1912 – 2006 · Economist
Milton Friedman
Nobel Prize–winning economist and a defining voice for free markets. He argued that economic freedom drives innovation and prosperity.
Read about Friedman →A small firm, built around two convictions.
Milton Maxwell is a research-driven investment firm. Markets allocate capital well when they're allowed to. And technology, AI most of all, is reshaping where that capital should go. We named the firm for Milton Friedman and James Clerk Maxwell to keep both in view.
We started Milton Maxwell to work the way we work best: opinionated, technically literate, and close to the operators we admire. Public markets are dense with signal that nobody has the time to read. Modern AI lets a small team read all of it.
Fundamentals decide what's worth owning. Software decides how much we can cover.
Most of what we do happens in our incubator at SF Patchworks in San Francisco, surrounded by the engineers, founders, and operators whose work shapes the companies we follow.
Co-founder
Charlie Yuan
Engineering and operating background; runs the research stack and public-equity book.
Charlie's career runs from silicon to AI. He started in graphics hardware at NVIDIA and AMD, with an MASc in distributed systems and cryptography from Waterloo. He then spent a decade in enterprise and consumer software at Cisco, Klout, Betable, and Lyft. At Lyft, he helped start the Level 5 self-driving team and grew it to a few hundred. After Lyft, he explored AI, design, real estate, and finance at South Park Commons, and worked on computer-automation models at the frontier lab Adept.
He now runs Milton Maxwell with Alex, investing in AI from private companies to the public markets. Alongside the firm, he co-runs SF Patchworks. He's an angel and advisor to a handful of operators: Tribe.ai, Fleetworks, Marathon Fusion, Anthropic, Swiftlane, Triply, and others. He's also an LP in SPC Fund, Iterative, Banana Capital, Sweet Spot Capital, AngelList Access Fund, and Mission St Capital.
Career
- 2024 →
Investing across public and private markets
Concentrated longs in companies at the frontier, shorts in incumbents being displaced, plus AI-adjacent real assets and special situations. Also co-runs SF Patchworks, an incubator in San Francisco for technical founders.
Milton MaxwellSF Patchworks - 2022–2024
Figuring out what's next
At South Park Commons, explored AI, design, real estate, and finance. At Adept, a frontier lab, worked with computer-automation models.
- 2017–2021
Self-driving
Helped start Lyft's Level 5 self-driving team and grew it to a few hundred. Built the visualization, triage, and debugging tools behind the program.
- 2009–2017
Enterprise to consumer, at scale
At Cisco, Klout, Betable, and Lyft, climbed the stack from enterprise networking to consumer products used by millions.
- 2002–2009
Silicon
Started in hardware. At Waterloo, co-op terms close to the metal: graphics at NVIDIA and AMD, ASIC verification at Ericsson, wireless protocols at BlackBerry. Finished with an MASc in distributed systems and cryptography.
Co-founder
Alex Soong
2x founder and engineer; runs strategy and research.
Alex previously founded a pair of companies, most recently P2P Labs, exploring applications for zero-knowledge proving stacks, and before that Set Labs 2017, which built the first blockchain-based asset management platform. Before that, he was an engineer at Square, Caviar, Apple, and Zynga.
Relevant experience
- 012x founder: P2P Labs (ZK powered stablecoin on ramp), Set Labs (DeFi)
- 02IPO with Square (2014), earlier engineering roles at Caviar, Apple, Zynga
- 03LP: SPC Fund, Seven Hill Ventures, Sweet Spot Capital
- 04Angel: 20+ companies across AI, fintech, and infrastructure
Why the name
Two names, two convictions.
1831 – 1879 · Physicist
James Clerk Maxwell
Scottish physicist whose equations unified electricity and magnetism, setting off the electrical age.
Read about Maxwell →Free markets reward the companies that get technology right, and leave the rest behind.
Our space in San Francisco.
We work out of SF Patchworks, our incubator.
It's a community of technical founders, mostly engineers and operators building their companies from the start. We share the space with them, so we get to know founders years before their companies reach the public markets.
