
A holiday drive became an inventory survey. For the co-founder of ThroughPut.ai, the question has followed him from oilfields to software: why do we keep buying more when so much is already standing still?
Ali Raza is the founder and CEO of ThroughPut.ai, a Palo Alto supply chain decision-intelligence company that uses AI to detect, prioritize, and clear operational bottlenecks across factories and logistics networks. A University of Pennsylvania chemical engineer turned field-operations manager, he ran manufacturing and oilfield logistics in eight countries - including a stint as geomarket manager in Yemen during the 2015 Houthi takeover - before building software around the Theory of Constraints idea that every system is limited by one bottleneck at a time.