I'm currently an independent AI researcher and startup advisor with a background in language models, intelligent workflows, and humanoid robotics.
My current focus is on latent space models for workflows — including differentiable programming approaches for LLM workflows (see my post on optimizing tool selection for LLM workflows) and compiler design for AI-native programs (detailed in from prompts to programs).
I started the Selvedge project, an open source LLM compiler that helps make it easier to work with prompts using signatures and optimizers.
I write about how AI is reshaping the world — not just the technology, but its ripple effects on power, systems, and human agency. I’m interested in the future of AI and agents: how it challenges old structures, creates new dynamics, and redefines what it means to be human in an increasingly automated world.
I led all user facing AI engineering and product at Dropbox, including Dynamo, their new product incubator. I also founded Myra Labs in 2016, one of the earliest deep learning chatbot companies, long before LLMs became mainstream, where we built an entire language model based conversational QA system, selling to customers such as Lyft and Square.
I previously took a couple of years away from AI and started a decentralized platform for artists, scaling it to 10,000 users with over 70% retention before it was acquired by Arweave. Think of it as "Twitter subscriptions" for Bluesky. I currently work as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Forward Research Labs.
My career started with building search engines at Bloomreach and studying humanoid robotics at Yale — both different ways of asking the same question: how do machines understand us, and what does that say about us?
The internet has done a great job capturing my actions over the years for posterity:
GPG Fingerprint
Key fingerprint = 012D 51B8 067B D1D9 2E62 ECA9 9356 2A44 FA2E 77D2
You can find the key to use (FA2E77D2) on MIT's PGP server.