The investor at the center of the story is Zach Frankel, a 37-year-old who, according to Jemima McEvoy’s October 7, 2026 profile in The Information, invested early in both Ramp and Cognition and has worked closely with their founders on strategy, hiring, fundraising and deal-making. Frankel declined to comment for the piece. Everything below is reported by The Information unless a different source is named, and it reflects the article as it was available to us; the article may be paywalled, and we did not obtain court filings, company announcements or investor disclosures to check its details.
What the profile says Frankel invests in
The profile reports that Frankel invests his own money and has no limited partners. That is a description given in the article, not a figure we could verify from a fund filing or investor disclosure. It also reports that he wrote early checks into Ramp, the corporate card and spend-management software company, and into Cognition, the AI coding company behind the Devin software agent. Valuations for these companies appear in the article as private-market estimates tied to specific transactions. They change quickly and are not reproduced here.
What founders say he actually does
The most distinctive part of the reporting is that founders describe Frankel as involved in the day-to-day work of building companies, not only as a source of capital. Each example below comes from a named person quoted in the article.
- Strategy and product thinking. Cognition CEO Scott Wu describes the work this way: “When we work together it’s very much block and tackling on particulars of strategy.”
- Hiring, fundraising and introductions. Other founders cited in the article point to help with recruiting, raising money, meeting investors and advising on acquisitions.
- Support for founders generally. Alex Taubman, co-founder and CEO of Long Lake, says Frankel “supports founders in a way that’s pretty unique.”
The article also describes Frankel’s approach with a phrase, “capitalism with friends,” attributed to an unnamed founder close to him. Because the source is anonymous, treat that phrase as a characterization by the reporter’s source rather than a statement Frankel made.
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How the network developed
McEvoy traces Frankel’s relationships to competitive-math and programming circles that predate his investments. According to the article, he connected with Karim Atiyeh and Eric Glyman through the Research Science Institute, and later became the first investor and a board member of Paribus, the price-tracking service that Atiyeh and Glyman sold to Capital One. The article says Frankel then worked closely with the founders and joined them in starting Ramp. In the article’s telling, these early personal ties came before his formal investment roles.
The Cognition relationship is described through a long-standing friendship with Scott Wu. The article says Frankel helped Wu think through fundraising, product positioning and customers, and that he was involved in discussions around the 2025 Windsurf acquisition. Those accounts come from Wu, from Russell Kaplan and from the reporter. The article does not show deal documents, and this summary does not describe their terms.
The programming-contest pipeline
The article also reports that Frankel has paid close attention to high-school math and coding competitors. McEvoy writes that more than a quarter of the 41 U.S. high-school competitors at the International Olympiad in Informatics from 2010 through 2025 had founded, worked for or advised companies backed by Frankel. This is McEvoy’s own analysis. The search material we reviewed did not describe the underlying dataset or method, so the figure should be read as the reporter’s count rather than an independently checked statistic.
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Po-Shen Loh, a Carnegie Mellon professor and former head coach of the U.S. International Math Olympiad team, is quoted saying: “Over the years, more and more companies have discovered that this pool is pretty darn good.” The examples the article gives show a recruiting pattern. They do not show that the competition pipeline alone explains hiring or company performance.
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The most consequential question in the article involves conflicts. A person with direct knowledge told McEvoy that Frankel invested in both Cognition and Factory, two companies that compete in AI coding. The article connects that overlap to Cognition’s hiring of Chris Degnan, described as a close Factory adviser, as its chief revenue officer.
The reporting raises questions about how investors, advisers and portfolio companies handle overlapping interests. It does not report a legal finding, and it does not establish that any confidential information was misused. The investment claim about Factory is attributed to an unnamed person with knowledge of the matter. Frankel’s response to it is not reported because he declined to comment.
Rank #3
Earlier ventures and the litigation record
The profile covers Frankel’s brief period at Founders Fund, his early investment in Juul, and his role in co-founding Better.com. It says he served on Juul’s board. It also says that court filings show a $70 million dividend connected to Altria’s 2018 minority investment in Juul. That figure comes from McEvoy’s reading of the filings; we did not review the filings directly.
The article also reports allegations, lawsuits, settlements and controversy involving Juul and Better.com. These are allegations and contested matters, not established outcomes. The profile does not, on its own, establish liability for anyone, and this article does not do so either. Better.com’s valuation history, which the article reports, is also not restated here because we could not confirm it against a current primary source.
Why he stays out of view
The article presents two explanations for Frankel’s privacy. People in his circle suggest security concerns. Elad Gil, an angel investor, offers a simpler account: “He’s just low-key. He doesn’t think he needs the attention.” Frankel himself declined to comment, so neither explanation is confirmed by him. A reader should treat the security explanation as a reported view from people around him, and Gil’s comment as one investor’s opinion.
Rank #4
How to read the claims in this profile
Not every claim in the article carries the same weight. The table separates them by how they are sourced.
| Claim | Who supplies it | How much weight to give it |
|---|---|---|
| Frankel invested early in Ramp and Cognition | The Information, reporter’s account | Reported; investment terms and dates not independently checked |
| Frankel has no limited partners and invests his own money | The Information | Reported; not verified against a fund filing |
| Strategy and hiring help for Cognition | Named founders (Scott Wu, Russell Kaplan) | Named, on-record accounts; the article does not show the work directly |
| Frankel invested in Factory as well as Cognition | Unnamed person with direct knowledge | Anonymous sourcing; Frankel did not comment |
| More than a quarter of 41 U.S. IOI competitors (2010–2025) linked to Frankel-backed companies | McEvoy’s analysis | Reporter’s count; method not described in the material reviewed |
| $70 million dividend tied to Juul’s 2018 Altria investment | Court filings, as read by McEvoy | Attributed to filings; filings not reviewed directly |
| Motive for privacy (security concerns) | Unnamed people in Frankel’s orbit | Anonymous view; not confirmed by Frankel |
Valuation figures for Ramp, Cognition and Long Lake appear in the article as private-market estimates. They should be quoted only with attribution to The Information and the October 7, 2026 date.
Readers who want to check the story themselves should begin with The Information’s original profile by Jemima McEvoy, dated October 7, 2026, and then look for the company and court records it cites.
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Readers should also be aware that a single profile is not a complete list of Frankel’s holdings or relationships. It covers the connections the reporter could document, and it does not say how many other investments he has made.
Finally, there is no consumer product here to evaluate or buy. The story is about a private investor, his founder relationships and a reported conflict question.
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