Topper Bowers

Applied AI engineer · 2x founder (YC) · Berlin

As companies roll out AI to their employees, many are hitting the same problems: vibe-coded apps, permissions, and sprawl. There’s a new way to work, and none of us have fully figured it out yet. Engineering harnesses are pretty established by now. The harnesses for everything else are just getting started.

That’s the problem I like working on: what changes inside a company once everyone has AI, and how to build it so it holds up. I’d rather show a working system than a framework slide.

Things I have done

Cofounder twice, once as CEO. YC S12. Political tech, healthcare tech, developer infrastructure, and a system that spent three years trying to feel alive. I’m a strong engineering leader, but I never want to stop building.

Things I like

Real users, messy workflows, and serious reasons to put AI inside a product or business.

Most recently, I built a beloved magical talking dog. Which sounds funny, but the engineering problem was very real. Making an AI talk back only takes an API key. Making it feel real and useful requires advanced memory systems, tool use, real-time goal selection, theory of mind, outcome prediction, multimodal inputs, tight latency, and a simple enough shape for non-technical users. The hard part was never the model. It was everything around it, and that’s the same problem companies have now.

Lately I’ve also been making video with AI: self-hosting the generation models, letting an agent make a whole ad on its own, and cutting my own videos with agents instead of an editor.

I am most drawn to industries that do actual good in the world, and to people who would rather find out what is worth building than perform certainty about it.

Writing and experiments

Elsewhere