Travers Nisbet

San Francisco.

Day jobs

I'm building Parallel. The web is the most important source of information humanity has, and AI is now its second user. We're building for that second user: new infrastructure, new interfaces, new incentives.

I started my career at McKinsey in San Francisco: payments, growth strategy for marketplace tech, and research at the McKinsey Global Institute (including reports on the Bio Revolution and on AI safety). Later I joined Chime, where I led strategy for our bank partnerships, ran our savings product, and evaluated whether Chime should become a licensed bank.

Earlier still: interning at SeatGeek as a teenager, working at a no-code startup that didn't make it.

I'm also a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, where I think and write about progress.

Side tinkerings

I've always had a habit of projects:

More recently I've been working on The Paradox of Progress, a personal research project that may always be a work in progress. "The Leaning Tower of Progress" ran in The Hedgehog Review; "The Compression Paradox" and the essays on the web's second user followed. Everything else is on the writing page.

A few things I believe

Reach me

traversnisbet@gmail.com | @travers00