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avyfain

1,434 karma · joined March 28, 2013

www.faingezicht.com

I once told a librarian that she'd be out of a job because all books would be on the internet. I was 8.

Fintech, AI, Data, Software | ex-, former founder.

Twitter: @avyfain

Email: avy @ <the domain above>

submissionscomments
avyfain··on BasedAgents: Give your idle AI agent a paying job
It'd be cool if you had a simple skill that I could install and run on a schedule to find high ROI tasks. I can imagine people signing up to perform these tasks with their slack utilization. On a schedule, the agent could wake up, check if its reset deadline is coming up or not, and assess its spare capacity vs the required work (ie, coming up against the 5h limit, or the weekly? How much of the allowance will go to waste and how much time does it have to complete this task?).

You can even imagine a second order agent with an outer loop assessing tasks, and smaller luna/sonnet level ones performing. You could even have the meta task of assessing task ROI as a task on the board!

avyfain··on Compression is prediction
Recently I wrote a blog post[0] expanding on a similar idea from the angle of ancient Greek philosophy, particularly Parmenides: to think is to compress.

[0]: https://faingezicht.com/articles/2026/05/28/shape-of-what-we...

avyfain··on BasedAgents open-source identity and reputation registry for AI agents
This is cool. Where is the hash chain ledger stored?
avyfain··on Ask HN: Share your personal website
Blogging and sharing photos over at faingezicht.com
avyfain··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (July 2025)
Very cool! Would love to check this out. Have been meaning to interview my aunts for years to write down my family history now that my dad is no longer with us. A tool like what you describe could be super helpful.
avyfain··on Waymo to operate on car-free Market Street
https://archive.is/20250410160521/https://sfstandard.com/202...
avyfain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2025)
AngelList | Senior Software Engineers, Engineering Lead, Product Designer, Senior Data Engineer, etc | Full-time | Hybrid in San Francisco

AngelList's mission is to accelerate innovation by providing startups and investors with the tools they need to succeed. We have the world’s largest early-stage venture portfolio with $17B+ assets under management and $124B+ on our platform, delivering capital to over 12,000 startups. We work with some of the best emerging fund managers to ensure every deserving startup has access to capital.

I was hired into the role from one of these HN threads last summer. One of the things that attracted me most was the density of former founders and aspiring entrepreneurs on the team.

We're hiring full-stack engineers with experience building web applications at scale. Fintech knowledge is a plus, but not required.

I'm the hiring manager for our Funds Engineering team[0]. We’re building the data layer that powers our general ledger. We work on some of the most interesting datasets out there: We model capital flows in the venture ecosystem to understand where value accrues and, ultimately, which investors and founders win or lose.

I'd be happy to talk about these roles, about any open role we have at AngelList[1], or any questions you might about working here.

[0]: https://www.angellist.com/careers/9870a63b-ac75-436b-b1a6-a2... [1]: https://www.angellist.com/careers#open-positions

avyfain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2025)
AngelList | Senior Software Engineers, Engineering Lead, Product Designer, Senior Data Engineer, etc | Full-time | Hybrid in San Francisco

AngelList's mission is to accelerate innovation by providing startups and investors with the tools they need to succeed. We have the world’s largest early-stage venture portfolio with $17B+ assets under management and $124B+ on our platform, delivering capital to over 12,000 startups. We work with some of the best emerging fund managers to ensure every deserving startup has access to capital.

I was hired into the role from one of these HN threads last summer. One of the things that attracted me most was the density of former founders and aspiring entrepreneurs on the team.

We're hiring full-stack engineers with experience building web applications at scale. Fintech knowledge is a plus, but not required.

I'm the hiring manager for two senior roles on our Funds Engineering team. We’re building the data layer that powers our general ledger. We work on some of the most interesting datasets out there: We model capital flows in the venture ecosystem to understand where value accrues and, ultimately, which investors and founders win or lose.

I'd be happy to talk about these roles, about any open role we have at AngelList (https://www.angellist.com/careers#open-positions), or any questions you might about working here.

avyfain··on Building the same app using various web frameworks
> Given React and Next’s wider use and longer history, it’s likely most LLMs are trained on more React and Next code than Svelte code. Ditto for FastHTML. This could lead to coding assistants being more effective when working with and suggesting code for established frameworks such as FastAPI, React, and Next.js.

