Making technology
disappear, so humans
can reappear.

the_work.cpp 
struct Alex
{
  int years_worked = 30;
  void the_work()
  {
    while (alive() &&
           layer.between(humans, machines))
    {
      remove(layer);
      years_worked++;
    }
  }
};
Current role
Founder & CEO
Analog · 2024 → Present
Previously
Corporate Vice President,
Technical Fellow
Microsoft · 2001 to 2022
Invented
MsBuild, Kinect, HoloLens, A.n.A
Credits to the teams that shipped them
The long arc
02 / Work & Timeline

Thirty years removing the layer between humans and machines.

Jan 2024, now
Analog. From digital intelligence
to world intelligence.
Abu DhabiPhysical IntelligenceA.n.A.Frontier World Model

Digital Intelligence is built on history. Text written after the fact. A world already gone.

Physical Intelligence is grounded in the measurement of reality as it actually exists. Ana is our neural agent, a native citizen of the physical world. Analog's Frontier World Model is the living substrate she inhabits, a continuously updated understanding of people, places, things, and creatures as they are.

When done correctly, the layers between humans and machine disappear entirely.

2010 to 2022
HoloLens wasn't a feature.
It was a new layer of reality.
SeattleHoloLens 1 & 2Spatial ComputingMetaverse
Started in 2010, right after Kinect shipped. HoloLens helped define the modern mixed reality category. HoloLens 2 arrived in 2019. Lighter, sharper, more alive. For the first time, holograms felt less like a trick and more like a fact. Surgeons used it. Architects walked through buildings that did not yet exist. The world started to understand that reality had always been editable. Every headset that followed was chasing something HoloLens had already proven.
2008 to 2010
Kinect. The project that
made the controller disappear.
Founded the projectKey inventorGuinness record
Kinect began as a project I started. I set the technical direction and was the key inventor behind the thesis that a depth camera, not a gamepad, is how a body should talk to a computer. As Director of Incubation for Xbox, I started and led the work until we made it real. It shipped in 2010 and became the fastest selling consumer electronics device in history: eight million units in sixty days, twenty four million in year one. Shipping it belonged to a team of hundreds.
2001 to 2008
MSBuild. Microsoft, early years
and the road to Vista.
MSBuild.NETWindows Vista
Joined Microsoft in June 2001. The first real invention was MSBuild, the build engine inside .NET. It still builds most of the Windows ecosystem today. MSBuild is what led me to Windows. Vista is where the real cost of shipping first became clear.
1996 to 2001
SW Engineering. Atari kid from Curitiba,
a diploma from RIT.
BrasilSoftware EngineeringRIT 2001
An Atari kid from Curitiba, Brasil, born 1977. First contact with computing at age six, on a family Atari 2600. Teenage years between Rome and US; a BS in Software Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2001.
Breakthroughs
03 / Made

Four breakthroughs. One obsession.

01 · 2010 · Microsoft
Kinect
You are the controller.

A depth camera that turns the body into the controller. I started the project and set its technical direction. The team made it real. The fastest selling consumer electronics device in history.

8Munits / 60 days
24Mliving rooms with depth cameras
1sttime the body was the controller
02 · 2015 / 2019 · Microsoft
HoloLens 1 & 2
Transform your world with holograms.

The first untethered holographic computer. No PC, no phone, no wires. The room itself became the display. HoloLens defined mixed reality as its own category, distinct from VR and AR, and gave the industry the vocabulary it still uses. HoloLens 2 (2019) added eye tracking, articulated hands, and a laser display that made holograms feel less like graphics and more like presence.

1stuntethered holographic computer
2016year mixed reality shipped
6 yrsbefore “spatial computing”
03 · 2024 · Analog
A.n.A. Analog's Neural Agent
Create a future without limits.

She was never meant to be simply an assistant. She was destined to become a living portal, connecting imagination with reality, bridging the digital and physical worlds, and reminding us that true intelligence is not artificial but analog, Alive and continuous.

AnAa palindrome ·
"I" in Arabic
A.n.A.Analog's
Neural Agent
Memory Keeperguide
co-adventurer
04 · 2026 · Analog
The Analog World Model
The physical world, reimagined with intelligence.

The first frontier model built from sensors, not pixels. Where today's AI is trained on history written down after the fact, the Analog World Model is grounded in the measurement of reality as it exists right now. A continuous, living representation of people, places, things, and creatures.

1stfrontier model built from sensors
Real timemeasured as it happens
Realitymade computable, for the first time
The Golden Circle
04 / First principles

Why before how.
How before what.

The core is Inspiration. The conviction that technology exists to empower people, not the other way around.

Around it: six values that shape how I work. Outside them: the what, the products I create for the world.

Field notes
01 / 50
“Calm isn't silence.
Calm is a skill.
We build through noise.
We keep our poise.”
“The world doesn't need
another screen to look at.
It needs intelligence that
looks back.”
Field notes · 2025
A few things on the shelf
05 / Recognition

A few things on the shelf.

2011
TIME 100

100 Most Influential People in the World.

2011
Hall of Legends

Microsoft, inducted for the Kinect breakthrough.

2012
National Inventor of the Year

Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation.

2012
Outstanding Technical Leadership

Microsoft, with matching charitable grants.

2015
RIT Innovation Hall of Fame

Alma mater honor for Kinect & HoloLens.

2019
American Ingenuity Award

Smithsonian. Pioneer of holographic reality.

2021
Longuet-Higgins Prize

CVPR / PAMI. Foundational computer vision work.

150+ Patents

Primary inventor, across depth sensing, optics & ML.

Notes, talks & long reads
06 / Writing

Notes, talks and long reads.

01 · Talk · 2016 · TED
A futuristic vision of the age of holograms.

An imagined future where digital content steps off the screen and into the room. Where you don't go to technology. Technology comes to you, exactly where you stand.

Watch on TED →
02 · Keynote · 2019 · YouTube
HoloLens 2 launch.

The reveal in Barcelona. Carbon fiber, vibrating mirrors, an instrument that finally fits the human face. Mixed reality, no longer a promise. A product.

Watch on YouTube →
03 · Lecture · 2019 · ETH Zürich
HoloLens 2, unpacked. An ETH Global Lecture.

An hour with the engineers, the optics, the hard tradeoffs. How you build a device that respects the eye. Why the smallest decisions matter most.

Watch on ETH Video →
04 · Keynote · 2021 · YouTube
Microsoft Mesh, unveiled at Ignite.

Presence, beamed across continents. Delivered as a hologram, by a hologram. A glimpse of meetings without distance, work without rooms, teams without borders.

Watch on YouTube →
05 · Keynote · YouTube
From digital intelligence to world intelligence.

The thesis, on stage. Why the next leap in AI is grounded, embodied and physical. Why machines must learn from the world. Not from a copy of it.

Watch on YouTube →
06 · Essay · 2025 · LinkedIn
World models must be built from sensors, not pixels.

Pixels are a record. Sensors are a presence. The argument for why grounded intelligence will not come from the internet, but from the world itself, sensed in real time.

Read on LinkedIn →
Say hello
07 / Contact

Working on something no one else believes is possible? Let's talk.

Companyanalog.io ↗ LinkedInin/akipman ↗ X@akipman ↗ Instagram@AlexKipman ↗ YouTube@Analog-io ↗
Tweaks
Accent
Background
Dense type