# Francois Chaubard

> Francois Chaubard is an American AI researcher, Focal Systems co-founder and former CEO, author of AI for Retail, and visiting partner at Y Combinator. He moved from Focal CEO to CTO in April 2024 and entered Stanford’s computer science PhD program that autumn. His recent research investigates training methods that reduce dependence on backpropagation.

- **Role:** Visiting Partner at Y Combinator; PhD Student in Computer Science at Stanford University
- **Organizations:** Focal Systems, Y Combinator, Stanford University, Apple, Lockheed Martin, BusBookie
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BS in Mechanical Engineering, University of Delaware, Master’s degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, PhD in Computer Science (in progress), Stanford University
- **Known for:** Co-founded Focal Systems and led it as CEO for nine years., Focal reported more than 100,000 cameras deployed across three continents by April 2024., Authored AI for Retail: A Practical Guide to Modernize Your Retail Business with AI and Automation (Wiley, 2023).

## Career timeline

- **2008** — BusBookie business concept won a first prize at the University of Delaware business-plan competition, as reported in October 2009.
- **2009** — Graduated from the University of Delaware in mechanical engineering; operated BusBookie with Brandon Maas.
- **Before 2015** — Worked on missile-guidance algorithms at Lockheed Martin, studied at Stanford, and worked as a deep-learning researcher at Apple.
- **2015** — Co-founded Focal Systems, emerging from Stanford’s computer-vision community.
- **2016** — Focal Systems joined Y Combinator’s Winter 2016 batch.
- **2018** — Presented Focal Systems at the IQT/SVB AI Computing at the Edge pitch event; the company won.
- **2023** — Wiley published AI for Retail in April.
- **2024** — Transitioned from Focal CEO to CTO on April 2; admitted to Stanford’s computer science PhD program in autumn.
- **2025** — Co-authored a paper on zero-order training of billion-parameter recurrent networks; announced as a YC visiting partner in October.
- **2026** — Co-authored September preprints on zero-order pretraining through model sharding and probe-space preconditioning.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Focal Systems and led it as CEO for nine years.
- Focal reported more than 100,000 cameras deployed across three continents by April 2024.
- Authored AI for Retail: A Practical Guide to Modernize Your Retail Business with AI and Automation (Wiley, 2023).
- Co-created Stanford courses CS224d and CS231m; served as a teaching assistant for CS229.
- Focal won the 2018 IQT/Silicon Valley Bank AI Computing at the Edge pitch event.
- Co-authored research on Gradient Agreement Filtering and zero-order optimization.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — Co-authored Scaling Zero-Order Pretraining through Model Sharding and Probe-Space Preconditioning for Fast and Stable Zero-Order Training, both submitted to arXiv on September 29.
- **2026-05** — Appeared on the AI 2030 podcast discussing founder experience and his research.
- **2026-03** — TD Securities published Is AI Eating Software?, an interview recorded in November 2025.
- **2025-10** — Y Combinator announced him among its new visiting partners on October 14.

## Links

- Website: https://fchaubard.github.io/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francois-chaubard-0a169448/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/FrancoisChauba1
- GitHub: https://github.com/Fchaubard

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/francois-chaubard
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-11