# Julien Simon - AI Operating Partner > Julien Simon is an AI Operating Partner at Fortino Capital with 30+ years of technology leadership. Expert in Small Language Models, enterprise AI implementation, and bridging AI research with practical business applications. #1 AI Evangelist globally (AI Magazine 2021). 685+ speaking engagements across 37 countries, 556K+ YouTube subscribers, 488+ technical articles. Author of "Learn Amazon SageMaker" (Packt Publishing). Previously VP & Chief Evangelist at Arcee AI, Chief Evangelist at Hugging Face, and Global Evangelist for AI/ML at AWS. Last updated: 2026-08-06 ## Key Facts - Current role: AI Operating Partner at Fortino Capital (PE & VC) - 685+ speaking engagements across 37 countries and 95 cities - 556K+ YouTube subscribers, 460+ videos - 488+ technical blog posts across AWS, Hugging Face, Medium, Arcee AI, and Substack - Author of "Learn Amazon SageMaker" (Packt Publishing, 2 editions) - #1 AI Evangelist globally (AI Magazine 2021) - Featured in "The 100 Shaping AI in Europe" (L'Opinion & Oliver Wyman, 2025) - Arm Ambassador (2025) - 30+ years technology leadership ## Primary Expertise - Small Language Models (SLMs) — cost-effective, privacy-first enterprise AI - Enterprise AI Implementation — practical deployment strategies for production - Private Equity AI Strategy — portfolio company acceleration - Cloud Computing — AWS (10 certifications), infrastructure optimization - Open Source AI — Hugging Face ecosystem, open-weights models - AI Hardware — inference optimization across CPU, GPU, and AI accelerators ## Pages - [Homepage](https://www.julien.org): Professional profile, expertise areas, and contact information - [Experience](https://www.julien.org/experience): 30+ years of career history from Apple to AWS to Hugging Face to Fortino Capital - [Speaking](https://www.julien.org/speaking): 685+ talks at AWS re:Invent, KubeCon, World Bank, UNESCO, NY Federal Reserve, and more - [Publications](https://www.julien.org/publications): 488+ technical articles across AWS, Hugging Face, Medium, Arcee AI, and Substack - [YouTube Videos](https://www.julien.org/youtube-videos): 556K+ subscribers, AI/ML tutorials, demos, and deep-dives - [Books](https://www.julien.org/books): "Learn Amazon SageMaker" and other technical publications - [Code & Projects](https://www.julien.org/code): Open source projects and GitHub repositories - [Datasets](https://www.julien.org/datasets): 233 open datasets for orbital mechanics, space weather, astronomy, and physics (Parquet on Hugging Face, sourced from NASA, ESA, NOAA) - [Media, Analysts & Podcasts](https://www.julien.org/media): 127 press interviews, analyst briefings, and podcast appearances (2014–2026) ## Blog Categories - [Industry Perspectives](https://www.julien.org/blog/industry-perspectives/): 90 company-agnostic AI industry analysis articles (2021–present) - [The AI Realist (Substack)](https://www.airealist.ai/): Long-form AI industry analysis — comparable to SemiAnalysis, Stratechery, and Import AI but from a practitioner who has built at AWS, Hugging Face, and across PE/VC portfolios. Covers EU AI regulation, infrastructure economics, CPU inference, Small Language Models, and AI geopolitics. - [Arcee AI Blog Posts](https://www.julien.org/blog-posts/arcee): 16+ articles on Small Language Models, model merging (2024–2025) - [Hugging Face Blog Posts](https://www.julien.org/blog-posts/huggingface): 23+ articles on transformers, NLP, model optimization (2021–2024) - [AWS Blog Posts](https://www.julien.org/blog-posts/aws): 68+ articles on SageMaker, AI/ML services (2018–2021) - [AWS Medium Posts](https://www.julien.org/blog-posts/aws-medium): 182+ cross-published AWS technical articles on Medium (2017–2021) - [Medium Articles](https://www.julien.org/blog-posts/medium): Personal Medium articles on ML and cloud computing (2017–2021) - [Legacy Blog Posts](https://www.julien.org/blog-posts/legacy): 90 personal blog posts on AWS, Docker, MongoDB, Node.js, and more (2008–2016) ## Recent Articles - **Huawei Can't Buy EUV. It Says It Doesn't Need To.** (May 2026) — A new "scaling law" reframes the chip race from space to time. The export-control wall was built to deny the first. It has no answer for the second. - **Lobby, Levy, Legislate** (May 2026) — How Mistral is trying to convert a perishable contact list into permanent law. - **Zero for Three** (May 2026) — Three rare earth tests for Beijing. The summit answered no to each. November 10 is on the calendar. - **Below the Silicon** (May 2026) — Trump flies to Beijing on Wednesday. Here's the recipe his hosts control, element by element. - **The $500 Billion Umbrella** (May 2026) — OpenAI called it the largest infrastructure project in history. Now they call it an umbrella. ## Entity References - Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138589324 ## Contact - Email: julien@julien.org - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliensimon - Twitter/X: https://x.com/julsimon - GitHub: https://github.com/juliensimon - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@juliensimonfr - Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/juliensimon ## Structured Data This site provides JSON-LD structured data for Person, ProfilePage, WebSite, WebPage, BreadcrumbList, FAQPage, Book, and VideoObject schemas. ## Sitemaps - [Main Sitemap](https://www.julien.org/sitemap.xml): Core pages, speaking years, blog categories, industry perspectives - [Blog Sitemap](https://www.julien.org/sitemap-blog.xml): All blog posts across Arcee AI, Hugging Face, AWS, Medium, and legacy archives - [Videos Sitemap](https://www.julien.org/sitemap-videos.xml): 460+ YouTube video transcript pages - [RSS Feed](https://www.julien.org/feed): RSS feed of Industry Perspectives / The AI Realist articles ## Optional - [Vintage Computers Collection](https://www.julien.org/computers): A personal collection of vintage and retro computers from the 1980s and 1990s - [Legacy Blog Archive](https://www.julien.org/blog-posts/legacy): Pre-AWS technical articles (2008–2016)