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After more than seven years contributing to one of the world’s largest tech giants, Senior Software Engineer Tyler Trephan has left Google to dedicate himself fully to his AI-first media startup, TheZealot. His last day was October 10, 2025, marking a pivotal transition from building at scale within Google to scaling his own vision: amplifying the stories of rising talents through pioneering artificial intelligence.
The decision, announced during a Lehigh University alumni event at SF Tech Week, wasn't made lightly. It was the culmination of growing momentum, a rapidly evolving AI landscape, and a partnership that demanded his full attention.
For Trephan, the choice to leave a stable, high-impact role at Google came down to a "critical mass." While balancing his demanding job with his burgeoning startup, TheZealot’s pilot program with the California Regional Training Center (CA-RTC) began to take off, proving the concept he was so passionate about.
"The work at TheZealot was taking off and our partnership with the California Regional Training Center was basically growing to a critical mass where I could not adequately balance my time between the two anymore," Trephan explained in an exclusive interview. "I thought the opportunity with this partnership, with just the overall landscape and how generative AI is developing, I just couldn't ignore it anymore. And I just had to make the leap."
That final leap of faith was solidified on the home front. "Once I talked to my wife and she was okay with me leaving my job, that was all the approval I needed to take this risk and take this jump to pursue TheZealot full-time," he shared.
Trephan views his seven years and four months at Google as an invaluable period of growth and learning. He describes the experience as a "great training ground" where he absorbed best practices from world-class engineers and witnessed top-tier engineering architecture operate at an immense scale.
However, beyond the technical acumen, his most profound takeaway was the human connection.
"I think one of the most significant things during my time, as I reflect, is just the key relationships I made with some really smart and talented people," Trephan reflected. "Some of my closest friends and people I know in my life are from my time there. And these are people that I care about and I think that's maybe my most significant takeaway."
Now fully focused on TheZealot, Trephan has a clear roadmap for the next 6-12 months. His immediate priorities are centered on solidifying the company's leadership and expanding its reach.
These steps are designed to gather more feedback, refine the product, and firmly establish TheZealot's value proposition in the market.
While TheZealot is an AI-first company, Trephan emphasizes that its core strength lies in its unique assets: the proprietary data from client interviews and the power of niche networks. He plans to leverage these "responsibly" to create a competitive advantage.
The company is already making inroads in the collegiate wrestling world, a community Trephan sees as a massive, undercovered opportunity. "Collegiate wrestling has always been an undercovered sport," he noted. "And specifically with the development that this year will be the first year that women's wrestling will be an official NCAA sport, there's a big opportunity for us to step in to help accelerate the growth in proper coverage for women's wrestling as well."
This niche focus is powered by a long-term data strategy. The interviews conducted by TheZealot's AI agents are more than just content sources; they are the building blocks for a smarter, more empathetic system.
"Over time, the data we collect during client interviews can help us build better, smarter, and more personal AI interview agents," Trephan envisioned. "This information will give us a better picture of who these clients are so that our AI agents can interact with them in a more human and just a more personal experience."
As he scales his vision, Trephan is acutely aware of the central challenge: ensuring the interaction between human clients and AI agents is seamless, valuable, and positive.
"I think the most critical challenge is ensuring that when the clients interact with our AI agents, they find the experience to be easy and pleasant," he stated. "Because if we keep our clients happy, and they're willing to continue to come back and talk to our AI agents... then we can continue to generate downstream content for the end consumer to be happy."
For Trephan, the success of TheZealot hinges on this crucial feedback loop. By prioritizing the client experience, he aims to build a sustainable engine for authentic storytelling, proving that the future of media lies in the powerful synthesis of human narrative and artificial intelligence.
