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Bernie Yee
Bernard Yee is CEO and co-founder of Windup Minds, a Seattle-based studio specializing in AI-driven companion experiences. He is one of a small number of practitioners who has shipped frontier work across both VR and generative AI, and built a coherent theory of design across both. At Oculus/Meta Reality Labs, Bernie spent nearly a decade as an executive producer on the platform's most beloved launch experiences, earning the top two spots on Quest's all-time ratings chart. The through-line wasn't technology; it was the question of how humans form emotional relationships with synthetic presences. What makes a digital character worthy of trust? That question led to Windup Minds. In collaboration with Meta, the studio built DayDreamer, a generative AI experience applying LLMs to dream interpretation in mixed reality. The challenge required inverting everything that had worked in VR: the right AI presence, they found, was one that knew how to disappear. Their current title, Stay: Your Forever Pet, applies the same relational presence research to AI companion gaming. Before founding Windup Minds, Bernie helped ship games you’ve probably played at PopCap, Bungie, Harmonix, and Sony Online Entertainment, and taught game design at Columbia University.
