Mathïs Fédérico is a French engineer whose career has spanned academic research, industry R&D, and artificial intelligence. Deeply disappointed by the scientific system and its career conditions, he refused to pursue a PhD and sought alternative ways to contribute to science. His frustration only deepened in industry research, where he found the same prestige dynamics driven by publication metrics.

Pivoting to the AI startup world, he joined H.AI in France before moving to Harmonic in California. At Harmonic, leveraging his earlier work at Huawei R&D, he helped build the AI system that won a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Realizing that the best way he could contribute to science was by changing how we evaluate scientific contributions, he initiated Bycelium to realign scientists’ incentives with genuine scientific progress.