Hey 👋🏻,
I’m Wesley–tech entrepreneur, mountaineer, and Ironman finisher. Here's a bit about me.
Work
I’m the CEO and Co-Founder of Aragon. We use AI to generate hyperrealistic photos of people, eliminating the need for in-person photoshoots.
We have over 1.2 million users, including Fortune 500 companies and our products have generated over 25 million photos for people.
We’re funded by Neo, Sequoia Scout, and the founders of billion-dollar companies. However, we've never needed to use any of the money that we've raised as we’ve been able to build a capital-efficient business. Using our profits, we grew to a $1M annual run rate (ARR) within 4 months of launching our first product and $5M ARR in under 2 years.
We've been featured in the Washington Post, NBC News, Rolling Stone, and on the My First Million podcast. I’ve also been invited to chat about my startup journey by Business Insider, Amazon, Big Think, and the NeuralZen Venture podcast.
Prior to starting my company, I worked at 2 early-stage Y Combinator-backed startups, was a software engineer at Microsoft, and an AI researcher at the University of Michigan.
Hobbies
I aim to balance work and health by running, lifting, and cooking. When time allows, I also enjoy pushing my physical limits and mental willpower with activities like mountaineering and doing an Ironman triathlon.
I've climbed over a dozen mountains. Here are a few notable experiences:Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,341 ft / 5,895 m)
In January 2025, I organized 3 friends to climb the tallest mountain in Africa. It took us 5 days to summit and 2 days to descend. One of us was unable to summit due to altitude sickness. At that extreme altitude, you only have 50% of the oxygen available at sea level. Due to getting severe food poisoning early on in the climb, this was the most suffering I've ever had to endure (even more than during my Ironman).
Mt. Whitney (14,505 ft / 4,421 m)
In 2019, I organized 3 friends to climb the tallest mountain in the contiguous US. We started the climb at 2 am, and it took us 17 hours to summit and descend. People usually split this climb into two days. We ran out of water near the summit, so one of us had to drink piss to survive (we filtered it).
Mt. Fuji (12,389 ft / 3,776 m)
In 2015, I organized 3 friends to "bullet climb" the tallest mountain in Japan, which means to summit and descend in a single push without staying overnight on the mountain. It took us 14 hours total. It’s now forbidden to bullet climb Mt. Fuji because too many people have been injured from attempting it. My friends stopped hiking after this experience because of how challenging it was.
I've wanted to climb the Seven Summits (the highest mountain on each continent, including Mt. Everest) ever since I was a kid. I’ve conquered one so far and have six more to go.
In 2021, I trained for and finished an Ironman–a race consisting of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile marathon, all done back-to-back. It took me 15 hours to finish and it was hardest physical thing I've ever done.
I've also trained to do a muscle-up, land a standing backflip, and bench press 2 plates (225 lbs / 102 kg).
Fun facts
- I was born in the San Francisco Bay Area but didn’t grow up there. I moved back 4 years ago and am proud to call it my home.
- Growing up, I lived in 3 countries and changed schools 7 times.
- In high school, I voluntarily spent a summer being hazed at a military school in Kentucky. I wanted to go for the experience (and it was a great one). It shut down shortly after I left due to safety concern complaints.
- I nearly failed high school with a 1.9 GPA because I was playing League of Legends competitively (I made it to the top 2% of players globally). I was also busy competing on 6 sports teams–4 varsity and 2 JV.
- I've visited 25 countries and 6 continents.
- I have a cameo in Bryan Johnson's new Netflix documentary called Don't Die.
If you’d like to chat, you can reach me at my first name at my company url. You can also find me on X (Twitter) and LinkedIn, where I'm somewhat active.
Thanks for reading,
Wesley Tian
Last updated: 02-10-2025