Michael Heinrich is the co-founder and CEO of 0G Labs, a Layer 1 blockchain platform focused on decentralized artificial intelligence. He is also the founder of Garten (formerly Oh My Green), a corporate wellness company that achieved unicorn status. ^{[1] [2]}

Early Life

Heinrich was born in Alushta, Ukraine, to German-born, Russian-speaking academic parents who had met while studying at the University of Donetsk. Shortly after his birth, the family relocated to his father's home city of East Berlin, Germany. They lived approximately 100 meters from the Berlin Wall, and Heinrich has memories of the night the wall fell on November 9, 1989. As a child in East Germany, he was part of an after-school group called the Young Pioneers, which served as an early introduction to Communist principles for children.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Heinrich's father began working for the software company SAP, eventually transferring from the Berlin office to its labs in Palo Alto, California. The family's move to the United States presented significant changes for Heinrich, who arrived without speaking any English. He was enrolled in a German-American school and has described feeling isolated as an immigrant from East Berlin. To combat boredom, he spent time at his father's SAP office, where a coworker taught him to code. He quickly developed a proficiency for programming and worked on internal software projects for the company. ^[2]

Education

Heinrich's educational path was unconventional. When his German-American high school could no longer support an 11th-grade class due to a declining number of students, he opted to take the GED and enroll in a local junior college for what would have been his final two years of high school. After three years in junior college, he transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied both engineering and humanities-focused disciplines, graduating summa cum laude. During his undergraduate studies, he also performed research at Harvard University. Years later, after beginning his professional career, Heinrich returned to academia and enrolled in a Master's program at Stanford University, focusing on engineering and business management. ^{[2] [3] [4] [6]}

Career

Heinrich began his career with internships at SAP, Microsoft's Visual Studio team, and J.P. Morgan. After graduating from UC Berkeley, he worked as a management consultant at Bain & Company from 2006 to 2008. He then joined the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates in 2008, where he worked in portfolio construction during the great financial crisis. Feeling unfulfilled in his role, he left Bridgewater to pursue a period of self-discovery before enrolling at Stanford University, which served as a basis for later work with blockchain technology.

While at Stanford, inspired by a personal shift toward a healthier lifestyle, Heinrich founded his first company, Oh My Green, which was later rebranded as Garten. The corporate wellness startup, which sourced and delivered healthy cafeteria options for businesses, gained early traction and secured Apple as one of its first major clients. Garten was accepted into the Y Combinator accelerator in 2016 and grew significantly, reportedly reaching over $100 million in annual revenue by 2019 and achieving unicorn status. The business was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which eliminated 95% of its revenue almost overnight and forced the company to lay off approximately 70% of its staff. Though Garten survived the crisis, Heinrich eventually decided to move on from his role as CEO.

In 2023, Heinrich co-founded 0G Labs alongside Thomas Yao, Fan Long, and Ming Wu, the technologists behind the Layer 1 protocol Conflux. 0G Labs is developing a modular blockchain designed for high-throughput data availability to support on-chain AI applications, with the stated mission of making AI a public good. The company raised a $35 million pre-seed funding round. In addition to his role at 0G, Heinrich is a venture partner and angel investor at Pioneer Fund, with early investments in companies such as Filecoin, Uniswap, Worldcoin, and Anthropic. He has also served as an instructor at Stanford, where he created a course titled "Hacking Consciousness," and is a member of the Board of Trustees at Maharishi International University (MIU). ^{[2] [4] [5] [1] [3] [6] [7]}

In July 2025, Heinrich was named one of Forbes Mexico's 40 Under 40 Tech Leaders. ^[1]

Interviews

Bay Area Founders Club #01

On July 15, 2024, Michael Heinrich was interviewed by the Bay Area Founders Club in a session titled “Stanford Founder Michael Heinrich - The Story Behind 0G Labs & Raising $35M”.

In the interview, Heinrich outlined his professional background and the path that led him to establish 0G Labs, which he described as the first modular AI chain. According to his account, the company’s objective is to build decentralized infrastructure for artificial intelligence, enabling AI models to operate on blockchain networks with an emphasis on transparency and security.

Heinrich noted that his previous experience in engineering, product management, and startup leadership informed his approach to company building. He referred to the Lean LaunchPad program at Stanford as formative, highlighting its focus on customer validation and systematic evaluation of product-market fit.

Regarding team formation, Heinrich explained that a period of co-founder matchmaking resulted in assembling a group of engineers from institutions such as MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Stanford. He stated that this concentration of technical expertise was considered necessary for addressing the complexity of decentralized AI infrastructure.

The discussion also covered the company’s fundraising process. Heinrich recounted that an initial target of $5 million expanded to $35 million after strong investor interest. He emphasized the decision to maintain a distributed cap table, which he linked to the decentralized ethos of the Web3 ecosystem and to broader participation from investors beyond financial contributions.

In assessing the broader landscape, Heinrich described ongoing challenges in Web3 and AI, including fragmented liquidity and the user difficulties posed by multiple Layer 2 solutions. He argued that integrating AI with decentralized systems could reduce concentration of control by large corporations and position AI as a resource aligned with collective rather than private interests. ^[8]

Interview with Erhan K Official #02

On July 22, 2025, Michael Heinrich, co-founder of 0G Labs, gave an interview on the YouTube channel Erhan K Official during Istanbul Blockchain Week. In this discussion, Heinrich outlined his perspective on decentralized artificial intelligence (AI), the development of the 0G mainnet, and the relationship between blockchain and AI systems.

Heinrich described centralized AI models as opaque and controlled by a limited number of actors, which, in his view, creates risks for transparency and accountability. He explained that 0G Labs is working on a decentralized AI infrastructure built as a Layer 1 blockchain, designed to handle computation, storage, and data availability in an on-chain environment.

He noted that more than 500 projects were building within the 0G ecosystem at the time of the interview, including AI agents focused on portfolio management, yield optimization, medical applications, robotics, and productivity tools. He also mentioned the scale of the testnet, citing approximately 12 million wallets and 200 million transactions, supported by an $88.8 million ecosystem fund.

Heinrich addressed the potential challenges associated with artificial general intelligence (AGI), referring to research that demonstrated problematic behavior by AI agents when operating autonomously. To address ownership and accountability, he explained the development of a proposed NFT-based framework (ERC-7857) intended to represent AI agents on-chain and provide a mechanism for attribution of actions.

He also discussed internal decisions regarding the timing of the 0G mainnet launch, indicating that the team weighed the benefits of adding advanced features against the need to provide access for early users.

The interview concluded with Heinrich’s outlook on decentralized AI, where he highlighted both the opportunities for blockchain-integrated AI agents across multiple sectors and the importance of alignment research to address risks associated with autonomous systems. ^[9]