# Liron Shapira

> Liron Shapira is a startup founder, angel investor, and host of Doom Debates, a podcast and YouTube show built to raise mainstream awareness of human extinction risk from artificial superintelligence. He is the cofounder and CEO of Relationship Hero, a Y Combinator-backed coaching service that has guided more than 100,000 clients, and was previously cofounder and CTO of the app-search company Quixey. A fixture of the online rationalist community, he is known for putting his probability of AI-caused doom near 50% by 2050, for his sharp public critiques of crypto and web3, and for turning a $10,000 early bet on Coinbase into roughly $6 million while still calling cryptocurrency essentially worthless.

- **Role:** Cofounder & CEO at Relationship Hero; Host of Doom Debates
- **Organizations:** Relationship Hero, Doom Debates, Quixey, Machine Intelligence Research Institute (advisor), Center for Applied Rationality (advisor)
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley
- **Known for:** Cofounder and CEO of Relationship Hero, which has coached 100,000+ clients, Cofounder and CTO of Quixey, inventor of its Functional Search technology, Early Coinbase investor who turned $10,000 into roughly $6 million

## Career timeline

- **2009** — Cofounded Quixey, 'The Search Engine for Apps,' serving as CTO and Chief Science Officer; invented Quixey's Functional Search.
- **2012** — Made an early $10,000 angel investment in Coinbase.
- **2016** — Quixey shut down after raising over $170M, including strategic capital from Alibaba.
- **2017** — Cofounded Relationship Hero and launched it through Y Combinator's Summer 2017 batch.
- **2018** — Relationship Hero raised a ~$2M seed round.
- **2021** — Sold his Coinbase stake for roughly $6 million.
- **2024** — Launched Doom Debates, a podcast and YouTube show focused on AI extinction risk.

## Achievements

- Cofounder and CEO of Relationship Hero, which has coached 100,000+ clients
- Cofounder and CTO of Quixey, inventor of its Functional Search technology
- Early Coinbase investor who turned $10,000 into roughly $6 million
- Creator and host of Doom Debates, described as a leading show on AI extinction risk
- Advisor to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and the Center for Applied Rationality
- Y Combinator (Summer 2017) alumnus

## Latest updates

- **2024** — Launched and began hosting Doom Debates, interviewing and debating leading AI researchers about extinction risk.
- **2025** — Continued running Doom Debates livestreams and debates on AI risk, the 'off switch' problem, and P(doom).

## Links

- Website: https://lironshapira.substack.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lironshapira
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/liron
- GitHub: https://github.com/liron00
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DoomDebates

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/liron-shapira
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-27