# Yoav Zimmerman

> Yoav Zimmerman is a San Francisco founder and machine learning engineer who is CEO and co-founder of Third Chair (YC X25), an AI-native IP enforcement agent that helps rightsholders find, stop, and monetize unauthorized use of their content. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, he previously co-founded the social video analytics startup Trendpop (YC W21), grew it past $1M ARR with clients like Universal Music Group and MrBeast, and exited to Collab. Before startups he worked on machine learning at Google and at Determined AI.

- **Role:** CEO and Co-Founder at Third Chair (YC X25)
- **Organizations:** Third Chair, Trendpop, Determined AI, Google
- **Known for:** Forbes 30 Under 30 Marketing & Advertising (2023) for Trendpop., Grew Trendpop from $0 to $1M+ ARR and profitability in under a year., Sold Trendpop to customers including Universal Music Group and MrBeast, then exited to Collab.

## Career timeline

- **~2016** — Built music_rnn, an open-source project modeling musical scores with LSTM recurrent neural networks in TensorFlow (195+ GitHub stars).
- **pre-2019** — Worked as a machine learning engineer at Google.
- **2019-2020** — Worked on machine learning infrastructure at Determined AI, an open-source distributed training platform.
- **2020** — Co-founded Trendpop (YC W21), an AI-powered social video and trend analytics startup, with Jonathan Ben-tzur.
- **2021** — Grew Trendpop from $0 to $1M+ ARR and profitability in under a year, with clients including Universal Music Group, MrBeast, Atlantic Records, UTA and Pearpop.
- **2022** — Exited Trendpop via acquisition by Collab; named to Forbes 30 Under 30 Marketing & Advertising 2023.
- **2024** — Co-founded Third Chair with Shourya Lala (CTO), building an AI-native IP enforcement agent.
- **2025** — Third Chair joined Y Combinator's Spring 2025 batch (YC X25) and raised a seed round.

## Achievements

- Forbes 30 Under 30 Marketing & Advertising (2023) for Trendpop.
- Grew Trendpop from $0 to $1M+ ARR and profitability in under a year.
- Sold Trendpop to customers including Universal Music Group and MrBeast, then exited to Collab.
- Author of music_rnn, a widely-starred open-source neural music composition project.
- Contributor to Determined, an open-source distributed machine learning platform (3k+ stars).
- Co-founded and leads Third Chair, accepted into Y Combinator (X25).

## Latest updates

- **2025-05** — Third Chair raised a seed round and went through Y Combinator's Spring 2025 (X25) batch.
- **2026-01** — Third Chair featured in music-industry press for helping music firms monetize unauthorized ads using their content.

## Links

- Website: https://usethirdchair.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/yoav-zimmerman-05653252
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/yoavz_
- GitHub: https://github.com/yoavz

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/yoav-zimmerman
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-31