# Ruizhi (Ray) Liao

> Ruizhi (Ray) Liao is the cofounder and CEO of Inkbox, a San Francisco company in Y Combinator’s Summer 2026 batch that provides persistent identity and communication infrastructure for AI agents. He earned a B.Eng. at Tsinghua University and a computer science PhD at MIT under Polina Golland, previously cofounded Empallo, and publicly demonstrated web-automation infrastructure through Vectorly. His current work includes agent self-registration and brokered agent-to-agent communication.

- **Role:** Cofounder & CEO at Inkbox
- **Organizations:** Inkbox, Vectorly, Empallo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tsinghua University
- **Education:** PhD, Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, B.Eng., Tsinghua University
- **Known for:** Completed a computer science PhD at MIT., Received Merrill Lynch Fellowship and Siebel Fellowship support for doctoral research., Cofounded Inkbox, a Y Combinator Summer 2026 company.

## Career timeline

- **2011–2015** — Studied at Tsinghua University, earning a B.Eng.
- **2015–2021** — Completed a computer science PhD at MIT under Polina Golland.
- **—** — Previously cofounded Empallo and served as CTO.
- **—** — Introduced Vectorly, demonstrating reusable website-data automations and an Amtrak connector.
- **2026** — Cofounded Inkbox with Alex Wilcox and Dima Vremenko; joined Y Combinator’s Summer 2026 batch and moved from Boston to San Francisco.

## Achievements

- Completed a computer science PhD at MIT.
- Received Merrill Lynch Fellowship and Siebel Fellowship support for doctoral research.
- Cofounded Inkbox, a Y Combinator Summer 2026 company.
- Hosted Inkbox’s first Boston Back Bay hackathon, with more than 100 registrants and attendance capped at 50.

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — Coauthored Inkbox’s April 4 explanation of agent self-registration with Alex Wilcox.
- **2026-07** — Published a July 22 customer account describing Vendo’s five agent identities.
- **2026-08** — Coauthored Inkbox’s August 10 explanation of brokered agent-to-agent communication with Dima Vremenko.

## Links

- Website: https://people.csail.mit.edu/ruizhi/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruizhi-liao
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/rayruizhiliao
- GitHub: https://github.com/rayruizhiliao

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/ruizhi-liao
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-13