Why a Sports Scientist Quit to Build an AI Startup
A sports scientist for the All Blacks walked away from the national team to build an AI startup - because something about the old way felt broken.
Key takeaway sometimes the best career move is the one nobody sees coming.
In this GenZEO Playbook conversation, Jake Schuster explains why he traded a role as a sports scientist with the New Zealand All Blacks for the uncertain path of building an AI startup. The turning point, as he tells it, was realising something in the way he was working was broken - enough to make him rethink the whole thing.
It's a founder story with a distinctly Kiwi origin: high-performance sport, where marginal gains and data are everything, turning out to be a natural on-ramp into AI. Schuster traces the line from applying analytical rigour on the sideline to building tools with it.
For New Zealand's startup scene, it's another example of talent crossing into AI from an unexpected field - and a reminder that the itch to build often starts with a problem you couldn't stop noticing in the day job.
“From the sideline to a startup - turns out the All Blacks weren't the only thing he was optimising.” — The Nation's Mother, The 6 O’Clock News