# Swyx (Shawn Wang) & Alessio Fanelli

> Swyx (Shawn Wang) and Alessio Fanelli are the co-hosts of Latent Space, the #1 AI Engineering podcast and newsletter with 200,000+ subscribers and 10M+ total readers. Swyx — a former Singapore hedge fund trader turned developer advocate who coined the term 'AI Engineer' — and Alessio — a Forbes 30 Under 30 VC partner and Rome-born dropout-turned-engineer — together define the curriculum and culture of a generation of engineers building with AI.

- **Role:** Co-hosts at Latent Space; Swyx: Founder at Smol AI & AI Engineer; Alessio: Partner & CTO at Decibel, Founder at Kernel Labs
- **Organizations:** Latent Space, Smol AI, AI Engineer (ai.engineer), Decibel Partners, Kernel Labs
- **Nationality:** Singaporean-American / Italian-American
- **Education:** Coding bootcamp / self-directed, freeCodeCamp (self-taught), Physics and Computer Science (dropped out), Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Literature (concurrent with Tor Vergata), John Cabot University (Rome)
- **Known for:** Coined and popularized 'AI Engineer' — now one of the fastest-growing job titles in tech (endorsed by Andrej Karpathy), Latent Space: 200,000+ subscribers, 10M+ total viewers, Top 10 US Tech podcast, AI Engineer World's Fair 2024: 3,000+ attendees, largest technical AI conference for engineers

## Career timeline

- **~2010-2016** — Swyx: Currency options trader and TMT hedge fund analyst, earning ~$350K/year
- **~2016-2017** — Swyx: Left finance, self-taught coding via freeCodeCamp
- **~2017** — Swyx: First engineering role at Two Sigma
- **2018** — Swyx: Developer Experience Engineer at Netlify; Alessio: Joins 645 Ventures as Engineering Fellow
- **~2013** — Alessio: Won university hackathon, founded Smart Torvy (IoT platform), dropped out
- **2019** — Swyx: Senior Developer Advocate at AWS
- **2020** — Swyx: DX Lead at Temporal; Alessio: Rising to Director of Engineering at 645 Ventures
- **2021** — Swyx: Developer Relations at Airbyte; Alessio: VP at 645 Ventures
- **2022** — Swyx: Founds Latent Space newsletter; Alessio: Joins Decibel Partners as Partner & CTO
- **2023** — Latent Space podcast launches with Alessio as co-host; Swyx coins 'AI Engineer'; AI Engineer Summit sold out instantly
- **2024** — Latent Space hits 1M Substack readers; AI Engineer World's Fair 3,000+ attendees; Alessio named Forbes 30 Under 30; Kernel Labs founded
- **2025** — AI Engineer World's Fair 2025 (18 tracks, SF June 3-5); Latent Space 200K+ subscribers, 10M+ total viewers

## Achievements

- Coined and popularized 'AI Engineer' — now one of the fastest-growing job titles in tech (endorsed by Andrej Karpathy)
- Latent Space: 200,000+ subscribers, 10M+ total viewers, Top 10 US Tech podcast
- AI Engineer World's Fair 2024: 3,000+ attendees, largest technical AI conference for engineers
- AI Engineer World's Fair 2025: 18 tracks, 6,000+ expected attendees
- Swyx: 'Learn in Public' essay read by millions, reshaping developer culture
- Swyx: The Coding Career Handbook — 450+ page book at learninpublic.org
- Swyx: Built Svelte Society from 0 to 15,000+ developers
- Swyx: React TypeScript Cheatsheet — widely used open-source reference
- Alessio: Forbes 30 Under 30, Venture Capital (2024)
- Alessio: Led seed investment in Panther Labs (grew from <$20M to $1.4B+ valuation)
- Alessio: smol-podcaster open-source tool used to produce Latent Space itself
- Latent Space Discord with active LLM Paper Club community

## Latest updates

- **2025-06** — AI Engineer World's Fair 2025 in San Francisco — 18 tracks, projected 6,000+ attendees, first AI conference with dedicated MCP track
- **2025-04** — Latent Space surpasses 200,000 subscribers and 10M total views across all channels
- **2025-03** — Alessio publishes 'Can coding agents self-improve?' and releases KERNEL GYM MCP testing platform
- **2024-11** — Alessio releases AWT (AI worktree CLI), GLIMPSE (CI screenshot tool), PIQUEUE, and SLOP METER open-source tools
- **2024-10** — Kernel Labs opens 12,000 sq ft AI builder space in San Francisco
- **2024-02** — Latent Space hits 1 million Substack readers — within first year of podcast
- **2024-01** — Alessio named to Forbes 30 Under 30, Venture Capital class of 2024

## Links

- Website: https://www.latent.space
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnswyxwang
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/swyx
- GitHub: https://github.com/swyxio
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/swyxTV
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swyxio/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/swyx-shawn-wang-alessio-fanelli
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-30