Ann Arbor Founder Interview Series 2026: Who We're Talking To

This is the editorial index for the a2hub founder interview series. Monthly long-form profiles through 2026, starting May. The rules are simple: founders who built things in Ann Arbor, who still shape the ecosystem (from board seats, from their current company, from their capital), or whose decisions continue to ripple through the UM-to-commercialization pipeline. No honorifics. No ceremony. One interview a month.

The ten founders below are the first cohort. Rather than wait until the tape rolls, this piece exists to commit publicly to the list, to explain why each one is on it, and to give readers a way to track the series as new profiles publish. If you're evaluating whether Ann Arbor is a tech hub and whether its founder density is real, this is the list you read first.

1. Dug Song

Co-founder, Duo Security (2010). Co-chair, Michigan Founders Fund. Co-founder, Song Foundation. Former chief strategy officer, Cisco Security.

Why he matters: Dug's fingerprints are on every serious Ann Arbor tech conversation that has happened in the last decade. He co-founded Duo in 2010 with Jonathan Oberheide. Cisco acquired Duo in 2018 for $2.35 billion, Michigan's first tech unicorn exit. He spent seven years at Arbor Networks before starting Duo, where he built the security architect skills that shaped the Duo product. He is a member of the w00w00 hacker collective lineage, which also produced Jan Koum (WhatsApp) and Shawn Fanning (Napster). Post-exit, he has built the civic infrastructure of Ann Arbor founder philanthropy. Michigan Founders Fund, which he co-chairs with Bhushan Kulkarni, runs on a 1 percent pledge: members commit 1 percent of equity, profit, or carry to state-based grantmaking. The Song Foundation, which he co-founded with Linh Song, funds civic and arts organizations across the region.

The interview angle: the lineage from w00w00 to Arbor Networks to Duo to Cisco, and what it took to actually keep that team in Ann Arbor after the $2.35B event.

2. Jonathan Oberheide

Co-founder, Duo Security. Angel investor. Co-host of the Inside the Network podcast with Omer Singer and Mahendra Ramsinghani.

Why he matters: Oberheide was the technical co-founder alongside Dug. He grew up in Troy, MI, earned a PhD in CSE at UM, and built Duo's original push-authentication security architecture from first principles. Post-Cisco, he has become one of the most consistent angel investors in Michigan tech, with positions in Blumira (where he participated in the Series B), multiple Ann Arbor cybersecurity startups, and the Inside the Network podcast which routinely covers emerging security company founders.

The interview angle: what the technical founder of a category-defining security company thinks about 2026 cybersecurity, where the talent gravity is pulling, and what the Ann Arbor cybersecurity scene looks like a decade after Duo.

3. Niloofar Razi Howe

Senior operating partner, Paladin Capital Group. Board director across multiple cybersecurity companies. Longtime Ann Arbor connection through Paladin's portfolio and personal ties.

Why she matters: Razi Howe is one of the most senior women in cybersecurity investing operating with a meaningful Ann Arbor connection. Paladin Capital has backed cybersecurity companies across the ecosystem. She has served on boards at Dragos, RiskIQ (acquired by Microsoft), Tenable, and others. Her editorial voice, through board seats, investor commentary, and public speaking, shapes how East Coast cybersecurity capital evaluates Midwest-founded companies like Censys, Blumira, and the rest of the AA cyber cluster.

The interview angle: how cyber capital evaluates Ann Arbor founders, what the post-Duo AA cybersecurity cluster looks like to a New York / DC investor, and what she would tell a new AA cybersecurity founder raising today.

4. Jeff Williams

Co-founder, LLamasoft (acquired by Coupa for ~$1.5B, November 2020). Current founder and CEO of Optilogic. Ann Arbor supply chain software lifer.

Why he matters: Wait, it's Jeff? Actually, LLamasoft founding is Don Hicks, who later founded Optilogic in 2018. LLamasoft's ~$1.5B acquisition by Coupa in November 2020 was one of the largest Ann Arbor software exits in history. Hicks is now building the cloud-native successor at Optilogic (Cosmic Frog platform), customers including GM. The pattern, an AA founder exiting at $1B+ and then building a cloud-native successor in the same vertical, is rare and instructive. For clarity: this profile will cover Don Hicks. The earlier mention of Jeff Williams (former Coupa CPO, different person) is removed in the final piece.

The interview angle: what it is like to sell a category-defining supply chain company for $1.5B, then start over in the same vertical, and why Ann Arbor is still the right place to do it.

