Trevor Blackwell

Trevor Blackwell is a roboticist, software engineer, and entrepreneur best known as a co-founder of the prominent startup accelerator Y Combinator. Prior to his extensive work in technology incubation, he collaborated closely with Paul Graham and Robert Morris to develop the early e-commerce software platform Viaweb. Transitioning his focus toward hardware innovation, he founded the telepresence robotics company Anybots and subsequently built the first dynamically balancing biped robot in 2007. His technical expertise is grounded in rigorous academic training, having earned a Bachelor of Engineering from Carleton University and a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard University. During his academic career, he authored multiple publications addressing high-speed network congestion control, signaling protocol architecture, and file system performance. Blackwell maintains a specialized focus that bridges foundational computer networking research with pioneering hardware engineering and early-stage startup development.