Kyle Johnson
I'm a Richmond, Virginia-based founder and engineer who builds AI-powered products. With a background in data science at Meta and a CS + statistics degree from Columbia University, I run Tidewater Research—shipping tools that turn hours of manual work into minutes. I believe in talking to users, rapid iteration, and building software to solve real problems.
Ventures
Tidewater Research
A lean R&D lab and consulting firm focused on AI applications in real-world workflows. We rapidly test and ship AI-powered tools including Call Compass (AI-powered QA that reduces call evaluation time by 80%) and Riff (a customer discovery engine that transforms interviews into structured, searchable insights).
Ara
Ara is a platform that transforms data scientists' analyses into compelling visual stories, serving as a GitHub-like ecosystem for data professionals to showcase their work, build their reputation, and share insights.
Rock River Research (Exited)
A UK-based consulting firm specializing in AI integration for enterprise executives.
Experience
Meta (Facebook)
Senior Data Scientist (2018-2024)
Reality Labs Trust, Business Integrity, FAIR Machine Translation, Community Integrity Counter Terrorism, Marketplace Feed Performance
Columbia University
Full Stack Machine Learning Engineer (2016-2018)
Laboratory for Intergroup Relations and the Social Mind. Developed algorithms to identify unique linguistic traits in marginalized groups and built full stack web applications.
United States Marine Corps
Sergeant (2009-2014)
Served with 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion and Combat Logistics Regiment 37 in Okinawa, Japan.
Education
Columbia University in the City of New York
Bachelor of Arts (2014-2018)
Computer Science + Statistics, Mandarin Chinese
Talks
Vibe Coding: Building Full Products Without Looking at Code
CarMax Richmond · June 25, 2024
Learn how AI-powered development tools are enabling solo founders to build profitable SaaS products in days for under $1,000—without writing code. Drawing from my journey from Meta to founding Tidewater Research, I'll reveal the exact stack and techniques behind "vibe coding" and why Base44's $80M solo-founder exit is just the beginning. Whether you're a developer or someone with zero coding experience, you'll learn how to ship real products by next weekend.
Press
Virginia Business: Incubators help entrepreneurs determine viability
June 1, 2025
Featured article about how Mari and I refined the idea for Ara Platforms through Startup Virginia's Idea Factory incubator program. The piece highlights our customer discovery process and how we identified the problem data analyst teams face in organizing and sharing data across multiple sources.
Personal
I live in Richmond with my wife Mari and our daughter Josie. Outside of tech, I'm into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (purple belt), portrait photography, and reading my way through Cormac McCarthy's collection.