Zayd Enam

Zayd Enam is co-founder of Cresta, which gives contact center agents real-time AI coaching. He left a Stanford PhD program to start it with Sebastian Thrun and Tim Shi, according to ValiantCEO.

Robot Learning at the Stanford AI Lab

In 2015, his first year in the PhD program, he was most excited about teaching robots to do repetitive tasks by training on human demonstration, he told SalesTechStar. With Thrun and the Stanford AI Lab he worked on many projects built around augmenting work with AI.

Leaving the PhD Program

The team eventually found an application "that made business sense and where AI had tremendous impact," and with some convincing from Thrun, Enam dropped out to start the company. He singles out Thrun, his mentor and Cresta's executive chairman, and Shi, Cresta's CTO, as the two people he most needs to thank.