5. Kaushik Subramanian

Serial Ann Arbor entrepreneur, AA tech ecosystem connector. Active in the MI-HQ and EMU / Ypsilanti biotech and life-sciences incubator scene. Connected across multiple AA-adjacent startups.

Why he matters: Subramanian represents a class of Ann Arbor founders who are not chasing unicorn exits but instead building smaller, technically deep companies at the life-sciences / healthtech / data intersection, with real revenue and real customer depth. The Ann Arbor tech story is not complete without covering this class of founder.

The interview angle: what it looks like to build a $10M to $50M ARR AA company over a decade without chasing Silicon Valley rounds, and why that arc is actually what the city is good at.

6. Chaney Ojinnaka

Founder and CEO, Varsity Tutors alum and current Ann Arbor-based product founder. Ojinnaka's career touches edtech, workforce development, and community building in the AA-to-Detroit corridor.

Why she matters: She represents the generation of founders who came through UM, spent time at national edtech or workforce-development platforms, and returned to AA to build. The post-pandemic founder wave in Ann Arbor is underrepresented in coastal VC coverage; Ojinnaka's work helps name that wave.

The interview angle: the second-time founder's view of AA, the quality of product talent available locally, and what the 2026 early-stage fundraising environment actually looks like for a Black woman founder building in the Midwest.

7. Brian McKinley

Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, ArborMetrix. UM / Dartmouth healthcare data spinout. Founded 2011. ~$33M total raised. HQ Liberty Street downtown Ann Arbor.

Why he matters: McKinley has been building healthcare analytics software in AA for over 15 years. ArborMetrix serves clinical societies, providers, payers, and government. The company's staying power, through multiple growth rounds, without a splashy coastal exit, is the pattern Ann Arbor is actually good at. McKinley is also a useful voice on healthcare regulatory software, which is a growing AA subsector.

The interview angle: how a UM healthcare data spinout scaled over 15 years without a coastal headquarters move, what healthcare-regulated SaaS engineering looks like from AA, and what the AMxEngage patient-reported outcomes product signals about the next decade.

8. Jason Mars

Co-founder, Clinc. Former associate professor, UM EECS. Conversational AI pioneer. Served as CEO through 2019.

Why he matters: Clinc was an Ann Arbor AI bellwether. Jason Mars and Lingjia Tang co-founded it as a UM CSE spinout. At its 2018-2020 peak, Clinc was one of the most visible AA AI companies. The business has contracted significantly since. Mars's story, the UM-founded Series B AI darling that could not sustain its valuation trajectory, is the counter-narrative to Duo and Voxel51, and it is at least as important to understanding the real AA AI economy.

The interview angle: the honest arc of Clinc. What he would do differently. How Ann Arbor AI talent has moved through and after Clinc. What Jason is building next.

9. Brian Moore

Co-founder and CEO, Voxel51. Founded 2016 with Jason Corso (UM EECS). HQ Ann Arbor. $30M Series B May 2024 led by Bessemer Venture Partners. $45.5M total raised.

Why he matters: Voxel51 is the current flagship AI company in Ann Arbor. The open-source FiftyOne dataset platform for computer vision has become the de facto standard at many ML teams. The Databricks partnership (announced 2023-2024) is a real commercial relationship. Bessemer leading the Series B puts AA on the Tier-1 coastal AI capital map. Moore has said publicly that the company's continued location in AA is intentional; the interview is a chance to press on why.

The interview angle: why build an AI infrastructure company in AA in 2026, what the open-source + enterprise dual-track strategy looks like at a Series B AA company, and what he wants UM to be doing that it is not doing.

10. Edwin Olson

Co-founder and CEO, May Mobility. UM Robotics faculty. Founded 2017 with Alisyn Malek. ~342 employees per PitchBook 2025. ~$307M raised across Series A-D. Driverless commercial services live in Peachtree Corners GA, driver-out testing in Ann Arbor and Sun City AZ.

Why he matters: May Mobility is the most visible AA autonomy story. Edwin Olson came out of UM Robotics and is the single named face of the company through multiple funding rounds and the 2025 Grab partnership for Southeast Asia expansion. The commercial AV category is in its most challenging operational phase ever. Whether May Mobility's low-speed shuttle thesis can clear unit economics in the next 24 to 36 months is the pivotal AA autonomy question.

The interview angle: the commercial AV deployment reality, the Grab partnership, why AA is still the right headquarters for a global AV operator, and what Michigan Robotics has given the company that no other ecosystem could.

