Chris Lattner
Born 1978 · Age 47
American software engineer; creator of LLVM, Clang, Swift, MLIR; longtime Apple compiler lead; later roles at Tesla, Google, SiFive; co-founder & CEO of Modular AI.
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Life & Career Timeline
Began programming in high school
Started programming in high school, first in BASIC; later learned Pascal, Assembly, C, and C++.
Started undergraduate studies at University of Portland
Began BS in Computer Science at University of Portland (Fall 1996).
Operating system developer at Sequent Computer Systems (during undergraduate)
Worked enhancing Sequent's DYNIX/ptx while studying in Oregon.
Received BS in Computer Science
Graduated from University of Portland with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science.
Joined UIUC as research assistant and M.S. student
Joined University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) as a research assistant and M.S. student working with Vikram Adve.
Completed M.S. thesis on LLVM (MS degree)
Designed and began implementing LLVM; submitted Master of Science thesis 'LLVM: An Infrastructure for Multi-Stage Optimization'.
MICRO-36 publication: LLVA paper
Published 'LLVA: A Low-level Virtual Instruction Set Architecture' at MICRO-36 (2003).
First open-source release of LLVM
LLVM first released as an open source project (October 2003).
CGO 2004 paper on LLVM
Published 'LLVM: An Aggressive Compilation Framework for Life-Long Program Analysis and Transformation' (CGO 2004).
Completed PhD (UIUC)
Received PhD in Computer Science; thesis 'Macroscopic Data Structure Analysis and Optimization'.
Hired by Apple to productionize LLVM
Apple hires Lattner (June/July 2005) to bring LLVM to production quality for use in Apple products.
Promoted: LLVM Compiler Group Manager at Apple
Became Manager of Apple's LLVM Compiler Group, expanding LLVM usage across Apple.
Apple ships LLVM-based components in OS X and Xcode
Apple shipped LLVM-based tech in Mac OS X and Xcode (llvm-gcc in Xcode 3.x); LLVM adoption grows inside Apple.
Spoke at O'Reilly OSCON on LLVM (and other 2007/2008 talks)
Delivered public talks (e.g., O'Reilly OSCON 2007, BSDCan 2008) evangelizing LLVM and Clang.
Promoted: Manager of Compilers and Low-Level Tools
Second-level manager running teams responsible for Clang, LLVM, GCC and other toolchain components.
Promoted: Senior Manager and Compiler Architect
Led teams shipping Clang 1.0/2.0, LLDB work, and deeper Clang/Xcode integration (Xcode 4 preview).
ACM SIGPLAN Programming Languages Software Award
Received inaugural ACM SIGPLAN Programming Languages Software Award for design and development of LLVM.
Began developing Swift
Started developing the Swift programming language (July 2010) inside Apple.
Published influential essay on Undefined Behavior in C
Wrote 'What Every C Programmer Should Know About Undefined Behavior' (May 2011) influencing language design.
Promoted: Director and Architect, Low-Level Tools (Apple)
Became Director and Architect for Low-Level Tools at Apple (Sept 2011 - Jan 2013).
Promoted: Senior Director & Architect, Developer Tools Department (Apple)
Took over leadership of Apple's Developer Tools (~200 people), including Xcode, Instruments, compilers (Jan 2013).
ACM Software System Award (LLVM)
ACM awarded LLVM the Software System Award (2013) recognizing lasting influence of the system.
Wired feature on LLVM
Wired magazine ran a lengthy article discussing LLVM's importance (July 2013).
Test of Time award for CGO 2004 paper
Received Test of Time Award (2014) for the influential CGO 2004 LLVM paper.
Swift announced at WWDC and first Swift app shipped
Swift introduced at Apple's WWDC 2014 and the WWDC app became the first publicly released app that used Swift (June 2, 2014).
Swift open-sourced
Swift became open source (December 2015; Lattner heavily involved).
Co-founded the LLVM Foundation (with Tanya Lattner)
Amended and restated articles of incorporation for the LLVM Foundation filed; Tanya Lattner serves as president and COO.
Recognized by Wired as one of 25 Geniuses shaping business' future
Named as one of Wired's '25 Geniuses who are creating the future of business' (2016).
Announced transition of Swift project lead and departure from Apple
Announced that Ted Kremenek would take over Swift project lead; Lattner would leave Apple in January 2017.
Joined Tesla as VP of Autopilot Software
Became VP of Autopilot Software at Tesla, leading Autopilot software during a hardware transition (Jan 30, 2017).
Left Tesla (end of Autopilot VP stint)
Departed Tesla after a ~5-month tenure (June 20, 2017).
Joined Google as Senior Director & Distinguished Engineer (TensorFlow)
Joined Google (August 2017) to lead TensorFlow Infrastructure & Technologies, including MLIR work, TPUs, and runtimes.
MLIR whitepaper and project genesis
MLIR concept/whitepaper and project initiated (April 2018) to address compiler infrastructure for heterogeneous ML hardware.
MLIR primer and ongoing MLIR publications
Published MLIR primer and specification work; MLIR adoption grows across industry (2018-2019).
Joined SiFive as President, Platform Engineering
Became President of Platform Engineering at SiFive (Jan 2020), leading RISC-V product & engineering (excluding HR, finance, sales, support).
Left Google (end of TensorFlow role)
Departed Google in January 2020 after leading TensorFlow infrastructure efforts (Aug 2017–Jan 2020).
SiFive valuation at Series E (~$500M) (company context)
SiFive valuation around ~$500M at Series E in 2021 (resume context: prior to 2022 increase).
Keynote: CIRCT and MLIR for hardware design (LLVM Devs Meeting keynote)
Delivered CIRCT keynote applying MLIR to hardware design (Nov 17, 2021).
SiFive valuation increases to ~$2.5B (Series F) while Lattner leads product engineering
Under the reorganization and product focus, SiFive valuation grew from ~$500M (2021) to ~$2.5B in 2022 (resume indicates ~5x increase).
Co-founded Modular AI (Modular) and became CEO
In January 2022, Chris Lattner and co-founders (including Tim Davis) launched Modular AI to rebuild ML infrastructure; Lattner is CEO.
Modular emerges from stealth and launches product keynote
Modular AI unveiled its AI engine, cloud solutions, hardware approach, and Mojo programming language in a product launch keynote (May 2, 2023).
Modular Mojo language public coverage
Modular revealed Mojo as a Python-family, CUDA-alternative language for AI; received press coverage and technical writeups (June 2023 onward).
Modular raises $100M (reported)
Public interviews/podcasts in Sept 2023 state Modular raised $100M to advance AI infrastructure (date inferred from podcast topics).
Panel at TechCrunch Disrupt and ongoing public engagement
Spoke on entrepreneurial journey and AI language/engine building at major conferences (e.g., TechCrunch Disrupt Oct 2, 2023; ongoing in 2024).
Panel Discussion: MLIR production readiness
Participated in 2024 LLVM Developers' Meeting panel 'Is MLIR feature complete? Production ready?' (Oct 24, 2024).
Continued leadership at Modular and new writing series
Ongoing CEO role; started 'Democratizing AI Compute' blog series (Feb 2025 noted in résumé update).
Public talks and deep dives on Mojo and MAX platform
Multiple technical talks and podcasts in 2024–2025 deep-diving into Mojo, MAX inference engine, and Modular's hardware/software approach (e.g., 2025 AMD Advancing AI, Latent Space podcast, etc.).
AMD Advancing AI 2025 Luminary Talk (Mojo + AMD)
Gave a Luminary Talk on high performance GPU programming and Mojo (June 12, 2025).
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