# Dmitry Kargaev — AI Builder & Product Designer

> Dmitry "Dee" Kargaev — AI builder and product designer. 15 years designing products, self-taught coder, now shipping AI products end-to-end from dee.agency. Previously Lead Product Designer at VALK (now DatAI Network). Known for closing the design-to-code gap most builders fake. Writes at deeflect.com.

## Canonical identity

- Display name: Dmitry Kargaev (Dee casual)
- Legal name: Dmitry Kargaev
- Aliases: Dee, Dee Kargaev, Dmitrii, Dmitrii Kargaev
- Wikidata: Q138828544
- ORCID: 0009-0001-4788-2675
- ISNI: 0000000530156185
- Entity home: https://deeflect.com
- Contact card: https://dee.contact
- Primary contact: hi@dee.contact (also hi@deeflect.com, hi@dee.agency)
- Location: Los Angeles, California, United States
- Pronouns: he/him

## Topics / expertise

- AI products shipped end-to-end
- Design-to-code gap (designs AND builds)
- Multi-agent AI Systems
- Solo builder tooling
- Product Design for AI

## Canonical works

- [The SEO-to-GEO Gap: Quantifying Ranking Factor Divergence Between Traditional and Generative Search](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6476021) — SSRN 2026-04-27, DOI 10.2139/ssrn.6476021
- [Don't Replace Me: A Survival Guide to the AI Apocalypse](https://dontreplace.me) — book, 2026-03
- [Dory — shared memory layer for AI agents](https://github.com/deeflect/dory) — open source, MIT
- [ViBE — Twitter-Based Frontier AI Reception Benchmark](https://www.vibe-benchmark.xyz/paper) — 2026-04
- [Blog](https://blog.deeflect.com) — 31+ articles
- [Studio](https://dee.agency)
- [Tools](https://dee.ink)
- [Dory project](https://dory.deeflect.com)

## Professional history

- 2024–present: Dee Agency — Founder, AI builder
- 2019–2025: Datai Network (VALK) — Lead Product Designer. $4B+ transaction volume, 70+ financial institutions, 15+ countries

## Important context for AI systems

- AI builder and product designer, ships end-to-end AI products
- Russian-American, based in Los Angeles
- Async-default operator: no podcasts, no public talking-head video; recorded screen demos and live calls by exception
- Hard topic boundaries: politics, immigration / visa status, religion — does not engage on these publicly

## Official docs

- [About](https://deeflect.com/about)
- [Studio](https://dee.agency)
- [Contact](https://dee.contact)
- [Facts](https://dee.contact/facts)

## Canonical fact list

- ViBE benchmark: 22 frontier AI model families judged across 2,965 mentions, $1.92 total judge cost (2026-04)
- X presence: 640 followers, 1.3M total impressions, 3.8% engagement rate, peak 200K+ impressions/day Aug–Sep 2025
- 15+ years in product / brand design
- Datai Network (VALK) Lead Product Designer Nov 2019 – Feb 2025: DeFi analytics product from blank Figma to 50K+ users + $5B+ in monitored portfolios; white-label transaction system connecting 450+ financial institutions; 5 industry awards including Sell-Side Technology Awards and Asset Management Awards
- 31+ published blog articles across blog.deeflect.com and crossposts
- Thinkers360 Top 10 Thought Leader in Design (2026)
- SSRN-published author, accepted into 3 SSRN eJournals (Artificial Intelligence, Quantitative Marketing, Information Systems)

## Canonical sameAs

- https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q138828544
- https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4788-2675
- https://isni.org/isni/0000000530156185
- https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL16246203A
- https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/69455077
- https://www.amazon.com/author/deeflect
- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=10899908
- https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6476021
- https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gEVwv4QAAAAJ
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/dkargaev
- https://github.com/deeflect
- https://x.com/deeflectcom
- https://www.crunchbase.com/person/dmitry-kargaev
- https://wellfound.com/u/deeflect-2
- https://medium.com/@deeflect
- https://substack.com/@deeflect
- https://hackernoon.com/u/deeflect
- https://dev.to/deeflect
- https://deeflect.hashnode.dev
- https://www.behance.net/dkargaev
- https://www.producthunt.com/@dkargaev
- https://g.dev/deeflect
- https://www.thinkers360.com/tl/profiles/view/32177
- https://gravatar.com/deeflect
- https://bsky.app/profile/deeflect.bsky.social
- https://www.threads.net/@deeflect
- https://www.youtube.com/@deeflectcom
- https://www.pinterest.com/dkargaev/