engineering-physics
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Hideo Esaka Sells the Data That Runs Every Car You Never Think About
He trained in physics and psychology, then spent 25 years learning to explain complicated software to the people who buy it. At Solera, the product is the data quietly steering the auto and insurance industries.
Richard Givhan
Richard Givhan is the co-founder and CEO of Haiqu, a quantum software company building a hardware-aware operating system that squeezes useful results out of today's noisy, qubit-starved quantum computers. A Stanford-trained engineering physicist who once chased dark matter at the Kavli Institute, Givhan now bets on the unglamorous middleware layer - circuit optimization, error shielding, and orchestration - to make near-term quantum applications run at roughly 100x lower compute cost. Incubated in 2022 inside Toronto's Creative Destruction Lab Quantum stream, Haiqu has raised about $19 million to date, including an $11 million seed round in January 2026 led by Primary Venture Partners.