Editor's note: The following is the fifth profile in a series of articles about startup founders from non-technical backgrounds who have launched successful venture-backed companies. Read the previous interviews with MagicSchool AI founder Adeel Khan here, Trunk Tools founder Sarah Buchner here, Tabs founder Ali Hussain here, and Craft founder Ilya Levtov here. When an executive at Replit suggested that Cecilia Ziniti seemed distracted by artificial intelligence, she was not an engineer working on the coding startup's AI products. She was its general counsel. The executive told her 'You're a great GC and good at business development ' but it seems like maybe your head's not in it because you're so into this AI thing,'' Ziniti recalled in an interview with Crunchbase News. By then, Ziniti had spent roughly two decades working as a lawyer at companies such as Amazon, Cruise and Anki. She had never learned to code. She had not ever founded a company. And she had not worked in the same...
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