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Thomas Wolf

Founder

Co-founder & CSO at Hugging Face

Paris, France

FoundedHugging Face

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About

Thomas Wolf co-founded Hugging Face in 2016 with Clément Delangue and Julien Chaumond and created the Transformers library — the open-source backbone through which much of the world runs its AI models. A Polytechnique-trained physicist with a Sorbonne/ESPCI PhD in statistical physics, he turned down an MIT PhD offer, spent five years as a European patent attorney (picking up a Sorbonne law degree along the way), then taught himself modern machine learning and became Chief Science Officer of the platform reportedly exploring a sale at $13 billion or more. He led the thousand-researcher BigScience workshop behind the BLOOM model, co-authored O'Reilly's Natural Language Processing with Transformers, and drives Hugging Face's small-model SmolLM family.

Beyond investing

Founded
Co-founded Hugging Face in New York in 2016 with Clément Delangue and Julien Chaumond.
Education
Turned down a PhD acceptance at MIT after a Lawrence Berkeley National Lab research stint, returning to France for a Sorbonne/ESPCI physics doctorate.
Communities
Led the ~1,000-researcher BigScience Workshop that produced BLOOM, the 176B-parameter open multilingual language model.
More
Created and first-authored the Transformers library (born as pytorch-pretrained-bert in November 2018), the most-used open-source AI library. Spent about five years as a European patent attorney at Cabinet Plasseraud before teaching himself machine learning in 2015. Co-authored the O'Reilly book Natural Language Processing with Transformers. His 2025 essay The Einstein AI Model publicly challenged Dario Amodei's compressed-century vision, arguing current AI produces 'yes-men on servers'.

From published sources — common ground for a warm intro.

Co-founder & CSO at Hugging Face

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In turn, Thomas can intro founders to Hugging Face's investors below.

Hugging Face's investors · 33

A.Capital VenturesSan Francisco · since 2018AdditionNew York · $1M – $500M checks · since 2021AIX VenturesSan Francisco · $1M – $5M checks · since 2022BetaworksNew York · $250K – $750K checks · since 2019Betaworks Ventures Management, LlcNew York · $250K – $750K checks · since 2022Coatue ManagementNew York · $1M – $20M checks · since 2022Connetic VenturesCovington · $250K – $500K checksCygni CapitalSan Francisco · since 2022Felicis VenturesSan Francisco · $500K – $15M checksFirestreak VenturesGMG VenturesLondon · $630K – $1.3M checksGradient VenturesSan Francisco · $100K – $10M checksIntel CapitalSanta Clara · $1M – $20M checksJuniper Ventures Management, LlcSan FranciscoKevin Durantsince 2019Leonis CapitalSan FranciscoLux CapitalNew York · $100K – $100M checks · since 2019MarketX VenturesMercuri.vcLondon · $630K – $1.3M checksMozilla VenturesNight CapitalCapitolaNVIDIASanta Clara · since 2023Premji InvestMenlo ParkQualcomm VenturesSan Diego · $5M checks · since 2023Salesforce VenturesSan Francisco · $5M – $50M checks · since 2023Sequoia CapitalMenlo Park · $4.4M – $214M checks · since 2022Sixth Sense VenturesMumbai · $6M – $13M checksSound VenturesSanta Monica · since 2023Spice CapitalNew York · $100K – $250K checksStanford UniversityStanford · since 2017STATION FParisSV AngelSan Francisco · $150K – $20M checksVaranium Capital AdvisorsMumbai

Co-founders at Hugging Face

JCJulien Chaumond
Julien ChaumondExecutive Officer, Director
CDClement Delange
Clement DelangeExecutive Officer, Director
CDClément Delangue
Clément DelangueCo-founder & CEO

Experience

  1. Hugging FaceCo-founder - Chief Science Officercurrent2017 — presentNetherlands
  2. Cabinet PlasseraudEuropean Patent Attorney2011 — 2017
  3. Pierre and Marie Curie UniversityPhD2008 — 2011
  4. Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryResearch Intern2006
  5. AlcanProduction engineer2005

Skills & more

Machine Learning64Research55Deep Learning7Python (Programming Language)4Open-Source Software4Artificial Intelligence (AI)4R&D38Materials Science17Physics20Patents28Intellectual Property10Nanotechnology11
+1 morePatent Litigation
  • Computational Probability and Inference (6.008.1x) — edX
  • Probabilistic Graphical Models Specialization — Coursera
  • European Patent Attorney — European Patent Office

From Thomas's professional profile.

Podcasts & interviews

featuring Thomas Wolf

Challenging the Average With Open-Source AI

Me, Myself, and AI (MIT SMR) · sloanreview.mit.edu

The Past, Present and Future of Hugging Face

Leading With Data

Big Science and Embodied Learning at Hugging Face

TWIML AI Podcast · twimlai.com

Frequently asked questions

Who is Thomas Wolf?
Thomas Wolf co-founded Hugging Face in 2016 with Clément Delangue and Julien Chaumond and created the Transformers library — the open-source backbone through which much of the world runs its AI models. A Polytechnique-trained physicist with a Sorbonne/ESPCI PhD in statistical physics, he turned down an MIT PhD offer, spent five years as a European patent attorney (picking up a Sorbonne law degree along the way), then taught himself modern machine learning and became Chief Science Officer of the platform reportedly exploring a sale at $13 billion or more. He led the thousand-researcher BigScience workshop behind the BLOOM model, co-authored O'Reilly's Natural Language Processing with Transformers, and drives Hugging Face's small-model SmolLM family.
Where does Thomas Wolf work?
Thomas Wolf is Co-founder & CSO of Hugging Face.
What companies did Thomas Wolf found?
Thomas Wolf founded Hugging Face.
Where did Thomas Wolf go to school?
Thomas Wolf studied at École Polytechnique; Pierre and Marie Curie University (PhD, Statistical / Quantum Physics); University of Paris I: Panthéon-Sorbonne (Licence en droit - Law Degree, Law).
What podcasts and interviews feature Thomas Wolf?
Tracked appearances include "Challenging the Average With Open-Source AI", "The Past, Present and Future of Hugging Face", "Big Science and Embodied Learning at Hugging Face".

Founder mafias

Center for International Intellectual Property Studies - CEIPI mafia2

Also came through, then founded or led a company.

Astrid WoollardMaster in Intellectual Property Law and Management (LLM)Founded SMAPE Capital

Same school

Shared employers