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Phillip Li Is Building a Practice World for AI Agents
The former Team Canada épée fencer left UBC in his final year. Now he and a calculus-class friend are giving software agents somewhere safe to make expensive mistakes.
Aaron Luo Built a Bag Company Like a Fencer: Watch, Wait, Then Move
The Caraa co-founder spent a decade learning how large companies move, then built two small ones around bags, jamón, and the quiet discipline of choosing the right moment.
Nico Simko
Nico Simko is the co-founder and CEO of Clair, a New York fintech that lets hourly workers tap their earned wages the moment a shift ends, with no interest and no mandatory fees. A former Swiss national-team fencer who captained the U17 squad before fencing at Harvard, he studied economics, worked an hourly campus job, then ran M&A due diligence on payments fintechs at J.P. Morgan. He founded Clair in 2019 after becoming obsessed with the idea that any employer should be able to pay people instantly. Clair embeds inside HR and payroll platforms and earns most of its money from debit-card interchange rather than worker fees. The company has raised hundreds of millions in equity and debt, including a $23.2M Series B in 2025 led by Upfront Ventures with Thrive Capital. Simko is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree.