# Akshay Agrawal

> Akshay Agrawal is the co-founder and CEO of marimo, an open-source reactive Python notebook stored as plain Python files so it is reproducible, git-friendly, runnable as a script, and deployable as an app. A Stanford PhD advised by Stephen Boyd, he co-built version 1.0 of CVXPY, created the embedding library PyMDE, and worked on TensorFlow 2.0 at Google Brain. marimo has grown past 20,000 GitHub stars and raised a $5M seed round led by AIX Ventures, backed by figures including Jeff Dean, Wes McKinney, and Clement Delangue.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at marimo
- **Organizations:** marimo, CVXPY, Stanford University, Google Brain, Netflix
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** PhD, Electrical Engineering (advised by Stephen Boyd), Stanford University, MS, Computer Science, Stanford University, BS, Computer Science, Stanford University
- **Known for:** Co-founder and CEO of marimo, an open-source reactive Python notebook with 20,000+ GitHub stars, Helped design and implement version 1.0 of CVXPY, downloaded over 500,000 times per month, Created PyMDE, a GPU-accelerated library for minimum-distortion embeddings

## Career timeline

- **2015** — Co-authored YouEDU, a system for MOOC discussion forums; began contributing to CVXPY under Stephen Boyd
- **2017** — Joined Google Brain as an engineer working on TensorFlow 2.0's multi-stage programming model
- **2018** — Began PhD in Electrical Engineering at Stanford under Stephen Boyd
- **2021** — Published minimum-distortion embedding research and released the PyMDE library; completed PhD
- **2023** — Launched marimo, the open-source reactive Python notebook
- **2024** — Raised $5M seed round led by AIX Ventures
- **2025** — Spoke at PyCon US and SciPy; marimo passes 20,000 GitHub stars

## Achievements

- Co-founder and CEO of marimo, an open-source reactive Python notebook with 20,000+ GitHub stars
- Helped design and implement version 1.0 of CVXPY, downloaded over 500,000 times per month
- Created PyMDE, a GPU-accelerated library for minimum-distortion embeddings
- Contributed to TensorFlow 2.0 at Google Brain
- NeurIPS-published PhD research on embeddings and differentiable convex optimization
- Served seven quarters as a Stanford teaching assistant, including EE 364a Convex Optimization

## Latest updates

- **2025-08** — Featured on the SuperDataScience podcast discussing the future of Python notebooks
- **2025-05** — Spoke at PyCon US 2025 and SciPy 2025
- **2024-11** — marimo announced a $5M seed round led by AIX Ventures

## Links

- Website: https://www.akshayagrawal.com/
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/akshayka
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/akshaykagrawal
- GitHub: https://github.com/akshayka
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/akshaykagrawal.bsky.social

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/akshay-agrawal
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-25