Meet the duo behind Augeo, a global legacy of loyalty 27-years in the making.

David Kristal and Juan Sabater don’t fit the typical co-founder mold. One is a gut-driven entrepreneur who learned business on a restaurant floor. The other is a former Goldman Sachs Managing Director with the financial discipline of someone who moves billions for a living. They met as Stanford Law classmates. They’ve been friends ever since. And for nearly three decades, they’ve been quietly building one of the most consequential loyalty companies in the world with 100+ Fortune 500 clients, millions of users across 180 countries and businesses built and sold to giants like JPMorgan Chase.

Today, they’re betting the company on AI - but not as a feature, as a complete re-architecture of how loyalty is defined.

But hold on. Queue the record scratch.

Before we get to the part where the two Stanford Law friends rewrite the future of catalyzing commitment, we need to back it up. Because the real origin of Augeo doesn’t start at Goldman, and it doesn’t start at Stanford. It starts in a Minnesota greasy-spoon diner. With a burger called the Emberger.

Stay with us.

The diner that started it all

Embers, founded in 1956, was a Minnesota institution - a 24-hour all-day-dining chain beloved for its breakfast crowd and its now-mythical Emberger. By 1998, it was hemorrhaging cash. The bleeding had to stop, or the Open signs were getting flipped to Closed. For good.

David Kristal, recent Stanford Law grad, son of founder Henry Kristal, took the CEO seat on a rescue mission. Not as legal counsel. Not as the dutiful son. But as the guy with a theory nobody in the industry was testing: What really moves people?

He empowered bussers, managers, and servers to rebuild the brand from the inside. He ran more than a dozen raw, low-budget TV spots that traded polish for honesty. Cash burn halved in 18 months. Henry later said, “David made more mistakes in that first year than I made in 40.” He meant it as a compliment.But saving the restaurant was never the real prize. The real prize was the obsession with the customer experience that David walked away with. Nordstrom had become famous for refunding a customer for a car tire - a product they never sold. David turned that into a mantra: “If a customer wants cheese and bacon on their car tire, you find a way.

”That obsession needed a vehicle. Leveraging Embers’ purchasing power and management DNA, David launched a co-op buying platform - Foodstreet Plus - to help independent “Davids” compete against the national “Goliaths.” It quickly outgrew its origin. In 1999, with $3 million from angel investor Lyle Berman, Augeo was born.

Which brings us back to Juan.

The partnership that changed the trajectory

In 2006, Juan Sabater left his Managing Director role at Goldman Sachs to join David as partner and Co-Chairman. The two had stayed close since Stanford, and Juan had been watching what David was building. He saw what most didn’t: a company with the right question and the right instincts that needed the right partner to take it global.

On paper, they were a study in contrast. In practice, they were two players running the same playbook - both refusing to accept the way things were as the way things had to be. Juan brought financial discipline, strategic foresight, and an uncanny ability for spotting and scaling opportunity. He took the wheel on the acquisition engine that catapulted Augeo from regional player to global powerhouse.Together, they built and sold businesses in all sectors of loyalty and engagement - workplace, consumer, offers and benefits, experiential and social. Among them: AmpliFI (acquired by Lightyear Capital in 2018), Figg (acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2024), Kigo, Augeo FI, and others. The model never wavered: build boldly, prove value, evolve relentlessly.

Today, Augeo serves over 100 Fortune 500 companies and millions of users across 180 countries. And the question driving every decision is the same one David first asked in a failing diner in 1998: What really moves people?

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The audacious zag

In 2025, David and Juan made another decision that felt familiar in its boldness. While the rest of the loyalty industry treated generative AI as a bolt-on feature, Augeo saw a once-in-a-generation chance to redefine the category itself.

After more than a year of what David calls “radical immersion” in generative AI, the duo committed to a full re-architecture: reading real-time behavioral signals, building “audience of one” experiences at enterprise scale, and personalizing at a depth only AI makes possible - but delivered in a way that feels authentic and unmistakably human.

“We didn’t have a perfect roadmap, but we had unwavering conviction. We moved fast, broke traditional models, and leaned in heavily before the ‘how’ was fully clear. Figuring out what people want has always been the goal. Truth is, it wasn’t possible to do at scale before AI. Today, for the first time ever, we can decode what moves people. We call it Frontier Loyalty.”

— David Kristal, Founder & CEO“

This launch is a manifesto for how people and brands connect. The future of loyalty is bigger than any single program – it’s the connective tissue across every relationship a brand or organization has, with employees, customers, communities and the people who choose to advocate on its behalf. AI is what lets us build those connections with depth, in real time, across every one of those audiences at once.”

— Juan Sabater, Principal and Co-Chairman

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The integration of next-gen AI-powered insights into performance management represents a transformative leap forward. By harnessing the power of advanced analytics, organizations can enhance their performance management strategies and ensure a more engaged, productive and innovative workforce.

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The thread

The 27-year thread comes down to one belief that has shaped every move at Augeo: a refusal to accept the status quo as the destination – and a conviction that it’s only a stop along the way to something far better.

“During times of massive transformation, the status quo gets remade. Those that are the most agile, most imaginative, and the fastest, will be part of the remade order. That has to be us!”

— David Kristal

This is one of those moments. The reorder is already underway. The brands defining the next era of loyalty will be the ones approaching it with the urgency it deserves.

Stay tuned. Augeo is an ever-evolving story - and like you, we can’t wait to see what happens next, as this page-turner unfolds at the pace of AI.