About Paul
Builder, Educator, and Bestselling author.
Architect of the AI-Driven Enterprise
Paul Cheek is a Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan, a serial software entrepreneur, and a bestselling author. He has taught MIT's historic New Enterprises course, pushes the boundaries on autonomous organization development, and advises some of the world's most respected organizations on how to win the AI decade.
Paul not only has 37 AI agents running his life — you can also put in front of your board with confidence. He's the person who knows how businesses are built and what incumbents need to do to avoid obsolescence in the AI era.
Bios
Approved press bios.
Short
Paul Cheek is a global expert on AI-driven enterprises and enterprise innovation. He is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Senior Advisor for Entrepreneurship & Artificial Intelligence at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. As founder of the AI-Driven Enterprise Institute and Entonomy, he develops data systems and software that power AI agent-run businesses. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, bestselling author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics, and recipient of MIT's Monosson Prize for impact on entrepreneurship education, Paul has advised and built ventures from seed to scale, with his work featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Forbes.
Long
Paul Cheek, a global expert on AI-driven enterprises and enterprise innovation, is changing the way that organizations start and scale in the AI era. He is a Senior Lecturer of Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the MIT Sloan School of Management and Senior Advisor for Entrepreneurship & Artificial Intelligence at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.
Paul is the founder of the AI-Driven Enterprise Institute (AIDE), a data company that provides corporate boards and executives with the actionable data and insights needed to steer AI strategy. Its mission is to accelerate human progress by establishing the AI-Driven Enterprise model as the global standard for creating, building, and investing in world-changing ventures. He is also the founder of Entonomy, which develops software that powers AI agent-run businesses.
Paul serves as a Senior Advisor to the College Board, advancing business and finance education globally, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Carroll Center for the Blind, where he contributes to the Audit & Finance and Strategic Planning committees. He also serves on the CNBC Disruptor 50 Advisory Board, the MIT Sandbox Funding Board, and judges the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's CO—100 Awards.
A serial tech entrepreneur, educator, and software engineer, Paul has co-founded multiple ventures, earning recognition on Forbes 30 Under 30, the definitive list of young people changing the world. His bestselling book, Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics, and accompanying teaching materials are used by educators and innovators worldwide. In his role as a Senior Lecturer, Paul teaches hundreds of MIT and Harvard undergraduate, graduate, and PhD students each year in MIT's most popular entrepreneurship courses. Paul was MIT's first Hacker in Residence and has since taught, mentored, and advised thousands of entrepreneurs around the world. As the former Executive Director of the MIT Trust Center for Entrepreneurship, Paul led the development of strategy and operational plans for MIT's entrepreneurship programs and courses. His leadership at MIT has been recognized with the Adolf F. Monosson '48 Prize for longstanding impact on entrepreneurship education.
Paul advises a range of companies from seed to Series B, including Infinity Constellation, Lyzr, and The General Intelligence Company. He has previously built technologies for and consulted with firms such as BlackRock, Prudential, Mazda, and LogMeIn.
His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Inc. Magazine.
You can learn more about Paul on his website, PaulCheek.com, or follow him on LinkedIn.
The long version
Who Paul is and what drives the work.
Paul Cheek started his career as a software entrepreneur. Before joining MIT, he founded and led three technology companies and consulted with some of the world's most prominent organizations. That operating experience, not academic theory, is the foundation of everything he teaches and advises.
At MIT Sloan, Paul has led entrepreneurship education strategy, taught the Institute's most highly rated entrepreneurship courses including the historic New Enterprises course. His work at MIT has directly supported the founding of hundreds of high-impact companies. He authored Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics, the step-by-step operational startup founder guide which became a bestseller instantly. He developed supplementary educator resources which are now used at higher education institutions in 50+ countries.
He wrote his second book, No One Works Here, which examines the structural implications of the AI-Driven Enterprise. Rooted in his dual perspective of teaching the executives who are managing tens or hundreds of thousands of people, as well as the entrepreneurs managing hundreds or thousands of AI agents instead of people, he wants to make sure that the incumbent firms are best prepared for the AI-Driven Enterprise era.
In 2025, Paul founded the AI-Driven Enterprise (AIDE) Institute, the first independent research organization dedicated to measuring AI maturity across large organizations. The AIDE Institute's annual research now benchmarks hundreds of companies and provides the empirical backbone for Paul's advisory work. He also founded Entonomy, an autonomous business platform, and edu.cloud, which brings AI transformation to academic institutions.
What drives the work: a conviction that the transition to AI-native organizations is the most significant structural shift of our generation, and that most organizations are going to get it wrong unless leaders have better literacy and tools. Paul's job, whether on a keynote stage, in a boardroom, or at an MIT whiteboard, is to build AI literacy and provide those tools.
Roles and affiliations
Where the work happens.
Recognition
Selected honors and milestones.
Bestselling author, Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics (Wiley, 2023)
Forbes 30 Under 30 recognition
MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer, appointed 2019
Former Executive Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, responsible for entrepreneurship education across MIT and MIT's position on entrepreneurship globally
Adolf F. Monosson '48 Prize for longstanding impact on entrepreneurship education
Issued patent US 11,004,055 B2 for financial technology innovation
Co-Founder, AIDE Institute: the leading independent AI maturity research organization
In the room
Teaching, advising, and building.
See Paul in action
Paul on stage.
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