Noah Shinn, a 23-year-old college dropout, founded Instinct, an AI assistant that raised $250 million at a $2.5 billion valuation and went viral among Silicon Valley insiders. Shinn published influential AI research as an undergraduate at Northeastern University, including a foundational paper on AI agents called Reflexion presented at NeurIPS. His startup now competes directly with Meta in the emerging market for AI assistants that can perform real-world tasks like booking hotels and scheduling meetings.