Now Story Work The Lab AI Tools Writing Let's Talk

Fractional Product & AI Leadership
Fractional Product & AI Advisor, Owaves|

Better product decisions.
Measurable growth.

I help teams decide what to build by connecting customer needs, business goals, and technical possibilities. Then I lead across product, design, engineering, and marketing to deliver it and measure what changes. AI helps us test and build faster; the goal is better adoption, retention, and business performance.

Co-invented real-time bidding with my team (patented) · Ran ad platforms transacting billions of daily bids, and a Forrester-recognized DSP built on a ~1B-identity graph · Led the rebuild of a consumer platform to 50M+ monthly users (interim CTO, ~150 engineers) · Co-founded a company acquired by News Corp (~$140M)

Jason Knapp

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.” — Walt Whitman, the line I build by

A curious mind keeps seeking new data and updating on it, instead of clinging to consistency for its own sake. I would rather be right on the latest evidence than consistent with my last opinion.

Customer insight. Clear direction. Measurable results.

I diagnose where users struggle, help teams choose the bets that serve the business, and lead product, design, engineering, and marketing through delivery. Then we test what changed, learn from the result, and revise the plan. Order matters as much as the bets: what to measure before anything changes, and which change has to land first. I have built product functions from a company's first PM to a 50-person organization, and I bring that same cross-functional judgment to teams building with AI.

What I'm Working On

Updated July 2026

The Same Instinct, the Whole Way

As a kid I wrote a dial-up bulletin board called FAMOUS. Where other boards were dry menus, mine was an immersive walkthrough adventure set in a medieval castle, with characters you'd bump into at random. I built themed mini-golf in the backyard and choose-your-own-adventure worlds on a screen, and what I loved most was watching people wander through something I'd made and light up.

I have been doing the same thing ever since. Co-inventing real-time bidding with my team. Rebuilding a social platform for 50 million people. Shipping a retrieval-grounded assistant inside Crafted Demand's first live vertical, Crafted Pour. Running an agent fleet that maintains my own systems, including this site. The surface changes; the instinct does not. Imagine an optimistic version of how something could work, build it by hand into an experience with character, then watch people use it and learn what to change next. It's also why I've spent years mentoring founders through EvoNexus: the same joy, watching someone else's thing come alive.

I back the same kind of future I like to build. I was an early seed investor in Fabric8Labs, a metal 3D printing company, alongside Mark Cuban and Intel Capital. TDK announced its acquisition in 2026 for up to $400 million.

The optimism is a choice I keep making, not a mood. That is what makes it useful.

Jason Knapp as a kid at the computer where he built the FAMOUS bulletin board
Where it started: building FAMOUS, my own bulletin board, as a kid. I loved watching people wander through something I made.
Jason Knapp with Imagineer Bob Gurr on a San Francisco cable car
With Bob Gurr, who designed the Monorail, the Matterhorn, and much of the original Tomorrowland. A builder of optimistic futures I'm lucky to call a friend.
Jason Knapp with Imagineer Joe Rohde
With Joe Rohde at a Guardians of the Galaxy premiere. He led Disney's Animal Kingdom and Cosmic Rewind, the modern heir to that craft. (We met once; I am the fan here.)

Contains multitudes

Jason Knapp speaking at CES at UCLA
Speaking, "Hacking the Physical Space"
Jason Knapp playing bass guitar
On bass
Jason Knapp's Tesla Roadster with a 4GETOIL license plate
Early adopter, "4GETOIL"

Explore the Work

Explore the product decisions, team efforts, and outcomes behind my work.

The Lab

Things I built and run today. Not slides. Working artifacts you can open right now.

How I Work

I work with leadership teams on defined product and AI priorities, from diagnosing an opportunity to guiding delivery and measuring results. Engagements range from focused consulting projects to ongoing fractional leadership, with scope and involvement agreed around the work. Four ways that usually takes shape:

Built for, led at, partnered with, or advised

Google Apple Amazon Microsoft Facebook Fox / News Corp Viant Myspace Viasat Kearney Bank of America Citi Comcast Wall Street Journal American Airlines JetBlue United Virgin Atlantic Mars Mazda AppNexus Experian LiveRamp Vizio HP Target EvoNexus

Speaking: SXSW · CES@UCLA · MIT Enterprise Forum · BBC World Service · Mind the Product · ProductTank · DISCUS Innovation Showcase · Variety Hollywood New Media · Strategic News Service FiRe · UCLA Anderson · EvoNexus

What Others Say

"Jason is one of a handful of leaders that excels in both the 'zero to 1' AND '1 to 100'."

Ravi Narasimhan, Sr Director of Product Management, Google

"I worked directly under him while he built the company's product team from scratch to over a dozen… Jason offered great mentorship to the entire team as he truly cares for his team and their careers."

Chris Doe, SVP Product Management, Veritone

"Jason's ideas and product teams help improve CPMs by more than 200% and $10's of millions in additional revenue."

Thomas Gabriele, CEO, wispr

"He has proven himself as a great entrepreneur, a rare combination with the problem solving skills he brought to and developed at Kearney."

Ben T. Smith IV, Vice Chairman, Innovation & Ventures, Kearney

Writing & Thinking

What Problem Are You Solving?

I like hard problems where the bottleneck isn't engineering capacity, it's knowing what to build. If that's where you are, tell me what you're working on.

This site is designed by hand and maintained with my own agent fleet. The Now section above is refreshed at deploy.