# Scott Clark

> Scott Clark is the Co-founder and CEO of Distributional, an enterprise AI testing platform that helps companies identify behavioral drift and unknown failures in AI systems. A triple-degree graduate of Oregon State University with a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Cornell, he co-founded and sold SigOpt (a Bayesian optimization platform backed by Y Combinator and a16z) to Intel in 2020, then led 200 engineers as VP & GM of AI/HPC Supercomputing at Intel before founding Distributional in September 2023. The company raised $30M in under a year, including a $19M Series A led by Two Sigma Ventures in October 2024.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at Distributional
- **Organizations:** Distributional, Intel, SigOpt, Yelp, Y Combinator, Cornell University
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.Sc. Mathematics, B.Sc. Computational Physics, B.Sc. Physics (triple degree, magna cum laude), Oregon State University, MS in Computer Science, Cornell University, PhD in Applied Mathematics, Cornell University
- **Known for:** Co-founded SigOpt (2014), grew it to $17M raised and 30 employees, sold to Intel in 2020, Led 200 engineers with $70M annual budget as VP & GM of AI/HPC at Intel, 1,200+ academic citations and h-index of 16

## Career timeline

- **2004-2008** — Triple-degree at Oregon State University (Mathematics, Computational Physics, Physics), magna cum laude
- **2008-2012** — PhD in Applied Mathematics at Cornell University; DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellow; dissertation on parallel ML algorithms in bioinformatics
- **2012-2014** — Ad Targeting / Data Mining Engineer at Yelp; created the Metric Optimization Engine (MOE) and initiated the Yelp Dataset Challenge
- **2014** — Co-founded SigOpt, a Bayesian optimization platform; backed by Y Combinator and Andreessen Horowitz
- **2014-2020** — Co-founder and CEO of SigOpt; grew team to 30 people, raised $17M
- **2020** — Intel acquired SigOpt (October 2020)
- **2020-2023** — VP & General Manager, AI and HPC Supercomputing at Intel; led 200 engineers with $70M annual budget
- **2023** — Co-founded Distributional (September 2023) - enterprise AI testing and behavioral monitoring platform
- **2023-12** — Distributional raised $11M seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz
- **2024-10** — Distributional raised $19M Series A led by Two Sigma Ventures; total funding reaches $30M

## Achievements

- Co-founded SigOpt (2014), grew it to $17M raised and 30 employees, sold to Intel in 2020
- Led 200 engineers with $70M annual budget as VP & GM of AI/HPC at Intel
- 1,200+ academic citations and h-index of 16
- Approximately 20 granted US patents
- Raised $30M for Distributional in under one year of founding
- Created the Yelp Dataset Challenge, a major ML community resource
- Created the Metric Optimization Engine (MOE) at Yelp
- Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow at Cornell
- Cornell CAM Notable Alumni Speaker (2019-2020)
- Triple undergraduate degree from Oregon State University, completed magna cum laude in four years
- Distributional named 'Industry's Only Enterprise AI Testing Platform' at Series A launch

## Latest updates

- **2024-10** — Distributional raised $19M Series A led by Two Sigma Ventures, bringing total funding to $30M
- **2024-10** — Distributional debuted what it calls the industry's first enterprise AI testing platform
- **2025-05** — Featured in Oregon State University alumni spotlight for building a $30M AI startup
- **2025** — Appeared on TWIML AI Podcast discussing how to find agent failures that standard evals miss

## Links

- Website: https://scottclark.io/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sc932/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/scottclark
- GitHub: https://github.com/sc932

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/scott-clark
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-13