About

Hi, I’m Zach Landes. I’m a professional software engineer and product leader specialized in AI, with a background in the social sciences. Since 2024, I’ve been a partner at 2ML, where we build and advise on AI-powered products.

I’ve been building in and around AI and machine learning (ML) since 2008, when I helped create an app called Trumpet, an ML-powered app for iOS that made recommendations for restaurants by learning a user’s preferences. The application, later called Ness, was named to Apple’s App Store Best of 2012 list, and the company was acquired by OpenTable in 2014. Later, I worked as a product manager in analytics at Walmart.com, and as a data engineer at Gracenote, serving the world’s largest collection of video metadata (think IMDb plus TV Guide) to customers like LG.

My social science background is in economics. I did a master’s in economic history at the London School of Economics, and did research with Gregory Clark at UC Davis that became a chapter of his book The Son Also Rises. I started an economics PhD at UCLA Anderson before leaving the program to go back to building. For six years I was also president of the board of Mayview Community Health Center, a nonprofit serving more than 9,000 medically underserved patients a year.

Here I write about what I’m working on, what I’m learning, and whatever piques my curiosity.