# Peter Lai

> Peter Lai is a San Francisco software engineer and entrepreneur who co-founded Crocodoc, acquired by Box in 2013, and founded and led the original Emburse corporate-card startup, acquired in 2019. An MIT graduate in electrical engineering and computer science and cognitive science, he announced in June 2025 that he was joining Anthropic’s prototyping team.

- **Role:** Prototyping team at Anthropic (announced June 2025)
- **Organizations:** Anthropic, Emburse, Crocodoc, Box, PARC, Plaitime Labs
- **Education:** BS, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, BS, Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Master’s degree, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- **Known for:** Co-founded Crocodoc, acquired by Box in 2013., Founded and served as CEO of the original Emburse startup, acquired by Certify/Chrome River in 2019., Participated in Y Combinator with Crocodoc (W10) and Emburse (W16).

## Career timeline

- **2006** — Research internship at PARC.
- **2008-2009** — Completed undergraduate and graduate studies at MIT.
- **2010** — Crocodoc participated in Y Combinator Winter 2010.
- **2013** — Box acquired Crocodoc; Lai subsequently worked at Box.
- **2014** — Founded the original Emburse corporate-card startup.
- **2015** — Emburse launched publicly at TechCrunch Disrupt SF.
- **2016** — Emburse participated in Y Combinator Winter 2016 and introduced its card-issuing API.
- **2019** — Certify/Chrome River acquired Emburse.
- **2025** — Announced a second iteration of his LLM debugger and that he would join Anthropic’s prototyping team in June.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Crocodoc, acquired by Box in 2013.
- Founded and served as CEO of the original Emburse startup, acquired by Certify/Chrome River in 2019.
- Participated in Y Combinator with Crocodoc (W10) and Emburse (W16).
- Built public tools for investigating small language models.

## Latest updates

- **2025-06** — On June 13, announced completion of a second iteration of an LLM debugger and a move the following week to Anthropic’s prototyping team; credited mentorship from Stefan Heimersheim.

## Links

- Website: https://www.peterl.ai/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterjlai/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/peterjlai
- GitHub: https://github.com/peterlai

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/peter-lai
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-23