UperSpaceGuru

We’re building the future of business communications that AI first. Lots of fun NLP and applied AI. Our tech stack is a little complex(By necessity and sometimes due to the inherent shortcomings of a fast moving startup), but a fun challenge for those looking to sink their teeth into fun technical challenges.

Our team is highly motivated and while we have a presence in Silicon Valley (South Bay), we’re a remote-first company.

Our Backend stack is Python, Postgres based Dokerized microservices

Our FrontEnd comprises Vue.js, Angular 2+ and we have a desktop client in C#

We’re a very small and scrappy team (<20) with a solid business model with a software engineer turned serial entrepreneur at the helm.

Please apply at: https://CallSumo.com/careers

Another giveaway is the awarding of the Ig Nobel Prize & then citation of that fact as evidence of the study’s credibility & importance at the end (masterful comedic move if it was intentional)

https://twitter.com/ahmedrezat/status/1162081845170671616?s=...

Update: FYI, my qualm wasn’t about AmazonFCs, but seeing the business end of Amazon try to put a distressed driver back on the road immediately after a very serious accident. The person who contacted me from Amazon told me that the driver was not put back on driving duty that day (so at least someone paid attention). So it’s not all negative.

Apparently it’s been benchmarked doing even better speeds. There was supposed to be new satellites launched over Europe and Asia, but at the time, this was the fastest one.

Disclaimer: opinions above are my own. I do not speak for or on behalf of any party in the article.

I was one of the people who helped build the system (not at Viasat)

Maybe I’m failing to see the magic here, but it doesn’t look significantly different from what’s already out there.

That being said, this article just seems weird. Ofcourse it’s a company that’s “cult like”, if it weren’t, it’s just be another shared office space provider. WeWork is definitely tapping into something unconventional, maybe even a market that other traditional real estate guys just don’t see.

As Reid Hoffman might say, they’re Blitzscaling. Sure it may not be efficient, but if done right, WeWork will emerge as a new kind of market leader a la Amazon, Uber etc. Instead of moving to Silicon Valley, it may be that innovators around the world join a community like WeWork.

My info is maybe 10years old, but I doubt much has changed.

These infrastructure type things are incredibly complicated. Not in the “Newfangled” framework way, but rather the business implications of real world impact of potentially bad code.

I consider it one of the highlights of my career going thru the Delta Northwest Merger without shit hitting the fan. We were writing decrementer & while loops instead of for loops because there was a measurable performance & stability impact.

There’s something to be said about software that has withstood the test of time.

I’m impressed that the team is able to handle outages as well as they do. Having had some experience working with the folks at Delta & Northwest, I’d say they’re pretty impressive people. I’d be happy to steal some for my startup if they’d be willing to part with the flight benefits & tenure.

Full Disclosure: I was not a Delta Employee, but worked for a startup that built the checkin systems (which got acquired by NCR). I got to work with Delta as a client.

However, I know things look good on paper and don’t always pan out that way once you’re actually there.

One of the things about SV is that I don’t fee quite so out of place and weird for wanting to work all the time.

I certainly count myself fortunate to be able to afford to live here with my family. But I can't see the value of moving people to the area (as I was contemplating moving team members from out of state here). Even at six figure salaries they'd have to share an apartment to be able to save anything at all.

- Better weather, but LA is arguably nicer & less expensive.

- Better community of techies who somehow inspire you to do better? After being here for a year and attending meetups and community event, I know for a fact that's not true. Despite the density of people here, people are surprisingly disconnected, chance encounters are rare at best. Most of the interactions seem shallow at best and conversations often seem transactional.

- Better job prospects for devs? I guess for a software engineer it'd come down to better job prospects, but to be honest, it's not like the rest of America sucks for software jobs.

- Better social life? This may be availability bias as I am not single and live in the 'burbs with my family, but every single person I know seems pretty miserable & isolated. A couple of them actually moved out of the area because of the poor quality of human interaction/dating. It seems everyone works all the time. (Which works great for me as I'm on the employing side).

+ If you run a tech company & have enough money to move here and hire from the local talent pool, it's a decent proposition.

+ Relative to other places in the country it's pretty diverse and progressive

Some might say access to VCs and funding etc, but that seems to take some pretty serious effort and it might be a better idea to make the hike up from Gilroy or Hollister and not spend a 6 figures in rent for the privilege.

I think the area is beginning to emulate the inequalities that I saw growing up in a 3rd world country. The amount of homeless working people in the area is mind boggling. It seems like most people in the area are just too busy/too successful to do much about it (I include myself in this group unfortunately). California has been having an exodus of residents, but mainly middle class down. I don't see how this is sustainable long term.

*https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_script...

I agree with some of the comments regarding Google being a big co & having big co issues. But at the core of it, the team, the offering & attention to what matters is solid.

It's certainly going to open up a whole new realm of possibilities.

I actually had my idea stolen, by a better funded company (yes it involved AI). But that made me even more of a believer.

Even though this other company had far more engineers & was able to replicate a seemingly copycat product after I refused their buyout offer, their execution sucked(which was a key reason I refused, rather die broke than work for a company that think engineers need daily beatings to be exploited properly by great “business” minds)

However, they were VC backed & their board made them shut the product down and we ended up getting all the customers they brought on in the copycat product.

The people behind AIGrant.org have solid geek creds & given their backgrounds can probably come up with more creative ideas than trying to scrape ideas off the web the offering large bounties.

What’s really awesome to witness is that here’s a coupe of geeks actually “executing” on their vision. I’m a little jealous because I should’ve stared something like this, but instead I’d rather just support AIGrant.org because building & executing even benevolent ideas take a ton of effort.

The real challenge with senior positions is adjusting to new environment/dynamics, not to mention the expectations that come from "legend" status. I'm not a legend, but I certainly had a much easier time in the earlier stages in career just focusing on the tech direct. When you're the hot new hire, a certain group at the new company expects a lot form you, while others who have been there longer think it's just hype. (I'm assuming something similar happened at Tesla).

Wish him all the luck on the new adventure! And being an AI geek myself: NO AI cannot solve everything. Not even close. (at least for now)

Sentient machine conversations are straight up funny to me. Still, I can't help get over the cool/geek factor of working on Machine Learning/Deep learning or exploring new algorithms that could significantly improve the field.