Peter Chatain from Stanford took a job in San Francisco while training

PARIS — Peter Chatain had all the qualifications for the job.

Master’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. Dexterous coding skills. Deep appreciation for the ethics of AI.

Chatain thought he’d be a great fit as a machine learning engineer at Ello, a San Francisco startup that makes an AI-powered reading app that listens and engages kids as they read books aloud. He proved that during an internship in 2022.

There was only one thing the Winnetka resident told his potential employers:

He was hoping to make the U.S. Olympic rowing team in 2024, so he would need some flexibility in his scheduling.

Catalin Moreno Voss, co-founder and CTO of Ello, has heard many interesting stories and comments from job candidates in her career. But someone declaring they intend to be an Olympian was a first.

Conventional wisdom told Voss to let it go. Given the demands of startups, it didn’t make sense—for the company or for Chatain—to hire someone who planned to moonlight as a world-class athlete.

“I think it’s a terrible idea in general,” Voss said. “The general rule of thumb for startups is you shouldn’t have… people working part-time. It’s just so much blood, sweat and tears that you can’t do it.”

Taking on the high-intensity work may have been risky for Chatain, too. Most U.S. Olympic rowers list “athlete” as their sole occupation in their official biographies, suggesting that getting to Paris has been a full-time pursuit in recent years.

But Chatain interned with Ello while working on his master’s degree and showed bosses he could juggle both roles. Voss offered him the position last year based on his past work, gambling on the American rower’s unwavering belief that he could handle the job and still train hard enough to compete in the 2024 Games.

Chatain, 24, proved his professional and athletic goals are achievable earlier this week when the U.S. men’s eight rowed to the Olympic finals. The boat finished first in its race and fastest overall on Monday at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, securing a spot in Saturday’s medal race.

“We basically executed our plan,” Chatain said after the heat. “We’ll just use the time before the finals to make sure we keep pushing and keep improving.”

This is the first Olympics for Chatain, who began rowing at the behest of his parents as a teenager growing up outside Chicago. He joined the New Trier High School rowing team his freshman year, then broke the school record in the 2,000 meters and became captain of the rowing team as a senior.

New Trier rowing, one of the most highly regarded high school programs in the country, has produced two Olympians who went on to represent the U.S. at the Paris Olympics.

Grace Joyce, 26, also made the U.S. Rowing Team in the four-person skull. After failing to qualify for the medal race, Joyce’s team competed in the consolation round Wednesday and finished ninth overall.

After being recruited en masse while still in high school, Chatain chose to compete at Stanford University, where he majored in mathematics and was named the 2021 Pac-12 Rower of the Year. His NCAA rowing successes earned him an Olympic qualification, so after graduation he transferred to the California Rowing Club in Oakland, a facility that helps elite athletes transition from college teams to national programs.

Though he hoped to make the 2024 Olympic team, he knew that even if he did, it would be a temporary position. And Chatain—a former vice president of the Quantum Computing Club at Stanford University—had other passions. He wanted to explore them, too.

In the summer of 2022, Chatain interned at Ello, where building an AI app to help children improve their reading skills complemented his interest in safe and responsible machine learning. He threw himself into work, although he continued to work out in the mornings and evenings. He also continued to get physical therapy for his back, which had been causing him severe pain for almost two years.

“At the time, I prioritized Ello over rowing because I didn’t know if I would continue rowing,” he said. “If I couldn’t get my back fixed, it would mean the end of my rowing career, so I wanted to be prepared for what was coming.”

The back pain eased significantly this summer, allowing Chatain to fully focus on making the Olympic team. But when the position at Ello opened up in September 2023, he reassessed his priorities.

He wanted to be an Olympian, yes. But he also wanted a career in which he used machine learning to help people.

Mike Teti—his coach at the California Rowing Club and the only American men’s coach to win medals in four consecutive Olympics—told him that having both was possible. In fact, Teti thought Chatain would be better off having both events.

“Teti encourages everyone to find something to do while rowing because it helps you become a holistic athlete,” Chatain said. “If you have a bad day rowing or the boat isn’t going well, it will affect your whole mood if it’s the only thing you think about. You need something to help you forget about it.”

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Chatain and Voss made a deal: he could take on a part-time job until the end of the Olympics, with his work schedule accommodating the team’s training and travel.

In his role at Ello, Chatain is responsible for ensuring the app works well on all types of devices. He said it’s crucial that the app is compatible with older phones and tablets so that kids, regardless of their parents’ income, have access to reading resources.

“It’s a job that ticks all my boxes,” Chatain said. “I get to work on an interesting AI problem. I get to do real technical work and have a positive impact. AI has so much potential for good. I’m excited to be in a place where I can do that.”

Before Chatain took time off for the Games, he started his day rowing from 6:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. in Oakland. Then he took a train to San Francisco, spent the day at work, left at 5 p.m. and returned to the rowing club for a weightlifting session and about 80 minutes on the rower.

After training, he would quickly eat dinner and try to fall asleep at 9:00 p.m.

“He operates on a different level in terms of time management,” Voss said. “It’s something I think you get as an incredibly disciplined athlete who has spent his entire life balancing his sport, his studies and his loved ones. That’s his life, and it all depends on the millisecond.”

Chatain, who is due to return to work full-time in August, has been honest with his bosses about how much time his Olympic ambitions will require, but one thing his resume fails to mention is how much he eats.

Elite rowers burn thousands of calories in a single workout, meaning the 6-foot-6 Chatain must constantly refuel to maintain strength and energy. Voss said Chatain uses up his Costco snack stash at the office, eating two cups of pasta each morning and snacking on other items throughout the day.

His coworkers quickly learned to leave extra food on Chatain’s desk because it was certain to be eaten. The office snack bill is a bit higher than the company expected, but Voss said he’s happy to contribute.