# Scott Clark

> I build startups that bring AI research into production at enterprise scale.

Scott Clark is the co-founder and CEO of **Distributional**, an enterprise AI reliability company backed by a16z and Two Sigma. He was previously co-founder and CEO of **SigOpt**, a YC-and-a16z-backed Bayesian optimization platform acquired by **Intel** in 2020, where he then served as VP & GM of AI and HPC supercomputing through 2023. He holds a PhD in applied mathematics and an MS in computer science from Cornell University, where he was a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow.

## At a glance

**Researcher.** Published across multiple STEM fields. 1,200+ citations, h-index 16. ~20 granted US patents. PhD Applied Math and MS Computer Science from Cornell University; BS Mathematics, BS Physics, and BS Computational Physics from Oregon State University

**Founder.** Two-time AI-startup founder, backed multiple times by a16z and Two Sigma. SigOpt (YC W15): raised $17M, acquired by Intel in 2020. Distributional: raised $30M, serving multiple Fortune 500 customers.

**Operator.** Built and led teams from 2 to 200. From AI startups as a YC founder to the AI and HPC engineering organization at Intel as VP & GM. Frequent invited speaker at conferences and podcasts.

## Experience

### 2023 — present · Distributional · Co-founder & CEO

- Analytics for agents, discovering behavioral signals in AI logs for continuous improvement
- Built enterprise tooling for AI reliability with statistical testing and adaptive analytics
- Led a remote team of 30. Raised $30M from a16z, Two Sigma, others over 2 rounds

### 2020 — 2023 · Intel · VP & GM, AI/HPC Supercomputing

- Led a team of 200 engineers and technologists worldwide, overseeing a $70M annual budget
- Responsible for AI and HPC application quality on 35MW+ government datacenters
- Promoted from Director to Sr. Director to VP, supporting multiple chip and datacenter launches

### 2014 — 2020 · SigOpt · Co-founder & CEO

- Bayesian Optimization-as-a-Service product based on my PhD and open source work
- Led a team of 25; published research at top conferences and closed several million in ARR
- Acquired by Intel. Raised $17M from a16z, Two Sigma, YC (W15), others over 3 rounds

### 2012 — 2014 · Yelp · Software Engineer & Team Lead, Ad Targeting

- Led MOE team (Metric Optimization Engine), 1.3k+ star open source repo based on my PhD
- Developed novel location-based and bandit-optimized ad targeting algorithms
- Created the Yelp Dataset Challenge, used by hundreds of thousands of students globally

## Education

### 2008 — 2012 · Cornell University · Ph.D. Applied Mathematics, M.S. Computer Science

**Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow** (full four-year scholarship). Dissertation: "Parallel Machine Learning Algorithms in Bioinformatics and Global Optimization." Advisor: **Peter Frazier**. Committee: **Steve Strogatz**, **Bart Selman**. DOE practicums at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Joint Genome Institute (LBNL).

### 2004 — 2008 · Oregon State University · B.Sc. Mathematics, B.Sc. Computational Physics, B.Sc. Physics

**Triple bachelor's degrees** in four years, *magna cum laude*. Minors in Actuarial Sciences and Mathematical Sciences. Paradigms in Physics degree track. NSF REU summers at UC Davis (computational biophysics) and the Max Planck Institute Dresden (extreme-value statistics of chaotic quantum systems).

## Links

- [GitHub](https://github.com/sc932)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sc932)
- [Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mwWbhAUAAAAJ)
- [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0009-0007-0478-7129)
- [@DrScottClark](https://twitter.com/DrScottClark)
- [scott@scottclark.io](mailto:scott@scottclark.io)

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Source: https://scottclark.io/