Aarav Chouhan on Head of Ops at Moonshot (YC S26), Proactive Personal AI & Radical Focus
Head of Operations at Moonshot (YC S26) & Co-Founder of Tremora Health. From unpaid intern to Head of Ops at 16, balancing junior year with San Francisco, building proactive personal AI around the person, and cutting the fluff for high-ROI impact.
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What you learn in these 8 minutes
- ✓Unpaid Intern to Head of Ops in Months: Reached out to Moonshot founders during their first week in YC, took radical ownership of operations, and earned rapid promotion to Head of Operations & Chief of Staff at 16.
- ✓Personal AI Around You, Not Your Work: While the industry focuses on productivity hacks, Moonshot builds personal AI brains modeled around human relationships, emotions, and life rhythms.
- ✓Wearable Health Tech to Hardware Pivot: Applied research from Tremora Health (wearables for tremor disorders) directly to Moonshot's hardware device transition.
- ✓Ruthless High-School Prioritization: Juggling junior year SAT prep, 5 AP classes, and bi-coastal flights between North Carolina and SF by cutting zero-ROI distractions.
- ✓Rejecting Fluff Extracurriculars: Calling out the 99% of high schoolers padding resumes with hollow initiatives—real scale and compounding only happen when you are genuinely obsessed.
- ✓Ryla Labs & Built Young Spotlight: Capping off with Daniel Dano's software studio—shipping fast, building real tools, and proving age is never a barrier.
"We build our brain around you as a person rather than the context from all your work and what you do."
— Aarav Chouhan, Head of Operations, Moonshot (YC S26) · Co-Founder, Tremora Health · 16 y/o
"I was taking a lot more responsibility and owning certain parts of the company... I slowly got promoted all the way to Head of Operations and Chief of Staff."
— Aarav Chouhan, Head of Operations, Moonshot (YC S26) · Co-Founder, Tremora Health · 16 y/o
"You need to be working on things that produce the highest ROI and output rather than wasting your time on small things that produce minimal impact."
— Aarav Chouhan, Head of Operations, Moonshot (YC S26) · Co-Founder, Tremora Health · 16 y/o
"If you want to start an activity and scale, you have to do something that you actually like. Real growth doesn't happen for college applications."
— Aarav Chouhan, Head of Operations, Moonshot (YC S26) · Co-Founder, Tremora Health · 16 y/o
Aarav Chouhan
Head of Operations, Moonshot (YC S26) · Co-Founder, Tremora Health · 16 y/o
Aarav Chouhan is the 16-year-old Head of Operations and Chief of Staff at Moonshot (Y Combinator S26), building proactive personal AI agents designed to bring AI companions to a billion people. Reaching out during Moonshot's first week in YC, Aarav joined as an unpaid intern and rapidly proved his value to earn promotion to Head of Operations. Previously co-founder of Tremora Health (wearable tech for tremor diseases), Aarav has conducted quantum and nonlinear photonics research at Columbia Engineering and economics research at UNC.
Every product starts as an idea and leaves as something real.
· Hosted by Daniel DanoEight minutes. One interesting person. No fluff.
Eight Minute Episodes is a high-signal LinkedIn interview show hosted by Daniel Dano — American teenage software developer, founder of Ryla Labs, and author of Built Young. We invite founders, builders, and young innovators for frictionless 15-minute recording sessions with zero prep fluff.
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Got questions? I've got answers
A few things people usually ask me first.
Mostly web apps, small tools and mobile products — through Ryla Labs. I'm happiest on projects where I can own the build end to end.
School comes first. I build in the evenings and on weekends, and I plan projects in scopes that fit around classes and leadership commitments.
My first book, Built Young, is out now on Amazon in Kindle, Hardcover, and Paperback editions — it's a playbook for student founders drawn from two years building and shipping software as a teenager. I also write shorter essays on the blog.
Yes — send me a note through the contact section and tell me what you're building.