Welcome to the second installment of our “Meet the Team” series, in which we introduce Rogo employees to share a little bit about their background, why they joined Rogo, and what excites them most about coming to work. Interested in joining the Rogo team? See our openings here.

Quick Bio:

I’m James, a Houston native whose passion for tech was realized at age 15 when I started selling and repairing computers at CompUSA. Every paycheck went into building my dream gaming rig to play Half-Life 2. I also opened a Roth IRA and invested in NVIDIA stock solely because it was the priciest part of my computer build. At UC Berkeley, I majored in Economics but my favorite course was Physics for Future Presidents. Post-graduation, I had stints at Apple and a prop trading firm arbitraging semiconductor fabrication equipment before finding my calling at software startups. I’ve been a part of two successful exits, the latest being Sentieo, a financial search engine acquired by AlphaSense in 2022. 

Other Facts:

• Lived in India for a year after studying Hindi/Urdu 

• Photographed giant manta rays while scuba diving in Mexico 

• Named my dog Zelda after the princess

• Favorite travel destination: Galapagos Islands

  
  

Q: What excites you the most about working at Rogo?

The large language model space is still in its infancy, with groundbreaking papers and AI startups emerging weekly. Rogo’s tech often feels like magic, during demos it enables companies to dream about what’s possible while also making it easy to implement solutions today. Rogo has amazing engineering talent, and I thrive in high engineer-to-sales ratio environments where the product evolves rapidly, and demos leave prospects awestruck. 

Q: What has surprised you the most about working at Rogo?

The staggering demand for generative AI and organizations’ willingness to experiment with it. Finance and banking sectors are often viewed as sluggish and risk-averse, but they’re also focused on maintaining a competitive edge through innovation. The fear of being left in the digital dust is real and is leading to a lot of momentum for Rogo. 

Q: What’s your favorite part of the Rogo platform?

We all know the current limitation of LLMs is their tendency to hallucinate. I’m most impressed by Rogo’s approach to grounding responses with citations. 

I also find the workflows and automations incredibly compelling. Since most users won’t become prompt engineers, offering an interface to generate consistent and predictable outputs for common tasks and work streams is crucial.

Q: Tell us about what you like to do outside of work.

I love being outdoors, immersed in nature and wildlife. This past year, I went trekking in Sumatra to spot orangutans, went scuba diving among Komodo National Park’s coral reefs, and climbed the tallest mountain in Taiwan. When I can’t squeeze in epic adventures, you’ll find me taking my dog Zelda to nearby beaches, shark-spotting with my drone, or checking off popular local hikes on AllTrails.