Thomas Lee Young doesn’t sound like your typical Silicon Valley founder.
The 24-year-old CEO of Interface, a San Francisco startup using AI to prevent industrial accidents, is a white guy with a Caribbean accent and a Chinese last name—an interesting mix that he finds amusing enough to mention when meeting new business contacts. Young was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, a place known for its oil and gas exploration, and he grew up surrounded by oil rigs and energy infrastructure, thanks to a family history of engineering that goes back to his great-grandfather, who immigrated from China.
This background has become a key asset in his pitch meetings with oil and gas executives, but it’s more than just a great conversation starter; it highlights a path that has been anything but straightforward and arguably gives Interface a unique advantage.
From age 11, Young was fixated on Caltech, driven by a fascination for Silicon Valley. He was captivated by the idea of building “anything and everything” in America. He went all in to secure admission, even writing his application essay about hijacking his family’s Roomba to create 3D maps of his house.
His efforts paid off when Caltech accepted him in 2020. But then COVID-19 struck, throwing everything into chaos. His visa situation became nearly impossible due to canceled appointments and halted processing. Simultaneously, his carefully saved college fund of $350,000, built over six years, took a significant hit during the market downturn in March.
Facing a tight timeline to decide his future, he chose a more affordable three-year engineering program at the University of Bristol in the UK, focusing on mechanical engineering, all while holding onto his Silicon Valley dreams. “I was devastated,” he recalls, “but I realized I could still get something done.”
At Bristol, Young landed an internship at Jaguar Land Rover, working in human factors engineering—essentially focusing on UX and safety design for industrial systems. “I had never heard of it before I joined,” he admits. His role involved ensuring that cars and manufacturing lines were as safe as possible, making them “dummy-proof” for smooth operations.
It was there, entrenched in heavy industry, that Young recognized a significant problem that would become the foundation for Interface. He observed that many companies relied on outdated safety documentation systems, and the operating procedures—manuals and checklists crucial for worker safety—were often riddled with errors and nightmare maintenance issues.
Young proposed a solution to Jaguar, but they weren’t interested. So, he began plotting his exit. When he discovered Entrepreneur First (EF), a European talent incubator that seeks out individuals before they have a co-founder or idea, he cold-applied despite its daunting 1% acceptance rate. He managed to get in to pitch himself.
He told Jaguar he was off to a wedding in Trinidad for a week. Instead, he participated in EF’s selection process, impressed the organizers, and quit the day he returned to work. “They realized, ‘Oh, so you probably weren’t at a wedding,’” he laughs.
At EF, Young met Aaryan Mehta, his future co-founder and CTO. Mehta, of Indian descent but born in Belgium, also faced challenges in pursuing his American dream. He had been accepted to both Georgia Tech and Penn but struggled to get a visa appointment during COVID. Eventually, he studied math and computer science at Imperial College London, developing AI for fault detection before moving to machine learning pipelines at Amazon.
Today, they even live together in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood. When asked if spending so much time together creates issues, Young insists it’s not a problem considering their workloads. “Over the last week, I’ve seen [Aaryan] at home for maybe a combined total of 30 minutes.”
As for what they’re building, Interface’s mission is clear: use AI to enhance safety in heavy industry. The company autonomously audits operating procedures using large language models, cross-checking against regulations, technical drawings, and corporate policies to detect errors that could potentially jeopardize worker safety.
Some numbers are staggering. For one of Canada’s biggest energy companies, where Interface is currently deployed across three locations (though Young won’t name it), their software uncovered 10,800 errors and areas for improvement in standard operating procedures within just two and a half months. Young points out that the same work, done manually, would have cost over $35 million and taken two to three years.
One particularly concerning error Young found was a document that had been in circulation for ten years, indicating the wrong pressure range for a valve. “They’re just lucky that nothing happened,” says Medha Agarwal, a partner at Defy.vc, which led Interface’s $3.5 million seed round earlier this year, with contributions from Precursor, Rockyard Ventures, and angel investors like Charlie Songhurst.
The contracts are substantial. After experimenting with outcome-based pricing (the energy company “hated it,” Young explains), Interface adopted a hybrid per-seat model, which includes overage costs. A single contract with the Canadian energy company now amounts to more than $2.5 million annually, with additional fuel and oil services clients coming on board in Houston, Guyana, and Brazil.
The total addressable market isn’t precisely defined, but it’s vast. In the U.S. alone, there are approximately 27,000 oil and gas service companies, according to market research firm IBISWorld, and that’s just the first vertical Interface intends to tackle.
The outsider’s edge
Interestingly, Young’s youth and diverse background—attributes that could be perceived as disadvantages in more traditional industries—have become his secret weapons. Upon entering a room filled with executives often twice or three times his age, he sometimes faces initial skepticism. “Who the hell is this young guy and how does he know what he’s talking about?”
But then he delivers his “wow moment,” showcasing his understanding of their operations, their workers’ daily routines, and precisely how much time and money Interface can save them. “Once you flip them, they absolutely love you and advocate for you,” he notes. He recalls a recent first site visit where five workers asked when they could invest in Interface, which he found particularly rewarding given that field workers often “hate software providers.”
While Young works from Interface’s office in San Francisco’s Financial District, his hard hat sits on a nearby table, ready for the next site visit. Agarwal suggests Young could use a little more downtime, recalling a call where he mentioned not having seen the sun all day.
Currently, the company has eight employees—five in the office and three remote—largely consisting of engineering hires along with a new operations person. Interface’s biggest challenge is hiring quickly enough to keep pace with demand, necessitating a reliance on networks across Europe and the U.S.
Reflecting on his life in San Francisco, which he once yearned for, Young is amazed at how true the Silicon Valley stereotypes turned out to be. “You see people online saying, ‘Oh, you go to a park and the person sitting next to you has raised $50 million building some insane AI agent.’ But it is actually like that,” he says. “I think back to my life in Trinidad. When I mention ideas to people back home, they just don’t believe me.”
He occasionally makes time to enjoy nature with friends—he recently went to Tahoe—and Interface hosts events like a hackathon they organized last weekend. But for the most part, it’s all work, with most of it revolving around AI, just like many other companies in San Francisco right now.
This makes trips to oil rigs strangely enticing.
The hard hat at the office isn’t merely a practical necessity; according to Young, it’s also a recruiting advantage. For engineers tired of crafting “some low-impact B2B sales or recruiting tool,” as Young puts it, the chance to escape the Bay Area bubble to work on-site with operators has become a major draw. He notes that fewer than 1% of San Francisco startups focus on heavy industry, contributing to the appeal for him and potential hires.
It might not fully align with the Silicon Valley dream he envisioned while growing up in Trinidad—long hours, high pressure, endless AI discussions, punctuated by the occasional trip to an oil rig.
Yet for now, he doesn’t seem to mind. “Over the last month or two, I haven’t done much outside the office because it’s been so intense here, with building, hiring, and selling.” But he adds, “I feel pretty strong.”
