Jake Chen
Strategy Lead at Waymo. I spend my days figuring out what happens when AI meets the real world — and my evenings writing about it and building things.
For the past six years, I've been at Waymo, advising the executive team on go-to-market, pricing, and competitive strategy for autonomous mobility. It's given me a front-row seat to what happens when AI enters the real world — the parts that don't fit in a demo.
Before that, I was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey across technology, financial services, and retail. My earlier career includes analytics at HubSpot, product strategy at Microsoft, and five years of management consulting at Deloitte.
The thread across 15+ years: understanding how complex systems create and capture value — and what breaks when they scale.
Outside of work, I write code and build things for fun. I find that staying close to the craft — building a game, designing a site, tinkering with new frameworks — makes me a sharper strategist and a better collaborator with technical teams.
I hold an MBA from MIT Sloan and a double major in Finance and Information Systems from the University of Minnesota.
Career
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Ask me about
Things you might not guess
Built an AI-themed endless runner game from scratch — play it on this site.
Ran a marathon. Once. That was enough data to make the decision not to do it again.
Grew up in Minnesota, did grad school in Boston, now based in the Bay Area.
Re-read "Thinking in Systems" every year. It gets better each time.
Tools I reach for
Strategy
Technical
AI & Data
Design & Product
Say hello
I'm always happy to connect with people thinking about AI, how it reshapes industries, and what actually changes when these systems hit the real world. Drop me a note anytime.