I could not tell if this is a hobby project, or the product of a research lab. Does anyone know? Very cool stuff. It would benefit from some institutional support.
The person behind Zest runs an interesting blog/work journal, I recommend subscribing [1]. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that they don't have a full-time job. Instead they do some amount of consulting, and then spend most of their time and intellectual energy working on their projects. Which is pretty cool I think.
[1] https://www.scattered-thoughts.net