Calvin Chen

Calvin Chen is currently building Proximal, where he focuses on helping frontier research laboratories train the next generation of advanced artificial intelligence coding agents. He previously studied business and computer science at the University of Southern California before dropping out to participate in the Y Combinator Winter 2023 batch. Prior to his current focus on artificial intelligence development, Chen completed a brief stint at Goldman Sachs and subsequently founded two independent e-commerce software startups. He successfully bootstrapped one of these software ventures to $1.5 million in annual recurring revenue before ultimately selling the business for $9 million. Transitioning into machine learning, he also developed and trained a state-of-the-art diffusion model specifically designed for virtual try-on applications. His professional background centers on leveraging early-stage entrepreneurship to advance developer tools and complex artificial intelligence capabilities.