including its use of copyrighted material and its questionable methods in deciding what answers to provide. He said that these are ongoing issues to which no one has the perfect answers yet.

The group asked thoughtful questions, including what inspired him to start this project. William answered that as a student in Ramaz Upper School (and even told everyone which classroom he had been sitting in) he developed an appreciation for how many people in the world are unable to access reliably factual news. He recognized that “incentives determine tools” and wanted to make a search engine with the right incentives to drive the quality of its results. Rather than maximizing ad revenue, his engine is incentivized by serving businesses with the most accurate information.

At the end of his talk, he spoke one-on-one with the students and even took a tour of the TEC department, marveling at how much it has grown since he was a student.