PeopleofSuperintelligence

Lab leader

Lucas Baker

Lucas Baker is an AI engineer and research leader whose work connects DeepMind's Go systems with agentic AI for quantitative research. He earned a computer science degree at Stanford in 2011, worked at Square, and founded HackerMeter, which joined Y Combinator's Summer 2013 batch before Pinterest acqui-hired it. At DeepMind, he witnessed AlphaGo's match against Lee Sedol, coauthored a 2017 post on AlphaGo's strategies, and contributed to AlphaGo Zero, which learned through self-play. As of October 2026, he leads AI research at Jump Trading, applying frontier models and agentic systems to quantitative research.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 2011–2013

    Stanford and HackerMeter

    He earns a computer science degree at Stanford in 2011. After Stanford, he joins Square and founds HackerMeter, which enters Y Combinator's Summer 2013 batch.

  2. By 2016

    Engineering AlphaGo at DeepMind

    By 2016, he works as an engineer at DeepMind in London and witnesses AlphaGo's match against Lee Sedol. Pinterest acqui-hires HackerMeter before he moves to DeepMind.

  3. April 2017

    Writing about AlphaGo's strategy

    In April 2017, he coauthors a DeepMind post with Fan Hui about AlphaGo's strategic and tactical innovations, including its early 3-3 invasion.

  4. October 2017

    AlphaGo Zero from self-play

    In October 2017, he contributes to AlphaGo Zero, which learns Go through self-play from random play and beats the earlier AlphaGo 100–0.

  5. 2018

    A year playing Go in Japan

    In 2018, he returns from a year playing Go in Japan.

  6. By 2022

    An MS/MBA at Harvard

    By 2022, he completes an MS/MBA at Harvard and works as a macro researcher at D.E. Shaw.

  7. September 2022

    Research at Jump Crypto

    In September 2022, he is a researcher and investor at Jump Crypto, part of Jump Trading Group.

  8. As of October 2026

    AI research at Jump Trading

    As of October 2026, the Exceptional 100 lists him as Jump Trading's Head of AI Research, leading its use of frontier models and agentic systems for quantitative research.

Career

  1. Since 2022Jump TradingResearcher and investor, Head of AI Research
  2. From 2016Google DeepMindEngineer
  3. HackerMeterFounder
  4. D. E. Shaw & Co.Macro researcher

Education

  1. 2022Harvard UniversityMS/MBA
  2. 2011Stanford UniversityComputer science degree

From the biography.

  1. Of 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google, 446 work there nowIncludes Lucas Baker. Our estimates of where the 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google and Google DeepMind work now: 446 at Google and 452 across 278 other organizations.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Lucas Baker. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  3. 23% of people shaping AI who left a university for a company later returned to a universityIncludes Lucas Baker. We estimate that 468 of the 2,011 people shaping AI who left a university for a company (23%) later returned to a university after a median of 5 years, and 163 of 829 (20%) made the reverse round trip.
  4. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Google. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Lucas Baker yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Lucas Baker (B.S. ‘11) stanfordirl.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Nihar Shah and Lucas Baker - Research at Jump Crypto podtail.se. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Innovations of AlphaGo deepmind.google. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. AlphaGo Zero: Starting from scratch deepmind.google. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Mastering the game of Go without human knowledge nature.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Annual Exceptional 100 exceptionalcap.com. Checked 20 October 2026.