# Monte Zweben

> Monte Zweben is the co-founder and CEO of ControlRooms.ai, an AI troubleshooting platform for chemical and energy plants. A serial entrepreneur and AI pioneer, he ran NASA Ames' artificial intelligence branch (winning a Space Act Award for Space Shuttle work) before founding a string of companies: Red Pepper Software (merged into PeopleSoft), Blue Martini Software (which IPO'd at roughly $2.9 billion), and Splice Machine. He trained at Carnegie Mellon under AI legends Geoffrey Hinton, Herbert Simon and Allen Newell, holds a Stanford master's, co-authored the textbook Intelligent Scheduling, and now also advises AI Fund and sits on the board of Haven Safety AI.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at ControlRooms.ai
- **Organizations:** ControlRooms.ai, Haven Safety AI, AI Fund, Splice Machine, Blue Martini Software, Red Pepper Software, PeopleSoft, NASA Ames Research Center, Carnegie Mellon University
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.S. in Computer Science (and Management), Carnegie Mellon University, M.S. in Computer Science, Stanford University
- **Known for:** Won NASA's Space Act Award for AI work on the Space Shuttle program, Founded Blue Martini Software, which IPO'd at approximately $2.9 billion, Founded Red Pepper Software, which merged with PeopleSoft

## Career timeline

- **Early career** — Deputy chief of the Artificial Intelligence Branch at NASA Ames Research Center; helped build the lab that supported the Space Shuttle, Space Station, planetary rovers and the Hubble Space Telescope; won the Space Act Award.
- **1990s** — Founder, chairman and CEO of Red Pepper Software, a supply chain optimization company that merged with PeopleSoft, where he became VP and GM of the Manufacturing Business Unit.
- **1998** — Founder and CEO of Blue Martini Software, an e-commerce and omni-channel marketing leader that IPO'd at roughly $2.9 billion about two years after launch.
- **2014** — Co-founder and CEO of Splice Machine, a real-time machine learning and AI / SQL data platform.
- **2021** — Co-founder and CEO of ControlRooms.ai, an AI troubleshooting assistant for chemical and energy plants.
- **2025** — Joined Andrew Ng's AI Fund as a venture advisor.
- **2026** — Joined the board of directors of Haven Safety AI, an AI-native enterprise safety intelligence platform.

## Achievements

- Won NASA's Space Act Award for AI work on the Space Shuttle program
- Founded Blue Martini Software, which IPO'd at approximately $2.9 billion
- Founded Red Pepper Software, which merged with PeopleSoft
- Co-founded Splice Machine and ControlRooms.ai
- Holds five patents
- Co-author of the textbook Intelligent Scheduling
- Published in Harvard Business Review and AI journals
- Serves on the Dean's Advisory Board of Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science

## Latest updates

- **2026-03** — Joined the board of directors of Haven Safety AI as it expands leadership and pushes AI-driven safety intelligence.
- **2026-02** — Haven Safety AI, which he advises, launched its AI-native safety platform co-founded with The AES Corporation and AI Fund.
- **2025-06** — Joined Andrew Ng's AI Fund as a venture advisor.

## Links

- Website: https://controlrooms.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mzweben/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/monte-zweben
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-10