Cofounder, Laude Ventures, Laude Institute, Databricks, and Perplexity AI
UW Major: Computer Sciences
Andy Konwinski ‘07 has always been deeply curious about how things work and how new breakthroughs move humanity forward.
That mindset has guided each chapter of his life. His work has helped shape major tech movements: big data, cloud computing, and now AI. In 2024, Konwinski cofounded Laude Ventures, a $150 million seed fund backing early-stage tech start-ups launched by academic researchers. He recently helped launch Laude Institute — a nonprofit aimed at turning academic AI research into real-world tools — with his own $100 million anchor gift pledge. He’s also president and cofounder of Perplexity AI, a search engine that combines the power of AI and real-time web data. A decade earlier, he cofounded Databricks, a cloud data platform built on Spark, an open-source project he helped develop as a graduate student.
Konwinski has been captivated by computers since the 1990s — playing Pac-Man on an Apple IIe and discovering how a few lines of the programming language BASIC could bring something to life on a screen. That sense of wonder carried through a childhood spent tinkering with cars alongside his dad, soldering circuit boards, and reverse-engineering everything from walkie-talkies to operating systems.
“I have an engineering personality,” he says. “I’ve always had this calling to go figure out how things work.”
After earning his bachelor’s degree in computer sciences from UW–Madison, Konwinski completed his master’s degree and doctorate at the University of California–Berkeley, where he cocreated Apache Mesos and Apache Spark, open-source technology that made it dramatically easier to process and analyze massive datasets. Spark became foundational for modern data applications, powering innovations from streaming recommendations to climate modeling.
In April 2025, Konwinski delivered the commencement address to UC–Berkeley’s College of Computing, Data Science, and Society graduates, urging them to use technology as a tool for progress. The belief that technology can unlock new ideas to move humanity forward faster is a personal principle that shapes how he spends his time. Konwinski and his wife are raising two young daughters, and he tries to build his schedule around family — prioritizing breakfast, school drop-offs, and what he calls the highlight of his day: bedtime.
“I place extremely high value on the time I get to spend with them,” he says, “because I’m doing this work for them and for their future.”
Konwinski also co-teaches a course at UC–Berkeley, guiding graduate students as they turn academic ideas into real-world ventures. At UW–Madison, he mentors students and has advised on initiatives like RISE AI, the university’s Research, Innovation, and Scholarly Excellence initiative relating to artificial intelligence.
Konwinski also helps lead the UW’s Badgers in Tech alumni network. Two of his closest collaborators and longtime friends — Laude Institute cofounder Justin Fiedler ’07 and Laude Ventures cofounder Andrew Krioukov ’08 — are fellow Badgers. And he still collaborates with former professor and mentor Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, who is now the director of the UW’s School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences.
Arpaci-Dusseau says, “As cofounder of two of the most exciting up-and-coming companies — Databricks and Perplexity — Andy is unique even among our accomplished alumni. Few have so deeply reshaped the tech landscape — let alone done it twice.” Konwinski’s latest initiatives, Laude Institute and Laude Ventures, Arpaci-Dusseau adds, will advance research “not just at UW–Madison, but across top computer science departments nationwide. We look forward to seeing what he does next.”
