2024 Paris Olympics

Olympic rower goes back to startup life in San Francisco

NBC Universal, Inc.
A Bay Area Olympic rower is back in the Ello office with an incredible souvenir: a bronze medal.   

A Bay Area Olympic rower is back in the Ello office with an incredible souvenir: a bronze medal.   

Peter Chatain was part of the history-making men's eights rowing team at the 2024 Paris Olympics. But when he's not on the water, he's a typical techie working as a machine learning engineer at the San Francisco-based startup.  

"Because I've been trying to achieve that goal of getting a medal in the Olympics for so long, it's a little bit like, what's the next thing now?'" he said. 

While Chatain plans out the next big thing, like the possibility of aiming to compete at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, he's busy at Ello, a starting aimed at using artificial intelligence to encourage kids to read.  

Catalin Moreno Voss, Ello's co-founder and chief technology officer, said Chatain's work morale is similar to what he does on a rowing team.  

"He's a definitional team player," Voss said. "It can be very grueling at times; it requires a lot of focus, a lot of team play and intuition." 

For now, Chatain is focused on coding but isn't looking at leaving the water.  

"I mean, a home Olympics, everyone's going to want to come back for that," he said. "How could you not?"  

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