PeopleofSuperintelligence

Builder

Riley Walz

Also known as rtwlz

Riley Walz is a software engineer and internet artist whose viral web projects led to a role on OpenAI's Labs team in 2026. He grew up in upstate New York, sold voice-over work on Fiverr from age twelve, and in 2020 created a Twitter account for a fictional congressional candidate that Twitter verified. In San Francisco, he installed the Shazam-running Bop Spotter phone on a Mission District pole in 2024, launched the IMG_0001 video site in November 2024, and released Find My Parking Cops in 2025. With Luke Igel, he launched Jmail in November 2025, a Gmail-style archive of Jeffrey Epstein's emails with AI search, and in February 2026 he joined OpenAI's OAI Labs to work on new interfaces for AI. Since 2026, he is an engineer at Core Automation.

Born
2002
Badges
Links
X

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. By 2020

    A fake congressional candidate

    Growing up in upstate New York, he sells voice-over work on Fiverr from age twelve and, in high school, codes Routeshuffle, a random route generator for runners. In 2020, he creates a Twitter account for a fictional Republican congressional candidate named Andrew Walz, and Twitter verifies it.

  2. September 2023

    Mehran's Steak House pop-up

    In 2023, while he attends the business program at Baruch College, he and his roommates see Mehran's Steak House grow from a Google Maps listing for their shared home into a fictional restaurant with a long waiting list. In September 2023, the group serves a fixed-price menu at a one-night pop-up in an East Village event space.

  3. September 2024

    Bop Spotter in the Mission

    After taking a leave from college to work on an artificial-intelligence startup with friends, he installs a solar-powered Android phone on a light pole in San Francisco's Mission District in September 2024. The phone runs Shazam and logs about 150 songs a day on a public website named Bop Spotter, after the ShotSpotter gunshot detectors.

  4. 2024–2025

    The IMG_0001 video site

    In November 2024, he launches IMG_0001, a website styled like a television that plays early iPhone videos uploaded to YouTube under default file names. By December 2024, more than six hundred thousand visitors have played more than six million videos on it. In 2025, the work is exhibited at the Kunstkerk in Dordrecht in collaboration with the Dordrechts Museum.

  5. September 2025

    Find My Parking Cops

    In September 2025, he launches Find My Parking Cops, a map that shows where San Francisco parking-enforcement officers last wrote tickets, built by reverse engineering the city's parking ticket system. City officials shut down the live data feed behind it after four hours.

  6. November 2025

    Jmail and Epstein's inbox

    In November 2025, he and Luke Igel, co-founder of Kino AI, launch Jmail, which presents Jeffrey Epstein's emails from the House Oversight Committee release in a Gmail-style interface. The site adds Jemini, an AI search tool, uses Gemini to extract text from document scans, and draws an estimated 18.4 million visits by late November 2025.

  7. February 2026

    Joining OpenAI's OAI Labs

    In February 2026, he joins OpenAI's Labs team, OAI Labs, which research leader Joanne Jang leads and which works on inventing and prototyping new interfaces for how people collaborate with AI. OpenAI hires him to research and develop new ways for humans to interact with AI.

  8. Since 2026

    Engineering at Core Automation

    He is a Member of Technical Staff at OpenAI from February 2026 and joins Core Automation in 2026. There he works in engineering as a software engineer and internet artist.

Career

  1. Since 2026OpenAIMember of Technical Staff
  2. Since 2026Core AutomationSoftware Engineer and Internet Artist

Education

  1. From 2023Baruch CollegeBusiness program student

From the biography.

  1. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Riley Walz. 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.
  2. 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a companyIncludes Riley Walz. We estimate that 16% of AI career moves in the 2020s went from a university to a company; 29% of moves starting at a university went to a company, and 76% ended the university role.
  3. Of 216 AI researchers who entered public life, 83 held advisory seats and 58 took public rolesIncludes Riley Walz. Of 216 AI researchers who entered public life, 83 held advisory seats and 58 took public roles. Another 97 people moved from public careers into AI organizations or research, with 62% of dated records starting from 2020 on.
  4. Among employers with 30+ full-time cases, OpenAI leads primary technical role H-1B pay at $310,000, and Amazon, Google and Microsoft file 57% of all casesIncludes OpenAI. Across 440,669 certified US H-1B filings from 44 employers (FY2020–FY2026), OpenAI leads primary technical role base pay at $310,000 and xAI leads overall base pay at $290,000.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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

  1. The Artist Exposing the Data We Leave Online | The New Yorker newyorker.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Riley Walz walzr.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Riley Walz - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. 'Bop Spotter' Is a Secret Phone Eavesdropping on the Mission's Music Tastes | KQED kqed.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. A surprising device is capturing the vibe of a single street corner in San Francisco | NPR npr.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Riley Walz, the Jester of Silicon Valley, Is Joining OpenAI (WIRED, Feb 26, 2026) winzheng.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Welcome to Jmail: The easiest way to read all the Jeffrey Epstein emails | The San Francisco Standard sfstandard.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. OpenAI's tech prankster bought SF's infamous 'Dirt Alley.' What could go wrong? | The San Francisco Standard sfstandard.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Riley Walz — Cosign cosign.co. Checked 20 October 2026.