A local 25-year-old has been busy criss-crossing the country, and the world, creating startup companies after being bitten by the entrepreneurial bug at an early age.
Born and raised in Brentwood, one of Matt Krisiloff’s first startups involved using bugs as a source of food and protein, in a field known as entomophagy.
“On a pound-per-pound comparison, bugs are far more efficient and cost effective than livestock breeding when it comes to delivering affordable protein,” Krisiloff explains.
The son of community activist Flora Gil Krisiloff, and urlologist Dr. Milton Krisiloff, Matt attended Brentwood Presbyterian pre-school, the Mirman School, and Harvard-Westlake. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 2014.
Krisiloff headed to Chile to introduce cost-effective and scalable mental health services using computer technology, before returning to the states to work on a startup in Oakland, CA.
There, he sought out entrepreneur-turned Venture Capitalist Sam Altman. Altman created Y Combinator, the legendary Silicon Valley accelerator that funds and mentors companies attempting to disrupt industries.
Y Combinator-backed startups have included AirBnB, Dropbox, Reddit and Twitch.tv. It’s currently funding a new generation of nuclear reactors and a new kind of supersonic jet.
Altman hired Krisiloff in his San Francisco offices to oversee several of Y Combinator’s projects, including some of its philanthropic research and development projects.
Yet despite having a full time job, Krisiloff still finds time to work on his own projects. He recently helped launch a site called Track Trump, which keeps track of promises made and results accomplished by the new president.
When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, Krisiloff replies, “I want to work on extremely interesting things.”
Using this yardstick, it appears Krisiloff is way ahead of schedule.
