🧑‍💻

Jacob Lu v7.2.0

Someone who enjoy coding. Co-founder of a $2B+ AI company. Canadian. Absurdly humble about it.

#1 Product of All Time 🍁 Made in Canada Artificial Intelligence Developer Tools Text-to-Image SaaS Waterloo Grad
#1 Product of the Day
#1 Product of the Week
#1 Product of Forever
7+
Companies Built At
$96.5M
Funding Raised
∞
Images Generated
1
LinkedIn Grammar Error
Key Features
🧠

Full-Stack Brain

Runs on Scotiabank → Amazon → startup → unicorn architecture. Zero downtime.

🎓

Waterloo-Certified

Forged in the co-op mines of UWaterloo. Survived PD courses. Has the scars to prove it.

🚀

Startup Engine

Head of Engineering at Bloom, then said "what if I just… founded an AI company instead?"

✍️

Text-in-Image Pioneer

Co-built the AI that finally spells words correctly in generated images. Nobel Peace Prize pending.

🍁

Canadian Module

Ships with built-in politeness, winter resistance, and an automatic "sorry" on every error message.

📐

Humble.exe

LinkedIn bio: "Someone who enjoy coding." Co-founded a $2B company. The understatement engine runs deep.

About This Product

The Jacob Lu Story

In a world where every engineer's LinkedIn reads like a Marvel origin story, Jacob Lu wrote "Someone who enjoy coding" and left it at that. The absolute audacity.

After speed-running the entire Canadian tech career ladder — from Scotiabank (the tutorial level) through Amazon (the grind), to becoming Head of Engineering at Bloom (the warmup boss) — Jacob decided the only reasonable next step was to co-found an AI company that raised $96.5M and built the world's best text-to-image model.

Ideogram launched in August 2023 alongside co-founders Mohammad Norouzi, William Chan, Chitwan Saharia, and Jonathan Ho — all ex-Google Brain researchers. While they brought the deep learning PhDs, Jacob brought the engineering backbone that turns research papers into products that don't crash at 2 AM.

The result? An AI that can actually spell words in images — something that Midjourney, DALL-E, and every other model had failed at spectacularly. Ideogram didn't just enter the AI image generation race. It showed up, rendered "FIRST PLACE" as a trophy banner, and the text was actually legible.

