Jos van der Westhuizen

About Jos van der Westhuizen

Technical founder with 8+ years building AI products from research to scale. PhD in Machine Learning from Cambridge with published research on LSTMs and sequence models (ICLR, NeurIPS workshops).Track record- Built products serving 1.5M+ users and 25+ Fortune companies (Google, Netflix, HubSpot)- Completed PhD in 2.5 years (vs typical 4) while consulting for 3 ML startups- Published research on LSTM architectures, variational inference, and interpretabilityCurrently exploring: AI safety, human-AI collaboration, and frontier model capabilitiesAreas I care about: Building AI that\'s actually useful, scalable ML systems, reducing inference costs, evaluation frameworks, and the intersection of research and production.

Experience

1. Member of Technical Staff

   World Labs

   Mar 2026 — Present · San Francisco, CA, US

Education

• University of Cambridge

  Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Machine Learning

  2015 — 2018

• Stellenbosch University

  Master’s Degree (dropout), Biomedical Engineering

  2015 — 2015

• Stellenbosch University

  Bachelor's Degree, Mechatronic Engineering

  2011 — 2014

Skills

• Programming
• Machine Learning
• English
• Python
• Entrepreneurship
• Matlab
• Solar Energy
• Strategy
• Microsoft Office
• Data Analysis
• Deep Learning
• Social Media
• Mobile Applications
• Customer Service
• New Business Development
• Business Strategy
• Social Networking
• Project Management
• Healthcare
• Leadership
• Engineering
• Research
• Renewable Energy
• Microsoft Excel
• Teamwork