Oscar Brisset went from being a consultant at BCG to founding an AI startup at the age of 25. The year before he left, he used his weekends to teach himself programming.
Courtesy of Oscar Brisset
This essay is based on a conversation with Oscar Brisset, 25, a French-Australian founder based in San Francisco. He is co-founder of Remy AI, a warehouse robotics company. Business Insider reviewed his previous employment and funding. This article has been edited for length and clarity.
In 2024, I used 18 of my 25 BCG vacation days to sit at home and teach myself to code. I wanted to gain the skills to one day start my own business.
In November 2025, I quit my job at BCG after founding a robotics startup. Since then, we’ve raised more than $650,000 for Remy AI, which builds AI-powered robots for e-commerce warehouses.
This is how I did it:
I wanted to be a diplomat until I discovered AI
I was a student at Oxford University when GPT-3 came out and I was absolutely thrilled. I knew it would revolutionize the world.
I graduated from Oxford in 2022 and took a gap year because I knew I wanted to eventually start a tech startup. In the meantime, consulting seemed like a good way to get to know other industries.
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In September 2023 I started working at BCG in the private equity team. I was often in the office until midnight, so I didn’t have much time during the week. On the weekends I learned to program by talking to Claude and ChatGPT and asking them not to give me immediate answers but to ask me leading questions.
YouTube also helped me discover new tools and frameworks, and I used a textbook to understand the theory.
I wanted to develop something myself
After about a year and a half at BCG, I moved into a position as an AI engineer. One weekend in May I found myself in a crisis. I barely slept or ate anything and lay in bed trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.
This summer my co-founder Ben Kaye and I came up with the idea for Remy AI.
While most existing warehouse robots need to be pre-programmed for each object they grab, with Remy AI we have developed a model that allows them to adapt to changing conditions on the fly. We bring AI to the physical world, focusing on warehouses and logistics.
Courtesy of Oscar Brisset
Starting in July, I shifted my focus from learning to code to sales and spent my weekends connecting with people on LinkedIn.
In October we flew to San Francisco to raise funds. I networked like crazy, pitched our project to a bunch of investors, and applied to YC.
We received a call inviting us to participate in the 2026 Winter Batch. YC invests $500,000 in each startup, and we had also raised funding from other investors, which meant I could focus on building the company.
Since our startup was doing well, I decided to quit my job at BCG in November.
My main advice to others with a similar background to mine is to not be afraid to teach yourself technical skills.
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Many people hear “software development” or “programming” and assume it’s not for them or that it’s too difficult, but with the introduction of LLMs and tools like Claude, a lot has changed. LLMs can teach you a lot and get you to a pretty good level quickly. You just have to be willing to throw yourself into the deep end.
