Carina Hong, a prominent figure in artificial intelligence and a Stanford dropout, has gained attention after her startup, Axiom, raised US$64 million in seed funding in September. The funding has enabled her to recruit a talented team, including researchers from top tech firms like Meta and Google DeepMind, as well as a celebrated mathematician.
Born in Guangzhou, Hong was among the first in her family to attend college, eventually graduating from MIT with degrees in mathematics and physics in just three years. She excelled academically, completing 20 advanced courses and authoring nine research papers, and received prestigious awards such as the Alice T. Schafer Prize and the Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize.
Before founding Axiom, she pursued further studies at Oxford University and was working towards a joint law degree and mathematics PhD at Stanford. Despite her impressive achievements, she recalls her early college experience as lonely, having not known anyone from her previous life before attending MIT.