Anton Osika Palfi

Meet Anton

Anton graduated from KTH in Engineering Physics and considered going into research, before joining the AI startup Sana Labs as their first employee building recommendation systems. Through these experiences, Anton built useful technical and entrepreneurial skills that would later become valuable assets. In 2020, he met another AI talent, Oliver Edholm, and together they founded Depict.ai – a startup “applying cutting-edge machine learning to make first-class product discovery available for any e-commerce store”. They got accepted into the prestigious Y Combinator and quickly grew the company. 

In late 2023, Anton decided to leave Depict to found another AI company: Lovable, an AI startup that enables anyone to create software. At the same time, Anton decided to sign the Founders Pledge, in which entrepreneurs and investors commit to donate a portion of their “exit” profit to effective charities. Besides his entrepreneurial career, Anton is advocating for a safe and responsible development of AI. 

EA has been a major influence in Anton’s career and life choices

Anton has had a deep desire to make a significant impact on the world for as long as he can remember. He believes that there are many different ways to create meaningful change, depending on background, skills, and worldview. The path that suits him best personally is through building successful companies and donating a substantial portion of the money he will earn to highly effective charities. This commitment was formalized by signing the Founders Pledge. 

EA has played an important role in his career, and life choices in general. “EA, as an idea, philosophy, and thought paradigm, has significantly influenced the way I approach my goals”, Anton shares. Additionally, the people in the community have also been invaluable, and he says that he doesn't know of any other community that brings together such highly intelligent people who are also so open and kind. Thanks to the people he has met through EA, he has gained the tools to pursue this path in a way that is deeply sustainable and long-term.

Anton’s advice to someone who is considering pursuing entrepreneurship to donate significant amounts to highly impactful charities

1. Reflect on if you are a good fit for entrepreneurship. It’s easy to glorify and requires versatile skills, both soft and hard, a lot of grit and high degree of stress resilience. If you can, take a role in a startup or similar environment to better understand if you like it and are good at it. 
2. If entrepreneurship feels right, and you also want to make it feel more meaningful, write down how many % of your exit money you would be ok pledging to donate. Set a date in your calendar for either back out or formally commit to it. 
3. Get input on your tentative plan from Founders Pledge, or other people that know everything about the formalities, and who can connect you to other founders.
4. Commit by signing the pledge on the decision date. Feeling pressured is a bad reason to sign. If you want to make entrepreneurship more meaningful but you are uncertain, my experience is that it feels good to make a decision and then not have to ruminate. And, the community around philanthropic ventures is a plus. 
5. Announce it publicly. This will help grow the movement, and provide support to others who are considering to take the pledge.