# Jon O'Bryan

> Jon O'Bryan is the co-founder of Atlas, a customer-support software company in Y Combinator's Winter 2022 batch, and was identified as its CEO in the April 2026 announcement that it joined dlivrd Technologies' portfolio. A Stanford mathematics graduate with a 2015 physics PhD from UC Irvine, he previously co-founded PadSplit and served as its CTO. He writes about support operations, product decisions and international engineering teams, and Raft School lists him as a co-founder and instructor.

- **Role:** Co-founder & CEO at Atlas (CEO identified in April 2026 announcement); co-founder and instructor at Raft School
- **Organizations:** Atlas, PadSplit, Blanket Homes, Partage, Raft School, University of California, Irvine, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
- **Education:** Bachelor of Science, Mathematics, Stanford University, PhD, Physics, University of California, Irvine
- **Known for:** Earned a physics PhD at UC Irvine in 2015., Co-authored published cosmology research using Planck data., Co-founded PadSplit, which ranked No. 290 on the 2022 Inc. 5000.

## Career timeline

- **2009** — Research assistant in particle theory at SLAC, according to public career history.
- **2010–2015** — Graduate physics research at UC Irvine, moving from particle theory to cosmology.
- **2013** — Co-authored research on spatial variations in the fine-structure constant using Planck data.
- **2014–2015** — Co-founded Partage, according to public career history.
- **2015** — Received physics PhD at UC Irvine in fall 2015; co-authored research constraining primordial non-Gaussianity.
- **2015–2018** — Co-founded Blanket Homes, according to public career history.
- **2018–2022** — Co-founder and CTO tenure at PadSplit in public career history; PadSplit itself dates its founding to 2017.
- **2021** — Co-founded Atlas with Rahul Asati.
- **2022** — Atlas participated in Y Combinator Winter 2022.
- **2024** — Discussed Atlas and customer relationship management on the Schematic podcast, July 9.
- **2025** — Published an international engineering hiring guide on March 12.
- **2026** — Atlas joined dlivrd Technologies’ portfolio on April 23. Raft School also lists him as co-founder and instructor.

## Achievements

- Earned a physics PhD at UC Irvine in 2015.
- Co-authored published cosmology research using Planck data.
- Co-founded PadSplit, which ranked No. 290 on the 2022 Inc. 5000.
- Co-founded Atlas and participated in Y Combinator Winter 2022.
- Reported hiring more than 60 international engineers across two startups in March 2025.

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — Atlas joined dlivrd Technologies’ portfolio; the April 23 announcement identified O’Bryan as CEO.
- **2026-06** — Raft School’s page advertising a June 8, 2026 cohort lists O’Bryan as a co-founder and instructor alongside Divyam Chandel; this is a dated program reference, not a verified founding date.
- **2025-03** — Published How to hire engineers overseas, reporting Atlas had 20 people across three continents and seven time zones at that time.

## Links

- Website: https://atlas.so/blog/authors/jon-obryan
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-obryan
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/jobryan

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/jon-obryan
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-20