Michael Fester
AI Ops Strategist | Founder at 14.ai, Snips (Acq by Sonos)
About
Michael is the Co-Founder of 14.ai (YC W24), an AI-first customer service platform designed to replace legacy systems like Zendesk. Known for his "API-first" approach to product development, Michael is currently building the infrastructure that powers AI agents for high-growth e-commerce and b2c companies. His expertise lies in the rare intersection of deep technical infrastructure (RAG, LLM engineering) and high-end product design. Before 14.ai, Michael co-founded Snips, a privacy-respecting voice AI platform. After scaling the company through years of R&D and product-market fit, Snips was acquired by Sonos. His technology is now powering voice interactions for millions of devices globally. With a career spanning from number theory research at Cambridge to multiple successful exits, Michael brings a rigorous, "hero-story" perspective to building tech that lasts. He is based in San Francisco and also an angel investor (Vercel, Mercury, Oura Ring). How Michael Can Help: 1. Building AI-Native Products: How to move beyond basic chatbots to create "actionable" AI agents that handle complex user workflows. 2. Scaling from 0 to Acquisition: Lessons from the Snips-to-Sonos journey, including navigating technical due diligence and post-merger integration. 3. API-First Strategy: How to design developer-centric infrastructure that allows your product to integrate deeply into enterprise tech stacks. 4. Navigating Y Combinator & Fundraising: Tactical advice for founders entering the YC ecosystem or raising capital for deep-tech ventures. 5. Technical Team Leadership: How to recruit and manage high-intensity engineering teams focused on security, reliability, and performance.
Experience
Co-Founder at 14.ai
Building the "Zendesk alternative" for the AI era; selected for Y Combinator W24.
Co-Founder at Snips
Scaled a privacy-first voice AI platform to a successful $37.5M acquisition by Sonos.
Creator of 8pen
Developed a revolutionary handwriting-inspired mobile input method that gained global tech press coverage.
Links from Michael
AI Engineer Conference in San Francisco: Building Reliable Agents
In this video, we walk through how our team built production-ready agents. The video includes a demo of the agent in action, along with a breakdown of the architecture and design decisions behind it. If you’re building internal tools, working with LLMs, this talk shares practical lessons.