Irina Kukuyeva, PhD
AI diligence
at Kukuyeva Consulting
Dr. Irina Kukuyeva is a business operations-focused technology leader who helps companies understand and unlock customer behavior and feedback loops to build scalable, profitable companies with market fit.
She has collaborated with over 100 companies and is a frequent speaker on the topic of building and scaling companies with product-led growth and AI, most recently for Slauson & Co.
She’s invented and implemented algorithms on a global scale, led global data and AI teams, and taught graduate students best practices for developing real-time AI algorithms.
Irina mentors over 100 start-ups a year at many accelerators, including Techstars, the Founder Institute, and the UCLA Venture Accelerator.
She is an advisory board member for a pediatric MedTech accelerator (CTIP) and the UCLA Master of Data Science program.
She holds a PhD in Statistics from UCLA, where she invented a novel image compression algorithm for her PhD thesis — and found similarities between two storms on Jupiter, a finding confirmed by NASA Juno’s mission years later. It is now a special case of the many popular AI models today.
Articles by Irina Kukuyeva, PhD
The Founder’s Mental Health Playbook: What I Learned After Nearly Burning Out
A hard-won guide to staying mentally healthy while building a startup I founded Stitcher, the podcast platform, in 2007 and ran it for seven years until we sold in 2014....
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for Early Stage Companies
In our latest session from the Mucker Growth Series featuring Ethan Smith from Graphite, we explored AEO, a significant new approach for optimizing visibility in AI-driven search, particularly relevant as...
Startup Guide to AI Visibility: Be the Brand ChatGPT Recommends
Introduction Today, users aren’t just searching on Google. They’re asking ChatGPT, Claude, Google’s Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI systems for advice. AI visibility is the new frontier of brand awareness....
Practical Uses of AI & Automation for Startup Operations
In a recent Mucker Growth Series session, we invited Rock Vitale, Founder & CEO of Easie, to share how he’s helped early-stage teams move from manual, fragmented workflows to streamlined,...
2025 New York Tech Week Recap Of Mucker Sessions
Last week during New York Tech Week 2025, we joined more than 1,000 events hosted by founders, investors, and VCs. This post is a full Mucker recap of the three...
How to Build a Customer Support Function for Startups Using AI Tools with Alex Velinov
Delivering high-quality customer support can be one of the most resource-draining parts of a startup. The good news: we’re at a turning point where founders can use AI tools to...