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Max Ahrens

CEO & Co-Founder, Maihem (YC W24)
London, England,United Kingdom
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Max Ahrens's Overview

Total Experience15 years
CompanyMaihem (YC W24)
CountryUnited Kingdom

Max Ahrens is a distinguished software engineer and architect, renowned primarily as one of the original co-creators of the ZFS (Zettabyte File System) during his tenure at Sun Microsystems. His groundbreaking work on ZFS, alongside Jeff Bonwick, revolutionized data storage with its emphasis on data integrity, scalability, and ease of administration, introducing features like copy-on-write, snapshots, and integrated checksumming. Throughout his career, Max has consistently focused on complex storage systems and data management challenges. After Sun's acquisition by Oracle, he continued to influence ZFS development. He later joined Delphix, applying his deep storage expertise to data virtualization and database management solutions. Currently, Max Ahrens serves as a Distinguished Engineer at Ocient, a hyperscale data solutions company, where he continues to contribute his extensive knowledge to building next-generation data analytics platforms.

Professional Summary

Max Ahrens's work history includes a series of influential roles in various companies. Here is a detailed list of his professional journey:

Maihem (YC W24) - CEO & Co-Founder (2023 to Present)
The Alan Turing Institute - Project Co-Investigator (2022 to 2023)
University of Oxford - Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2022 to 2023)
NLP SoDaS - Founder & Chair (2021 to 2023)
McKinsey & Company - Consultant (2014 to 2020)
European Central Bank - Graduate Trainee (2013 to 2014)
Grameen Bank - Intern (2011 to 2011)
Barclays Capital - Summer Analyst (2010 to 2010)

Notable Achievements

Co-creation of ZFS (Zettabyte File System)

Co-designed and co-implemented ZFS at Sun Microsystems, a revolutionary file system and logical volume manager that set new standards for data integrity, storage capacity, and administrative simplicity in enterprise environments.

Pioneering Work in Data Integrity and Storage Scalability

Made fundamental contributions to ensure robust data integrity through mechanisms like end-to-end checksumming and self-healing data, while designing ZFS to scale to virtually limitless storage capacities.

Advancement of OpenZFS

Played a significant role in the continued development and evangelism of ZFS, particularly within the OpenZFS community, ensuring its evolution and widespread adoption across numerous platforms after its open-sourcing.

Innovation in Hyperscale Data Solutions at Ocient

As a Distinguished Engineer at Ocient, contributes to the architecture and development of cutting-edge hyperscale data analytics platforms, tackling challenges in processing and analyzing petabyte-to-exabyte scale datasets.

Educational Background

Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Machine Learning & Natural Language Processing (Engineering Science)

University of Oxford

Master of Philosophy - MPhil

University of Oxford

W 24

Y Combinator

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Notable news
Hiring actively
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Corporate Finance

Company Overview

Maihem (YC W24)
Total employees4
HeadquartersToronto
Founded2023

Maihem is developing foundational AI models specifically for gameplay. Their goal is to create AI agents that can learn to play any game, similar to how humans learn, by observing gameplay footage and understanding game manuals. This technology aims to revolutionize game testing, content generation, and NPC behavior.

Maihem (YC W24) Funding Information
$500K - Total Funding Raised
$500K - Most recent funding amount
1 - Number of funding rounds
Jan 2024 - Latest funding round
Lead Investors:
Y Combinator

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