Alex Krizhevsky's Shift to Venture Capital | Generated by AI
Alex Krizhevsky, best known for co-authoring the groundbreaking 2012 AlexNet paper that kickstarted the modern deep learning era, has largely stepped back from hands-on research in recent years to pursue a lower-profile career in venture capital and personal interests.
Career Trajectory (2017–Present)
- 2017: Left Google after about four years there, where he contributed to projects like self-driving car technology (e.g., ChauffeurNet). He cited losing interest in the work as a key reason for departing.
- 2018: Joined Dessa (formerly DeepLearni.ng), a deep learning consultancy, as a Technical Advisor to support emerging AI techniques.
- ~2019–Present: Became a Venture Partner at Two Bear Capital, an early-stage VC firm with offices in Montana, the Bay Area, and Israel. In this role, he focuses on investing in AI applications across various domains, with deal sizes typically ranging from $100K to $5M (sweet spot around $1.5M). The firm has been active through 2025, making investments in AI and tech startups.
Recent Activities
Krizhevsky maintains a low public profile, with no active social media presence on X (formerly Twitter) since at least 2023. Reports describe him as “laying low” while enjoying outdoor activities like hiking in his spare time. He has not been prominently involved in academic publishing since around 2018, though his legacy work (like AlexNet) continues to influence AI advancements—e.g., the Computer History Museum released the original AlexNet source code in March 2025, with indirect ties to his Google-era contributions.
No confirmed new papers or major public projects from 2023–2025 were found, despite some unverified mentions of potential collaborations with former colleagues Ilya Sutskever and Geoffrey Hinton.
References
- Who is Alex Krizhevsky? The Story Of How He Changed AI
- Alex Krizhevsky - Wikipedia
- Alex Krizhevsky - Venture Partner at Two Bear Capital
- Alex Krizhevsky’s Investing Profile - Two Bear Capital
- DeepLearni.ng is History (Dessa Announcement)
- CHM Makes AlexNet Source Code Available