2018–Present
Leverage AI (acquired)
Founder
Agentic AI-powered supply chain visibility for global industrial manufacturers and distributors.
Founder, investor, and operator working across emerging technology, infrastructure, and regulated markets.
Experience
A career across startups, public service, finance, and frontier technology.
2025–2026
Inauguration Capital
Venture Partner
Venture investing focused on AI, infrastructure, and regulated markets.
2020
Project N95
Co-Founder & Executive Director
National COVID-19 rapid-response nonprofit, partnering with the White House, Amazon, and UPS.
2017–2018
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Entrepreneur in Residence
Solving hard problems in new ways from within Global Information Security.
2015–2016
White House Presidential Innovation Fellows
Deputy Director
Recruiting top tech talent to solve the nation's toughest challenges.
2014–2015
MegaBots
Co-Founder & COO
Giant fighting robots. International sports league.
2012–2014
CommonKey
Co-Founder & CEO
Team password management.
2013
The Big Brain Theory
Contestant
Discovery Channel engineering competition.
2009–2013
U.S. Department of Defense — The Pentagon
Subject Matter Expert
Work across the Joint Strike Fighter, JPEO-CBRND, biosurveillance, and presidential executive orders.
Writing
Observations on technology, markets, policy, and the wider world.
Everyone's Inventing AI Ketchup
More people are writing than at any point in history, and somehow there is less to read. The reason is older than AI, and the fix is not the one most people reach for.
Read essayThe Agent Stack Is the New OS
Every conversation about agentic AI eventually lands on headcount reduction, because it is the one metric everyone in the room knows how to measure. That is an analogy problem, and the wrong analogy produces wrong decisions. The frame that fits is an operating system.
Read essaySuperhuman, Not Smaller
The dominant question in every operating conversation right now is how many roles an agent can absorb. I think the framing is wrong, and wrong in a way that leads operators into a mistake they cannot walk back.
Read essayFrom the archive
11 essays- If Your AI Startup Is a Prompt, There Is a Problem
- Forward-Deployed Didn't Start in Tech
- The Operator's Supercycle
- When Code Gets Cheap, Scarcity Moves
- Startup Life, Chapter 17: Personal Growth == Startup Growth
- Startup Life, Chapter 8: What to do when your Co-Founder almost dies?
- Three discoveries from selling out to Corporate America
- Reflecting on my Tour of Duty
- Selling to the federal government?
- PIF Knowledge Sharing and Transfer
- Hello World
Andrew Stroup is a serial entrepreneur and active investor working across emerging technology, infrastructure, and regulated markets.
His work has spanned defense, finance, public service, and frontier technology—from the Pentagon and White House to Bank of America and multiple venture-backed startups, with a detour into reality television on Discovery Channel’s The Big Brain Theory.