Piotr Tomasik is all in on Las Vegas’ burgeoning tech startup scene. He’s also an ardent advocate for the homegrown tech talent produced by his alma mater, UNLV.

Now, he’s syncing the two.

Tomasik, ’09 BS Computer Science, has never been more optimistic about the tech landscape in his hometown, and — like him — the first-generation UNLV students who have made computer science the fastest growing major in the UNLV College of Engineering. 

It was interactions with those students as a member of the College of Engineering’s Computer Science Advisory Board, where, just a few years ago, a unique idea emerged.

“In those meetings, I always heard students coming and talking about how they wanted to work at Google or Microsoft, one of these big tech companies, right? Meanwhile, they’re speaking to a room of business owners from the community,” Tomasik recalled. “I was thinking, they don’t even realize that there are opportunities at home — you don’t have to move or leave town to build a career in tech.”

Tomasik began shaping the broad outlines of a program that would soon gain the support of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development to become StepUp & StartUp (SUSU), a now signature program in the College of Engineering that connects UNLV students with competitively paid internships at local companies. 

“The idea was, if we could connect students while they’re still in school with local companies, and help them realize and gain real-world experience here at home, hopefully we could retain that talent, instead of just educating them here and having them vacate Vegas immediately to somewhere else,” said Tomasik. Tomasik is cofounder of the nonprofit StartUp Vegas, the Vegas Tech Summit, and local startup company TensorWave.

Buy-in came from College of Engineering Dean Rama Venkat, StartUp Vegas President and Nevada System of Higher Education Regent Heather Brown, and community and government partners like Ryan Smith, former director of economic and urban development for the City of Las Vegas who passed away in 2024. That support was crucial for getting funding for the program over the finish line.

Like his investments in business and the local community, Tomasik’s stake in the program paid off. In fall 2024 alone, 107 UNLV students interned at 35 local tech startups or small businesses through SUSU. 

“The StepUp & StartUp program came to life because Piotr uniquely understands what founders need to succeed and what students need to thrive,” said Brown, who co-founded StartUp Vegas with Tomasik. “Piotr’s work is a testament to the impact one person can have on both the startup community and the next generation of talent.”

Apart from gaining resume experience in the local startup scene, SUSU offers a distinct advantage: the chance for students to make a significant, early and varied impact during their internship experience — they are the bigger fish making a bigger splash in small, fast-growing enterprises.

And, since its inception in early 2023, a number of internships have translated to job offers for recent graduates at companies like Wrebotics, Riot Edge Solutions, Record, Decentre, NeuroNexum, Capital Velocity, PrefCards and EO Solutions.

“That’s exactly what we were hoping to see,” Tomasik said. “The truth is, they just need to be given a chance at a startup and they perform extremely well. Eventually, we’d like to see a lot of them go on to start their own companies.”

Winning and Learning: Tomasik’s Journey from Student to Startup Leader

It’s easy for Tomasik to see the program’s potential and advocate for its continued support because, he too, used to be one of those students.

As a first-generation American and college student, Tomasik came to UNLV in the mid 2000s with the goal to earn a degree in computer science and land a stable job at a big tech firm.

But, doors started to open up for him that led him on an altogether different path.

Under the mentorship of former computer science professor Thomas Nartker, Tomasik wrote code for a project involving automated drones. Through that research project, Tomasik met a business executive who was in the midst of building a green energy startup.

“I got offered a job at his startup my senior year. And so, instead of going a traditional path,

I joined him and traveled the state,” he said. “We were looking at different places to put solar panels, vertical axis wind turbines. I was also working on the website and doing basically anything and everything — and I was very excited to do so many different and dynamic things within a startup company that I decided I could never see myself in a corporate 9-to-5.” 

Although that startup eventually folded, for Tomasik, the initial risk of accepting the job was worth the long-term reward of discovering what he wanted to do with his career.

“I like to say, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn,” Tomasik said.

Tomasik would go on to land a position at a fintech company, followed by a stint at a social media company, both of which didn’t make it in the long-run. But each opportunity led to consulting projects and to his first big break as co-founder and chief technology officer at Influential, a company recently acquired by Publicis for $500 million. He’s now the chief operating officer of TensorWave, an AI computing solutions company he co-founded in late 2023 alongside Darrick Horton and Jeff Tatarchuk.

Last fall, the Las Vegas-based startup raised $43 million in SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) funding, the largest in Nevada’s history. The company currently employs over 30 individuals, with plans to scale up to 100 by the end of 2025.

“We sell the picks and shovels to people who want to do AI,” Tomasik said, adding that their company’s product is the equivalent of the picks and shovels used by gold miners in the 49er days.

“It comes in the form of servers — data center GPUs — that are made available over the Internet to these companies. Any company that wants to do generative AI or chat GPT-like stuff, they need these special data center GPUs.”

And Tomasik, along with his partners, believe that TensorWave is in the right place at the right time — both in the market as an alternative to larger companies like NVIDIA, and geographically, with headquarters in Las Vegas.

Tomasik credits much of his ability to persevere in the sometimes volatile startup market with the support of his wife, Kristin Tomasik, ‘09 BS Computer Science. They met at the university, got married right out of college, and Kristin worked locally in defense contracting, which gave Piotr the flexibility to explore startup opportunity after startup opportunity. But soon enough, she caught the bug herself.

“She’s made a career in both startups and larger companies and scaleups as a programmer, CTO and engineering leader. And now she’s investing in startups locally as a venture capitalist,” he said. “I was able to convince her that it was a whole lotta fun.”

He’s hoping UNLV students — through programs like SUSU and other mentorship opportunities — can be convinced, too.

“What I say to our young talent in the Valley is to try to say yes more than you say no about unique and interesting opportunities that surface around you,” Tomasik said. “Investigate it and see if it excites you. Instead of watching Netflix tonight, go out and see what this person has to say. Standing still is not an option. This career path is not right for everybody, but it’s a very fulfilling path.”