Amypedia

A personal encyclopedia of Amy Zhou's life, work, relationships, and ideas.

Amy Zhou is a product design engineer, former startup CTO, Stanford SHAPE Lab researcher, clarinet player, Music minor, CEO of arts and crafts, and person who once listed Python as a language on LinkedIn. She is 25 years old, lives in San Francisco, and works at Vizcom. Before that, she co-founded Taya with Elena Wagenmans, raised $5M during a16z Speedrun, built the entire product, and left. Before all of that, she made USB earrings and handmade pins and played clarinet at Interlochen and lost her mother at fifteen.

Portfolio: amypretzel.com / amyzhou.work. Twitter: @amypretzel (~8,000 followers). LinkedIn: ~7,000 followers. TikTok: @pretzelgirl7. Stanford: amy7@stanford.edu.

Languages: Chinese (professional working), English (native), Spanish (limited), Python (limited; she listed it as a language).

People

• Elena Wagenmans — Co-founder of Taya and Mobius. The relationship that defined and nearly destroyed two years of Amy's life.
• Nalin Semwal — Boyfriend. Capybaras, pottery, eight fights, a pug named Rowdy, and "i do wanna marry u for sure. before we're 30."
• Jianxun "Jason" Zhou — Dad. Neuroscience professor. Rural China to Peking University to Peoria. Single parent after Sue's death.
• Suyun "Sue" Geng — Mom. Died when Amy was fifteen. The last emails are Interlochen applications and a flower garden app.
• George Zhou — Brother. UCLA. Graduate of Amy Academy. Co-founder of Pretzel. The only co-founder she trusts.
• Teddy — Family dog. April 20, 2014 to January 20, 2025. "Goodnight my sweet Teddy bear angel."
• Maddie Wang — Closest friend. Garbage Club, sugar daddy interventions, Thursday movie nights, Australia. "i love maddie <3"
• Calli — Apple intern best friend. 4'11", Jewish, chronic insomnia, and 10,098 messages about sweeping curves and sparkling water on tap.
• Max — Dating app match turned creative soulmate. Six 3D printers, the Bottle Joggers, and "I think the product sucks."
• Alyssa — "The best friend I have ever had." Stanford peak, then the clean decay curve of distance.
• Kristine — Peoria ride-or-die. Most stable friendship in the archive. Au pair in Spain, family leaving Peoria.
• Catherine — Stanford ME classmate. Organized everything. Drives to Oktoberfest, Apple discount codes, jump rope.
• Michaël — Swiss-French Stanford roommate (10th-ranked housing choice). Architecture, SAMA, still being mentored in 2026.
• Cinnamon Sipper — Third co-founder of Mobius. Fired by Amy and Elena. Now running Godela. 236 Twitter followers. Zero public mentions of any of them.
• Diego Celis — Ex-boyfriend. Spanish, Runescape, Menlo Park. "Don't let anyone treat you poorly or take advantage of you."
• Suki — Brief romantic situation, May-July 2024. Amy caught feelings. Suki ended it.
• Gui — Brazilian Hinge match. FWB to emotional support to platonic friends. The cleanest exit.
• Olivia Porter — Stanford group chat friend. Connects multiple social circles, including Cinnamon's.
• Alex Tchang — Stanford ME to filmmaker. SAMA group. The one Amy told about the assault.
• Asena Yildiz — Apple colleague who put out towels and pajamas during the worst of summer 2023.
• Nicole Hsing — Apple Softgoods EPM intern. Salary negotiation coach. The friendship that hit its limit.
• Eric Zhang — Apple Softgoods manager. Taught Amy NX, vendor engagement, extraction force testing. Got the handwritten farewell letter.
• Taylor Wen — Peoria friend. Pottery, boyfriend Lem, deleted social media.
• Jessie Li — Peoria friend. PA student, just graduated, moving to Virginia.
• Elena (Peoria) — Peoria friend. Builds missiles. NOT that Elena.
• Matthew — Taya's PCB contractor. $1,725 for the hardware Elena raised $5M on.
• Haley Mossmer — Former Taya employee. "URGENT Want to Hear Your Taya." Trauma bonding at The Social Study.
• Julian Lee — Listed as partner on a 2021 rental application. No other trace.

