(no title)

arun rao

i co-lead a large team of product managers and research engineers working on ML recommenders and ranking models at Meta Core ML; we serve 3.6 billion people. i’m also a university lecturer at UCLA, teaching a class on advanced product design.

i spend my time thinking about real-world uses of ML, crypto, internet protocols, APIs, incentive mechanisms, contemporary art, and design.

i write the Substack letter Hash Collision, where i report on developments in AI/ML, science, tech, culture, economics, and ethics. i co-wrote “A History of Silicon Valley, 2nd Ed.“

in the past, i led an applications and platform machine learning team at Amazon Music in San Francisco. prior to that, i was a co-founder of Starbutter AI (Skydeck F17) and a quant debt and derivatives trader at PIMCO. i’m still a licensed attorney in the Wyoming State Bar (the Equality state, where women first got the right to vote, and LLCs and DAOs to exist) and was formerly a CFA charterholder.

i’m a grad of UCLA, Penn/Wharton, the University of Arizona College of Law, and the Indiana Academy.

i like books, running, yoga, math, grammar and style, dead ancient languages, modern computer languages, black hole physics, bears, cacti, and pad see-ew.