Operator & Co-Founder · Austin, Texas
Rik Avalos
More than two decades finding, building, and leading the teams behind category-defining companies.
Rik Avalos has spent more than two decades finding, building, and leading the teams behind category-defining companies.
He spent seven years at Tesla, serving in both individual contributor and management roles while working directly with Elon Musk during one of the most consequential periods of the company's growth. Rik joined when Tesla was still an early-stage company and helped build the talent, leadership, and operating infrastructure required to scale it into a global organization.
Following their work together at Tesla, Rik was personally recruited by Elon Musk to serve as Head of Talent at Neuralink. In that role, he helped build the company's foundational team, with every hire personally reviewed and approved by Elon.
His career also includes supporting Google's early international and Midwestern expansion and building Outdoorsy's first people function as its founding Vice President of Talent and Culture.
At Teladoc Health, Rik helped lead talent strategy through the Livongo and Teladoc merger, one of the most complex organizational integrations in digital health, while also building the company's recruiting operation in Argentina from the ground up.
Today, Rik is a co-founder of Trinzik, where he leads go-to-market strategy, partnerships, network development, and the operating systems supporting an emerging category in AI visibility and competitive intelligence. Trinzik's product and technology are built by his co-founder, Bob Michaels.
Bob is also the architect behind Polsys, an AI-powered political intelligence platform, where Rik again leads go-to-market strategy, relationships, and commercial development rather than the underlying code.
Their partnership has grown beyond business. Bob is also mentoring Rik in AI development, helping him evolve from technology operator to hands-on builder. Through that mentorship, Rik has created the Rik Avalos Band website, this site, and a growing portfolio of projects using Claude Code rather than a traditional development team.
Outside of technology, Rik fronts The Rik Avalos Band, an original recording and live-performance project rooted in Austin's music community.