Dex Horthy is a software engineer and entrepreneur dedicated to the future of AI-assisted development. As the CEO and Founder of HumanLayer, he leads a Y Combinator-backed startup building "human-in-the-loop" solutions that help AI agents safely navigate complex, real-world codebases.

An expert in context engineering, Dex is known for identifying the "Dumb Zone"—the point where an LLM’s reasoning falters due to overcrowded context windows. He is a prominent advocate for the Research-Plan-Implement (RPI) workflow and the "12 Factor Agents" manifesto. Prior to HumanLayer, he spent over five years at Replicated, focusing on cloud-native software delivery and Kubernetes infrastructure.