Tech Stack
🏫
Operating System
University of Waterloo (BCS)
🏦
Early Runtime
Scotiabank • KBD Group • LiveApp
🛍️
E-Commerce Module
Faire (wholesale marketplace)
🏥
Healthcare Patch
PointClickCare (senior care tech)
📦
Cloud Infrastructure
Amazon Canada (AWS-powered XP gain)
🌸
Leadership Kernel
Bloom — Head of Engineering
🎨
Current Build
Ideogram AI — Co-Founder
🔤
Killer Feature
Text that doesn't look like a stroke
Performance Benchmarks
Full-Stack Engineering97%
Company Building94%
AI / Machine Learning92%
Resume Speedrun99%
Humility100%
LinkedIn Grammar23%
Changelog
v1.0.0
feat Initial release. Deployed to University of Waterloo. Core modules: Computer Science, survival instincts, co-op interview stamina. Known issue: sleep module permanently disabled.
v2.0.0
feat Enterprise deployment at Scotiabank. Added: corporate Java, enterprise meeting tolerance, free coffee dependency. Deprecated: student meal plan.
v3.0.0
feat Startup modules installed at KBD Group and LiveApp. New feature: wearing multiple hats simultaneously. Bug fix: learned to say "no" to scope creep (reverted in v3.0.1).
v4.0.0
feat Marketplace experience at Faire. Learned: scaling systems for wholesale, B2B commerce patterns, how to make a marketplace that doesn't immediately collapse.
v4.5.0
fix Healthcare patch at PointClickCare. Added: empathy module, senior care domain expertise. Hotfix: realized tech that helps people > tech that optimizes ad clicks.
v5.0.0
feat FAANG-tier upgrade at Amazon Canada. Installed: AWS expertise, system design at scale, ability to diagram anything on a whiteboard. Side effect: starts every sentence with "at Amazon, we..."
v6.0.0
break Leadership breakthrough. Head of Engineering at Bloom. Breaking change: went from writing code to managing people who write code. Migration was painful. Added: hiring intuition, architecture vision, "let me think about that" response handler.
v7.0.0
break MAJOR RELEASE. Co-founded Ideogram AI with ex-Google Brain researchers. Raised $16.5M seed from a16z and Index Ventures. Shipped text-to-image model that actually spells correctly. Users: 500K+ in first month. LinkedIn bio unchanged.
v7.1.0
feat Series A: raised $80M (Feb 2024). Launched Ideogram 1.0, then 2.0, then 2a. Bloomberg, Globe and Mail, VentureBeat all writing about it. Still "someone who enjoy coding."
v7.2.0
feat Ideogram 3.0 shipped (March 2025). State-of-the-art realism. Complex text layouts. Competing with Midjourney, DALL-E 3, and Stable Diffusion. Estimated company valuation: 🤫. LinkedIn bio: still unchanged.
Reviews (5.0 ★)
🏦
Scotiabank Engineering
Former Employer • Banking
★★★★★
Solid early-career unit. Integrated well with legacy systems. Only concern: kept muttering about "building something bigger." We assumed he meant a bigger spreadsheet. We were wrong.
📦
Amazon Canada
Former Employer • FAANG
★★★★★
Exceeded all leadership principles. Strong ownership mentality. Only flag: during his exit interview, he said he was leaving to "work on images with some friends." We thought he meant a photo album app. Narrator: it was not a photo album app.
🌸
Bloom
Former Employer • Head of Engineering
★★★★★
As Head of Engineering, Jacob built our technical foundation and hired great people. We're not bitter that he left to start an AI unicorn. We're fine. Everything is fine. 🔥
🔤
The Letter "R" in AI-Generated Images
Beneficiary • Typography
★★★★★
Before Ideogram, I was constantly rendered as "Я" or "ꟼ" or just a squiggle that vaguely resembled a lowercase "n." Jacob and his team gave me my dignity back. I can finally appear on AI-generated billboards without a translator. Thank you, Jacob. From the bottom of my serif.
🧬
a16z (Andreessen Horowitz)
Lead Investor • Seed Round
★★★★★
We've backed a lot of founders. Most of them update their LinkedIn to "CEO" within 48 hours of incorporation. Jacob's still says "Someone who enjoy coding." Instant conviction. We wrote the check.
Maker
🧑‍💻

Jacob Lu @jacoblu • Co-Founder, Ideogram AI

Toronto, Canada • University of Waterloo • "Someone who enjoy coding"

"I'm launching Ideogram with my friends."

— Jacob's LinkedIn post announcing the launch of a company backed by the most prestigious VC firms in Silicon Valley, built by ex-Google Brain researchers who literally wrote the papers that modern AI image generation is built on. Just "launching with friends." Like it's a weekend hackathon project. Like it's a lemonade stand. Absolute king energy.
Discussion (47 comments)
🎨
MidjourneyFan2024 3h ago
Ok but can he render text that says "Midjourney is better"?
▲ 12Reply
🔤
IdeogramBot 3h ago
Yes. Spelled correctly and everything. Can Midjourney? 🤔
▲ 847Reply
🎓
UWaterlooAlumni 5h ago
Another Waterloo grad building a unicorn. Can we please update the curriculum to include "how to not become a founder"? Some of us just want normal jobs.
▲ 203Reply
📝
LinkedInGrammarPolice 8h ago
Incredible product. One bug report though: the tagline reads "Someone who enjoy coding" — should be "enjoys." Awaiting patch in v7.3.0.
▲ 1,432Reply
🧑‍💻
Jacob Lu 8h ago
Won't fix. It's a feature, not a bug.
▲ 4,219Reply
💰
VCAnonymous 12h ago
We passed on the seed round. I now cry in the shower every morning. Great product though. 5 stars.
▲ 89Reply
🏦
ScotiabankRecruiter 1d ago
We had him. WE HAD HIM. He was right there. Writing Java. In our office. And we let him go. I need a moment.
▲ 67Reply