John Novak

John Novak is the Co-founder and CTO of Standard Cognition, an autonomous retail technology company based in San Francisco, California. Before transitioning to the technology sector, he earned a PhD in Nuclear Physics from Michigan State University in 2013 and conducted experimental particle detection research at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. An alumnus of Y Combinator, Novak helped build a computer vision platform that has deployed in over 100 stores globally and secured more than $230 million in venture funding. Under his technical leadership, the company reached a $1 billion valuation following a $150 million Series C round led by the SoftBank Vision Fund and subsequently acquired the startup Skip in 2023. His current focus centers on bridging hard sciences with applied artificial intelligence to develop edge computing and checkout-free infrastructure for brick-and-mortar retail environments.