[Editor’s note: “Tech Vets: Profiles in Leadership and Innovation,” is a GeekWire series showcasing U.S. military veterans leading companies within the Pacific Northwest tech industry. The series explores how military experience fosters leadership, resilience, and innovation in tech.]
Jonathan Pan didn’t come from a military family, but growing up in New York City, he was deeply affected by the events of Sept. 11, 2001, so he signed up and eventually joined the U.S. Army.
Pan was in his second or third week at New York’s Baruch College when the attacks happened. He completed his education and entered officer candidate school in 2005. An infantry officer stationed at Washington state’s Joint Base Lewis–McChord, Pan deployed to Afghanistan with the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division and served in an economic development role.
Fifteen years after he left the Army as a captain, Pan’s experience is still impacting his current role as co-founder and CEO of Exia Labs, a Seattle-area startup building AI software to improve military wargaming — the analytical games used to simulate aspects of warfare for tactical and strategic decision-making.
The “gaming” aspect of Pan’s current work is in line with the direction he took after the Army and grad school.
“I’ve been playing games ever since I was a kid,” he said. “I grew up with PCs and online gaming that all started when I was in junior high. It really hurt my grades in high school, and I played a little bit in college. When I was in the military I had no time.”
Getting a job in the video game industry wasn’t even on Pan’s radar. But during an internship at Riot Games he discovered how fun it could be and that there’s a whole business and craft behind making and selling games.
“That got me hooked,” Pan said.
After a couple years he moved on to start his own e-sports team called Ember, convinced that the future was in that sort of entertainment. He even tried to get Mark Cuban to invest, to no avail. But the experience did help him land a games role at Amazon, where he spent four years in California.
After games-related jobs at Meta and Walmart, Pan reconnected with a friend who he used to serve with and picked his brain about defense tech and wargames.
“It just blew my mind that the military is spending so much time and effort and money on board games to make really important decisions,” Pan said.
So in 2024, back in the Seattle area, he joined forces with Serj Kazar, a former colleague at Riot Games, and founded Exia.
The startup’s initial product, Blue, features various AI agents that analyze documents and automate each step of the U.S. Army’s Military Decision Making Process (MDMP). It can also simulate potential schemes to accomplish a mission. A newer product, called Recon, was released this summer.
In September, Exia won a $50,000 prize in the Army’s xTech AI Grand Challenge, an initiative to formalize AI processes and policies that enhance performance, reduce lifecycle costs, and scale impact across the force. The company raised a $2.5 million seed round earlier this year.
Pan is a big believer in the Defense Department’s Hero Skillbridge Program, which he said he used at Amazon to personally hire nine junior officers transitioning out of the military.
“They’re great at problem solving,” he said. “They just need a chance at a tech company to prove that.”
Reconnecting with military contacts and innovating on behalf of the Army has had its rewards, and Pan feels like he’s part of the mission again.
“People’s lives are on the line. That really fires me up. That motivates me,” he said.
But the military’s long sales cycles can be difficult and working in defense is not a get-rich-quick opportunity, according to Pan. If he had to do it again he’d probably start with commercial applications first. Exia has been looking into where it could find a market fit — law enforcement or natural disaster response are possibilities.
And he calls drone delivery planning “super exciting,” noting that Exia is in talks with Amazon and Walmart, though nothing official has been signed.
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