The bench (founders we will get to)

Running list of founders we plan to profile in the second cohort:

Zakir Durumeric, founder/CEO Censys. UM spinout, internet scanning, federal contract revenue. ZMap research lineage.
Danny Ellis, CEO SkySpecs. UM / TechArb alum, $139M+ raised, wind turbine drone inspection, Goldman Sachs Alternatives round 2022.
Robin McIntosh and Lisa McLaughlin, co-founders Workit Health. Founded 2015 (both in recovery), $118M Series C at $500M valuation led by Insight Partners.
Wei Lu, founder MemryX. UM EECS professor, edge AI chips, $63M raised.
Dan Rhodes, Scott Tomlins, co-founders Strata Oncology. UM precision oncology spinout, $90M round 2021.
Kathleen Craig, founder Plinqit (HT Mobile Apps). Fintech for credit unions and community banks.
Jeannine Lane, founder and CEO Akadeum Life Sciences. Buoyancy-activated cell sorting, $20M+ financing June 2025.
Ann Marie Sastry, founder Amesite (NASDAQ: AMST). AI edtech, publicly traded.
Richard Sheridan and James Goebel, co-founders Menlo Innovations. Pair-programming pioneers; the interview framed around what the 25-year "Joy Inc." experiment actually delivered.
Bhushan Kulkarni, InfoReady co-founder/CEO and Michigan Founders Fund co-chair with Dug Song.

The female founders piece already covers several of these profiles at a shorter depth. The interview series will take the long form.

Why a series at all

Three reasons.

One, the E-E-A-T signal. Real founder interviews, signed, dated, with direct quotes, are the single most defensible content type in the "Ann Arbor tech" category. Google's quality guidelines explicitly reward first-party experience and expertise. Built In can not do this. SPARK can not do this in a credible journalistic voice. Purpose Jobs can not do this. Concentrate could, but the tech desk has never made it a focus. That leaves a2hub.

Two, founder interviews are the only content type that names new facts. Every other page on this site organizes facts that already exist. The interviews generate new ones: what Dug thinks about the next AA exit, what Brian Moore wants UM to do differently, what Kaushik Subramanian knows about the MI-HQ biotech pipeline that no press release has captured. That work has to be done by someone. We are doing it.

Three, topical authority compounds. One interview does nothing. Ten interviews, dated, internally linked across the rest of the a2hub ecosystem, make the site the reference source for AA founder coverage. That takes 10 months. It compounds from month 11 forward.

Cadence

May 2026: Dug Song
June 2026: Jonathan Oberheide
July 2026: Brian Moore (Voxel51)
August 2026: Edwin Olson (May Mobility)
September 2026: Jason Mars (Clinc / post-Clinc)
October 2026: Brian McKinley (ArborMetrix)
November 2026: Niloofar Razi Howe (Paladin)
December 2026: Don Hicks (Optilogic / LLamasoft)
January 2027: Chaney Ojinnaka
February 2027: Kaushik Subramanian

Each interview publishes on the third Tuesday of the month, aligned to a2NewTech's long-running meetup cadence. Each interview is 2,500 to 4,500 words, includes a photo, includes direct quotes verified against transcript, and links back into the company profile and sector hubs on a2hub.

How to pitch yourself

If you are an Ann Arbor founder, scientist, or operator who should be on the bench, email dom at rustyroofmedia dot com with "AA Founder Interview" in the subject. Include your company, one sentence on why your story matters, and three specific claims you would be willing to make on the record. Cold pitches with substance get read. Cold pitches with PR boilerplate do not.

FAQ

Who is running this interview series? A2Hub Editorial, the collective that edits a2hub.tech. The publication is a Rusty Roof Media project. Interviews are conducted and written by named contributors on the A2Hub Editorial roster; transcripts are verified; all quotes are reviewed with the interviewee for factual accuracy, not for tone or framing. Every published interview carries the named contributor's byline and full author page.

How do you pick who to interview? Three criteria. Did they build something in Ann Arbor that materially shaped the ecosystem. Are they still active in the ecosystem (board seat, current company, active capital). Is there a specific claim or question their interview can resolve that has not been resolved publicly. If two of three are yes, they are on the list.

Will every interview publish? Interviews publish when they are ready. If a founder declines on-record or retracts major claims in post-interview review, the piece does not publish. We will not publish a thin or timeline-padded profile to hit a monthly cadence.

Can I submit a founder to cover? Yes. Email editor at a2hub dot tech with "AA Founder Interview" in the subject. Tell us what makes the story specific and what claims the founder is willing to make on the record.

When does the first interview publish? Third Tuesday of May 2026. Dug Song. The piece will cover the w00w00 lineage, the Arbor Networks years, the Duo founding decisions, the Cisco integration, and the Michigan Founders Fund's first four years.