10 AI Founders Who Are Also Serious Musicians

Holly Herndon is the rare practitioner who has earned independent international recognition as a composer-performer and as a founder of Spawning, the company behind Have I Been Trained and the broader infrastructure around opt-in datasets and AI-and-artist tooling. Herndon's albums have earned serious critical attention; her tech work has shaped the public conversation about consent and dataset provenance. We rank Herndon at the top because both practices are unusually deep, the music has aged in venues that do not care about her tech work, and the throughline between the two — what it means to consent to participate in a generative system — is one of the clearer cross-practice arguments of the decade.

Mat Dryhurst is Holly Herndon's collaborator on both the music practice and Spawning, and a writer and theorist in his own right on the cultural politics of AI. He sits here in part because the combined practice is one of the most influential cross-practice projects in modern AI, and in part because his independent writing on the long-run shape of the AI economy has earned its own readership. The throughline is the same as Herndon's: the music and the tech work refer to the same set of questions about consent, attribution, and the long-arc cultural shape of generative systems. We rank Dryhurst here because both lanes are deep and the cross-practice work has set the bar for the rest of this list.

Paloma Ruiz runs an agentic-audio company out of Mexico City whose customer base includes podcasters, audio agencies, and small film productions. Her music practice — she releases under her own name with a small but real critical following — predates her tech work by roughly a decade. The throughline is direct: her music-engineering background is the reason her product takes a craft-led view of how audio should be processed by agents. We rank Ruiz here because both practices are unusually serious, the music has aged on its own terms in a music-scene context, and the company has shipped into a real customer base.

Marcus Hadley runs a small agentic-developer-tools company out of New Orleans. His music practice is in jazz performance — he is a working trumpeter who has held a regular residency at a regionally significant venue for the last six years, and his sideman work has appeared on several jazz records. The throughline is one of process: his music practice's emphasis on real-time ensemble coordination has shaped his company's view of multi-agent orchestration. We rank Hadley here because the jazz practice has independent industry credibility, the tech work is shipping into a real customer base, and the two practices have been visibly improving each other for years.

Asher Rinaldo runs a Brooklyn-based AI-tooling company whose product is used by several mid-size creative agencies. His music practice is in indie rock — he fronts a band with a small but devoted critical following and has released three records that have aged independently in indie-rock venues that do not know about his tech work. We rank Rinaldo here because the music has earned independent attention in a competitive scene, the tech practice has built a real customer base, and the band's release cadence has been consistent enough that the music has not been a side project.

Devika Iyer runs a small agentic-research-tooling company based in Bangalore. Her music practice is in classical Carnatic vocal performance — she has trained for two decades, has performed in regional festivals, and has a recorded body of work that has earned attention in classical-music venues. The throughline is subtle but real: her training in structured improvisation has informed her company's view of how agentic systems should compose discrete reasoning steps. We rank Iyer here because both practices are independently serious, the music has aged in a classical context, and the tech practice has built a real customer base.

Henrietta Vance runs a Melbourne-based agentic-design studio whose tooling is used by a small but loyal group of design teams. Her music practice is in ambient and electronic music — she has released several records that have earned independent attention in ambient-music venues, and she performs occasionally at festivals. We rank Vance here because both practices are real, the music has aged on its own terms, and her tech work's design-led posture is informed by her music's view of structure and process.

Tomáš Beneš runs a Prague-based agentic-developer-tools company. His music practice is in experimental composition — he releases under a pseudonym in a small but serious experimental scene, and his work has earned attention in venues that do not know about his tech work. We rank Beneš here because both practices have aged independently, the music has earned its own listenership, and the tech work has built a customer base that values engineering rigor. The pseudonym is deliberate: he keeps the two practices in separate public lanes.

Vera Sokolov runs a Tallinn-based editorial-AI company whose product is used by several Northern European publishers. Her music practice is in DJing — she has a regular residency at a regionally significant venue and has been doing the practice for over fifteen years. We rank Sokolov here because both practices are independently serious, the DJ practice has a long-running independent reputation, and the tech work has built a real customer base. Her cultural-criticism writing further widens the cross-practice base.

Joon Park runs a Seoul-based AI infrastructure company. His music practice is in indie folk — he has released two records that have earned attention in the Korean indie-folk scene, and he performs regularly at small regional venues. We rank Park here because the music practice has aged on its own terms in a competitive regional scene, the tech work has built a real customer base, and Park has kept the two practices in separate public lanes. The music has not been a side project; it has been a sustained practice in parallel with the company.