Muhammad Ziaullah Khan Chishti (née Wilson Lear; born 1971) is a Pakistani-American investor and business executive.
[1][2][3] After starting his career as a Morgan Stanley investment banker, Chishti invented the medical device Invisalign and co-founded Align Technology to market the product[4] in 1997.
[6] Undergoing a course of orthodontic treatment in his early twenties, Chishti envisioned clear plastic appliances instead of metal braces.
[7] Working on the project in his dorm room at Stanford University,[citation needed] his invention, Invisalign, allowed computers to customize plastic retainers to gradually shift patient's teeth.
[5] Chishti secured funding from Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, and the company had raised around $140 million in venture capital by 2000.
Chishti continued as Afiniti's CEO[12] and chairman of the board,[3] which also included directors such as John W. Snow and José Maria Aznar.
[citation needed] Chishti has been a critic of the "hype" surrounding artificial intelligence, arguing in 2018 that society is headed for another AI winter.
[25] In December 2022, Chishti filed a federal defamation lawsuit against Spottiswoode, saying she had "weaponized" a "consensual love affair" and had lied under oath.
The lawsuit was criticized as a disincentive to speak against rich abusers who could afford to bully witnesses with the threat of expensive litigation.
Journalist Michael Schaffer called the document "utterly devastating for Chishti":[26] the arbitrator and his investigation had found that Chishti's conduct was "outrageous in character and extreme in degree, going beyond all possible bounds of decency"; that Chisti had groped Spottiswoode in front of colleagues, insulted her, brutally beat her, and had then lied about his activities after the fact; that Chishti had harassed other young female Afiniti employees and they had received monetary settlements in addition to Spottiswoode; and that the company had taken no action to attempt to prevent similar conduct from occurring in the future.