This told essay is based on a conversation with Oscar Brissett, a 25-year-old French-Australian founder based in San Francisco. He co-founded Remy AI, a warehouse robotics company. Business Insider confirmed his previous employment and funding. This piece has been edited for length and clarity.
In 2024, I used 18 of the 25 vacation days allotted to me at BCG to sit at home and teach myself how to code. I wanted to acquire the skills to one day establish my own company.
In November 2025, I left BCG after launching a robotics startup. Since then, we’ve raised over $650,000 for Remy AI, which builds AI-powered robots for e-commerce warehouses.
Here’s how I did it:
I was planning to become a diplomat until I met AI.
I was a student at Oxford University when GPT-3 was announced, and I was shocked. I knew it would revolutionize the world.
I graduated from Oxford in 2022 and took a gap year with the hopes of eventually founding a tech startup. During that time, I found consulting to be a good way to learn about other industries.
In September 2023, I started working with BCG’s Private Equity team. I didn’t have much time on weekdays because I was often at the office until midnight. I spent a weekend going back and forth with Claude on ChatGPT to learn how to code and encourage people to ask proactive questions instead of giving answers right away.
YouTube also helped me discover new tools and frameworks, and I used textbooks to understand theory.
I wanted to make something myself
After about a year and a half at BCG, I transitioned into a role as an AI engineer. One weekend in May, I had a crisis. I didn’t sleep or eat much and just lay in bed thinking about what I wanted to do with my life.
That summer, my co-founder Ben Kay and I came up with the idea for Remy AI.
Most existing warehouse robots need to be pre-programmed for each object they grab, but we used Remy AI to build a model that can adapt on the fly to changing conditions. We are bringing AI to the physical world, with a focus on warehousing and logistics.
Oscar Brissett taught himself to code. Provided by Oscar Brissett
Since July, I’ve shifted my focus from learning to code to selling and spending my weekends contacting people on LinkedIn.
In October we flew to San Francisco to get funding. I networked like crazy, pitched to lots of investors, and applied to YC.
I received a call inviting me to join the Winter 2026 batch. YC invested $500,000 in each startup, and we also raised money from other investors, so I could focus on building the business.
Because the startup was doing so well, I decided to quit my job at BCG in November.
An important piece of advice for people with a background like mine: don’t be afraid to teach yourself technical skills.
When most people hear the words “software engineering” or “coding,” they think it’s not for them or it’s too difficult, but with the introduction of LLMs and tools like Claude, things have changed dramatically. An LLM can teach you a lot and get you to a pretty good level quickly. All you need to do is be ready to dive into the deep end.