"As an engineer, you’re often frustrated when you spend months building something that doesn’t matter. Becoming a founder taught me that success isn’t just about coding—it’s about understanding users, iterating fast, and building the right product for the market." Clemente Pang, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Lirvana Labs
"We wanted to see if generative AI could truly approximate a human tutor—teaching not just facts but also scaffolding learning and providing emotional support, especially for young children. That’s where the real magic lies." Clemente Pang, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Lirvana Labs
"If you want to inspire a team, don’t explain how to build the ship—show them the vastness of the ocean. People rally behind a vision, not just the technicalities." Clemente Pang, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Lirvana Labs
Clement Pang is a serial entrepreneur (>400MM in exits) and current co-founder and co-CEO of Lirvana Labs, a startup that created an AI Learning Companion to teach children the critical literacy and reasoning skills that change lives and destinies. With over 17 years of experience in software engineering, architecture, and leadership, Clement is passionate about building purposeful products that leverage the power of AI and data to solve real-world problems and improve human well-being.
Clement Pang, cofounder of Lirvana Labs and Jeremy Au explored:
1. Google Engineer to $400M Exit
Clement detailed his journey from a computer science graduate at Rice University in 2004 to starting at Google during its IPO phase and later GLMX in 2007 to build a financial trading platform as a founding engineer. In 2012, he co-founded Wayfront, an observability SaaS company that filled a gap in system monitoring. Early customers included Workday, Yammer, and Lyft, and the platform eventually scaled to serve companies like Reddit and DoorDash. Wayfront’s acquisition by VMware in 2017 for $400 million provided Clement with invaluable lessons about scaling cross-functional teams and handling millions of data points per second. He emphasized minimizing dependency on external factors, a lesson learned from GLMX’s reliance on interest rates, and aligning teams with a clear vision—a skill he honed while managing 2,000 engineers at VMware.
2. “Diamond Age” Education AI: Drawing inspiration from Neil Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, Clement envisions AI as a tool to democratize education and approximate human tutors. In 2021, Clement co-founded Livano Labs with his sister to transform early childhood education using generative AI. Their app, Yeti Confetti Kids, launched in 2022, targets children aged 3 to 9, teaching math, English, and social-emotional skills. AI designs personalized learning experiences instead of relying on pre-set algorithms. Feedback loops enabled the AI to improve its outputs by analyzing real-world usage data. He emphasized curriculum alignment for classroom settings, where AI must adhere to structured learning goals.
3. Gen Z Future: Clement reflected on how tools like ChatGPT are changing interpersonal communication, particularly for Gen Z. He drew parallels to the introduction of calculators in education, noting how technological tools shift norms and practices. He discussed AI’s role as a sounding board for personal and professional problem-solving, encouraging users to engage critically with its outputs while leveraging its strengths.
They also discussed lessons from Clement’s experiences managing cross-functional teams during Wayfront’s rapid growth, how decreasing costs are enabling scalable applications like Yeti Confetti Kids, and the role of AI in enhancing collaboration and decision-making.