Projects

• Taya — AI wearable necklace startup. Amy co-founded it, built everything, and left.
• Pretzel — The secret YC application with George. November 9, 2025. Never mentioned publicly.
• Mobius — Scrap metal recycling marketplace. The first startup with Elena. Legal entity still alive.
• Stanford SHAPE Lab — Haptics research as an undergrad. Where design met the physical world.
• a16z Speedrun — The accelerator. Venice kickoff, SFJAZZ Demo Day, millions of views.
• Arcarae — Star births, galaxies, archetypes with sigils. The mysterious iOS app.
• Cute Ghostty — Open source kawaii terminal theme. The thing Amy made for fun.
• Hardware Craft Night — LED PCB workshop at Vizcom. Building things with people, no pitch deck required.
• Kalshi — Prediction market betting. $200, managed by an AI.
• Capybara Gummies — Caffeinated blue capybara-shaped gummies. The dream that required a 1 million unit minimum.
• Proception AI — The job interview she didn't take. January 5-9, 2026.
• The Stack — ChatGPT Plus, Gemini Pro, Eight Sleep Pod, Hertz President's Circle, and the medication that repairs the damage.

Companies

• Vizcom — Current employer. AI design tools for product designers. The "chill job."
• Apple — Softgoods, FineWoven iPhone case, ~$150k offer she turned down. The safety net she walked away from.

Places

• San Francisco — Home since Stanford. Fillmore Center, Dogpatch dinners, tulip festivals.
• Guilderland — Near Albany, NY. Where Amy lived until she was thirteen.
• Davis, California — Lived here ~2020-21 during the Apple era.
• Peoria, Illinois — Where she lost her mother, applied to Interlochen, managed a household at seventeen. Youth symphony, clarinet, Dunlap HS, class of 2019.
• Stanford University — BS and MS in ME. SHAPE Lab, PRL, symphony orchestra, Berlin.

Eras

• The Guilderland Years — Albany suburb, family intact. Mom's hotmail address. Chinese homework about a pet turtle named Kurtle. Seven consecutive photos of a virtual horse named Copper. The before.
• The Peoria Years — Not where she started, but where she landed. Guilderland to Peoria at thirteen. Lost her mother at fifteen. Three grandparents at seventeen. Teddy. Clarinet, CIYS, Dunlap HS, class of 2019.
• Stanford — Arrived carrying four losses and a clarinet. SHAPE Lab, Music minor, Berlin, David Kelley, gap year at Apple.
• The Rio Post — March 8, 2025. Brazil with Maddie. "If something is holding you back, let it go." The public version of a private decision.
• The Taya Era — 2024-2025. Panic-applying at 5am on NYE 2023, a16z Speedrun, building everything, leaving.
• Financial Timeline — The payout, the Fidelity account, the 5am panic-apply, and the $200k that didn't feel like winning.
• The Aftermath — Late 2025 to early 2026. Pretzel YC application, Proception AI interview, Vizcom offer, comparison spirals, midnight DNS edits.
• The Vizcom Era — January 2026 onward. $250k salary, craft nights, HF0 rejection, trying to be normal.
• Timeline — Everything in order. Guilderland through May 2026.

Patterns

• The Craft Identity — "CEO of arts and crafts." USB earrings, handmade pins, PCBs, capybara gummies. She has always been this person.
• The Comparison Spiral — Late night scrolling through Elena's posts. Measuring self-worth against people she doesn't trust.
• The Grind as Identity — Working to exhaustion as a way to feel worthy. Taya wasn't ambition; it was compulsion.
• Building for Fun vs. Building for Validation — Cute Ghostty felt good. Taya didn't. Why?
• The Elena Pattern — Using allies then discarding them. Amy against Cinnamon, then Amy herself.
• The Romantic Timeline — Diego, Suki, Gui, Nalin. A timeline of intensity, rejection, recovery, and finding someone who wants you back.
• The Peoria Anchor — The Meowww group. The most stable relationships in Amy's life are all from high school.
• Public Voice — @amypretzel, LinkedIn, and @pretzelgirl7. Manufacturing hot takes, viral tweets, and the gap between the confident poster and the midnight spiraler.

Philosophies

• Your First Prototype Should Be Embarrassing — If it looks polished, you spent too long on it.
• Factories Don't Care About Your Pitch Deck — They care about yield, cycle time, and whether your part ejects cleanly.
• The Hole That Nothing Fills — Having everything at Taya and it only making her feel "a little" cool.

Decisions

• Leaving Taya — November 2025. Walking away from 13% equity and two years of work.
• Taking the Vizcom Job — January 2026. Proception AI, design challenge, pretzel molds in the portfolio, $250k.
• The DNS Incident — March 24, 2026. Deleting Elena's email records at midnight. The petty thing she did and regretted.
• Selling Back the Equity — $117,375 for 10% of a company she built. Keeping 3%. Rafael Sousa at Carta.