Steven M. Ledbetter, aka Stevo, has been a Product Manager since 2005 and currently works at Meta on AI and data infrastructure — delivering the most performant data pipelines in the world. Stevo grew up in rural Georgia, graduating from the Baylor School in 2001. He spent a summer at Harvard University before graduating from the University of Chicago in 2004 with a BA in Philosophy. His specialization was Philosophy of Mind and early A.I. under John Haugeland. Stevo moved to San Francisco in 2005 where his first Product Management job was running the web properties of Design Within Reach. He then worked for Six Apart before pivoting to fitness in 2008 with his Coach Stevo online training business and work for MyFitnessPal. After graduating with an MA in Sport Psychology from John F. Kennedy University, Stevo co-founded Habitry in 2013. Habitry created the first iOS messaging app for coaches and clients to build healthy habits together as well as other products for health care companies. After selling Habitry, Stevo joined Tonal, shipping the unified product experience across hardware, firmware, software, and content teams. In 2020, Stevo joined Elevate Security as the first product hire where he co-invented a patented ML model that stackranked the people in an organization most likely to be victims of social engineering attacks as well as tools to mitigate those risks. Elevate Security was purchased by Mimecast and Stevo became VP of Product for Supernatural, a VR fitness app loved by millions. Supernatural was purchased by Meta in 2023.

As a writer, Stevo contributed to Dan John's Intervention in 2012, wrote We Make Communities in 2015, wrote a weekly column for the 85 million users of MyFitnessPal from 2013 - 2015, and co-produced the Quarterly Motivation Science Research Reviews Unseen Degrees, and The Motivator until 2017. More recently, Stevo writes about AI-native product management — sprint methodology with AI agents, coaching agent teams, and building encrypted apps with LLMs.

Stevo has been a Product Manager for twenty years and currently works at Meta on AI and data infrastructure. He has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Chicago, an MA in Sport Psychology from John F. Kennedy University, and 1,200 hours of supervised counseling skills training. He has built e-commerce platforms, VR fitness apps loved by millions, patented ML security models, and world-class real-time data pipelines. Three of those products got acquired. Two earned patents. He's also written two books and personally taught a few thousand people how to squat.

Steven M. Ledbetter, aka Stevo, is a boy from rural Georgia. He lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 20 years before moving with his wife, Kat Zdan, to Northwestern Connecticut in 2025. He restores cars from 1972, attends Quaker Meetings, collects mid-century modern furniture, never carries more than 6kg of luggage, and is a third generation Eagle Scout.

• Has two whippets—Sterling Malory Archer and Julian Preston van Winkle III
• Previously had two Italian Greyhounds named after the founders of Ferrari and Alfa Romeo who lived to 18.
• Stevo owns too many cars:
  • Magic Mike, a 2001 BMW M5 Dinan S1.
  • Gus, a 1972 BMW 2002 with the drivetrain from a Honda S2000.
  • Duchess, a 1972 Porsche 911 currently in restoration.
• After college, he worked as a sommelier for 3 years while studying to be a Master of Wine.
• Stevo has synesthesia and sees alcohol-soluable flavors as physical shapes.
• Hates bananas with the burning intensity of 10,000 suns.
• Stevo was a United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate for 14 months, but withdrew his application before attending O.C.S.
• After a series of panic attacks at the age of 31, Stevo was diagnosed with ADHD, the single fact which probably explains most of the preceding facts on this page.