Will DePue
Just trying to have a net-positive effect on the world. Taking a long break. @willdepue on every platform. Previously CS at UMich 25, dropped out / on leave. First graduating class at Geffen Academy of UCLA, salutatorian. Eagle Scout. Born in 2003.
OpenAI / new team
After nearly three years at OpenAI and a long break, Will returned to start a new team with Troy Luhman and Eric Luhman focused on a high-risk bet with a small but meaningful chance of leading to ASI.
Post-training
Helped train ChatGPT models including o3, o4-mini, 4o mainlines, and thinking and non-thinking GPT-5 variants. Work centered on co-optimizing intelligence, median user preference, safety, tool use, reasoning-model RM performance, and sycophancy response behavior.
ARC-AGI
Worked around the public ARC train set and later saw o3 reach the benchmark score that had long been treated as a skeptical marker for AGI. The story is partly about test-time compute, partly about misunderstood evaluation importance, and partly about frontier performance preceding later efficiency.
Sora 1 and 2
Core contributor to Sora and Sora 2. Created samples and explored video editing, inpainting, SDEdit-style transformations, loops, and world-simulator behavior in text-to-video models.
Ephemeral Notes
A disappearing notepad for thinking. Notes fade after about a minute, forcing working-memory support without turning sketches and fragments into permanent clutter.
FIGMA-OS
The first Turing-complete computer built entirely in Figma prototyping tools: 8-bit architecture, 512 bits of RAM, 16 bytes of program memory, 10 Hz clock, four registers, and a 16-opcode instruction set.
The Alexandria Index
An effort to build free, open-source, up-to-date embedding datasets from public information. The first release embedded every Arxiv paper: millions of items, hundreds of millions of tokens, and billions of vector dimensions.
WebGPT
A browser-native GPT inference implementation using WebGPU, built as a proof of concept and educational resource in under two weeks from little prior transformer or kernel knowledge.
Hyperlocal
A peer-to-peer Bluetooth messaging system for war, disasters, shutdowns, and remote environments where the internet is unavailable. The goal is uncensorable, private, universal local communication.
InternetActivism
A digital humanitarian organization designed to ship useful software quickly, remotely, experimentally, and at much lower cost than traditional response organizations.
DeepResearch / ALTR
Discord analytics and community infrastructure. Started from local relationship graphs, became a product analyzing tens of millions of users and over 100 million data points, then sold to Commsor in a seven-figure acquisition.
The Human Colossus
Helped restart and scale a community of young builders that grew out of Gen Z Mafia.
Speaking at V1 Michigan
A talk on building philosophy and advice for high school and college students who want to create.
Plagiarism.fyi
A one-week project about MOSS and code-plagiarism detection. Released as a satirical, constructive way to collect data for better detection systems.
ChessEngines.org
An interactive guide to chess engines, built after implementing an engine in JavaScript and Go. The site reached millions of views, Hacker News, newsletters, and a 3Blue1Brown math communication prize placement.
Canvas of Babel
A one-hour visual Library of Babel: an infinite array of possible pixel arrangements.
College Tunnels
Restored an old internet library for underground university tunnel maps, stories, and guides from the internet archive.
Recompiled
A paid newsletter pre-commitment tool for builders too busy to write. Shut down after Stripe issues.
MyFirstNDA
A deliberately absurd one-way NDA generator aimed at teenage gossip dynamics. Fill it out and print quickly.
Polaroid
A high-school game about physics and perspective, built in Processing, with tricky 3D transforms and a viewfinder mechanic.
ConstitutionDAO
Participated in the single-purpose DAO that raised capital to bid on a copy of the Constitution, lost the auction, and refunded contributors.
Gen Z Mafia
Helped build the Gen Z Mafia community to more than 6,000 members, ran events, and led admissions.
Divorcify
A joke-but-not-entirely-joke Photoshop service for removing exes from old pictures.
Minecraft computers
Built the first piston-only Minecraft computer without redstone torches or comparators, accidentally learning computer architecture in the process.
Startups
ALTR / DeepResearch: community analytics and infrastructure, acquired by Commsor. Thrive: instant messaging for high-school teacher-student communication, launched after raising and hiring a small engineering team.
Background
Eagle Scout and senior patrol leader for a 200+ person troop. Hiked more than 175 miles across multi-week trips. Certified lifeguard and emergency medical responder. Born in Seattle, lived in Buenos Aires, speaks Spanish semi-fluently.