Erik Schluntz

Engineer & Entrepreneur

Interests

As an engineer and an entrepreneur, I am constantly looking for problems to solve or processes to make more efficient. In particular, I am passionate about automating or transforming the biggest bottleneck in a company or system. Automating expensive, labor intensive tasks doesn’t just save money, but lets you do 10x more, changing the fundamental constraints of the system.

The most impactful problems require an understanding of technology, people, and business - focusing on any one area alone will not work.

Work Experience

I’m currently a Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic, working on Large Language Models.

Previously, I was the co-founder and CTO of Cobalt Robotics. Along with my cofounder Travis Deyle, we build AI-enabled, friendly, security guard robots for offices and warehouses. We’re Series C, raised from top investors including Sequoia, and have deployed over 100 robots to customers around the world.

Before that, I worked on SpaceX’s Flight Software Team, testing an entirely new fuel system on the Falcon 9 rocket in 2015, and on Google[x]’s Smart Contact Lens project, prototyping radical new uses for low power electronics in 2014. While at Harvard I dropped out to start Posmetrics. We were accepted to Y Combinator’s winter class of 2013, and later acquired.

Education

I graduated from Harvard University in 2015 with Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees Cum Laude in Electrical Engineering. My goal was to become a ‘Renaissance Engineer,’ with a broad range of knowledge across several disciplines so that I could approach problems from a holistic perspective. The issues we face today are too complex to be solved within a single specialty, and so I split my courses between AI, computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and economics.

Outside of classes, I was the Co-President of RFC Cambridge, an autonomous robot soccer team split between Harvard and MIT (Now part of the Harvard Robotics Club). I was also an Associate Director and then Technology Director of the Harvard College Consulting Group, where I worked on cases with both startups and Fortune 500 companies.

Hobbies

On days off, I enjoy mountain biking, sailing, skiing, and hiking. When I don’t have quite as much time, I read science fiction, play board games (and write AIs to play board games), and play tennis.

I am also an avid traveler and greatly enjoy getting lost in a new city or area and experiencing different cultures. Some of my favorite trips have been to Cappadocia, Tokyo, Singapore, Istanbul, and Dar es Salaam.