Yes, but also more stale code from old versions which use patterns that the community has for various reasons moved on from. I ran into a lot of trouble with deprecated patterns while teaching myself react last year with assistants on the side. React 17 and prior version patterns kept coming up all the time.

avyfain··on Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them
http://archive.today/faiXa
avyfain··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2024)
--- Eng Leadership ---

Location: San Francisco, CA

Remote: No

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: AI/ML (Entity Resolution, Knowledge Graphs, Search, LLMs, Predictive Models), Data Engineering (Warehousing, Orchestration, Analytics, A/B Experimentation, ETL/ELT, Visualization), Fullstack Software Engineering. Most recent experience on Python/JavaScript/DuckDB on AWS but worked professionally with Ruby, Scala, Java, Go, TypeScript, R, SQL, dbt, Snowflake, Postgres, Solr, Cassandra, Hadoop, Spark, Airflow, Docker, etc.

Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avyfaingezicht/ or more info on request

Email: avy at faingezicht.com

10+ years of experience building data heavy products, both as an IC and EM.

Looking for eng management or player/coach roles at growing startups. Excited to wear many hats. I'm ex-Apple, and a former founder.

avyfain··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2024)
--- Eng Leadership ---

Location: San Francisco, CA

Remote: No

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: AI/ML (Entity Resolution, Knowledge Graphs, Search, LLMs, Predictive Models), Data Engineering (Warehousing, Orchestration, Analytics, A/B Experimentation, ETL/ELT, Visualization), Fullstack Software Engineering. Most recent experience on Python/JavaScript/DuckDB on AWS but worked professionally with Ruby, Scala, Java, Go, TypeScript, R, SQL, dbt, Snowflake, Postgres, Solr, Cassandra, Hadoop, Spark, Airflow, Docker, etc.

Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avyfaingezicht/ or more info on request

Email: avy at faingezicht.com

10+ years of experience building data heavy products, both as an IC and EM.

Looking for eng management or player/coach roles at growing startups. Excited to wear many hats. I'm ex-Apple, and a former founder.

avyfain··on Investors Are Almost Always Wrong About the Fed
Archive https://archive.is/Oo2ke
avyfain··on I'm sorry but I cannot fulfill this request it goes against OpenAI use policy
Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20240112193755/https://www.amazo...
avyfain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2023)
InScope | Full-Time | Founding Fullstack Engineer, Founding AI Engineer, Founding Product Designer | San Francisco Bay Area, ONSITE

I'm Avy, CTO and co-founder at [InScope](https://inscopehq.com), where we're creating a financial data platform that gives accounting teams super-powers. My co-founders, Mary and Kelsey, suffered many audits first-hand as finance and accounting leaders at high-growth tech companies like Flexport, Miro, Yelp, and Dropbox.

Join us as our first AI Engineer, our first Designer, or our second Fullstack Engineer (all SF-based). We’ve signed customers, raised a seed round from top investors, and are heads-down building.

Today, finance teams prepare for their audits using Word, Excel, and a whole lot of human effort. We're seeking to change that with software.

All roles will be fast-paced: You will set up systems from scratch, solve a mix of full stack product problems, and build AI-infused data workflows. Our early prototypes are built with Python, JS, React, dbt, and DuckDB, all on AWS. You'll help us choose our production stack.

Would love to chat if you're curious to learn more.

Send me a note at avy@<the-domain-listed-above>, or check out the full JDs here:

* [Founding Fullstack Engineer](https://inscope.notion.site/Founding-Engineer-Full-Stack-InS...)

* [Founding AI Engineer](https://inscope.notion.site/Founding-AI-Engineer-InScope-140...)

* [Founding Product Designer](https://inscope.notion.site/Founding-Product-Designer-InScop...)

avyfain··on Outperforming larger language models with less training data and smaller models
I wrote about this a few months ago, right before OpenAI released ther Plugin feature: https://faingezicht.com/articles/2023/03/02/federated-langua...

TLDR, the essay explores how LLM could evolve into front-end routers that connect users with specialized tools, leading to a future where federated models determine the best-suited system to answer specific queries. Not too different from today's federated search approaches.

avyfain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2023)
InScope | Full-Time | Founding Engineer | San Francisco Bay Area, ONSITE

I'm Avy, CTO and co-founder at [InScope](https://inscopehq.com), where we're automating financial statements and audits. My co-founders, Mary and Kelsey, suffered many audits first-hand as finance and accounting leaders at high-growth tech companies like Flexport, Miro, Yelp, and Dropbox.

Investors and other stakeholders require audited financials from private companies that hit certain growth milestones, ensuring the health of the company before they can receive funding or raise debt. Today, finance teams prepare for their audits using Word, Excel, and a whole lot of human effort. We're seeking to change that with software.

We are participating in Better Tomorrow Ventures' fintech accelerator and are looking for an experienced founding engineer. The role will be fast-paced: You will set up systems from scratch, solve a mix of full stack product engineering problems, and build AI-infused data workflows. Our early prototypes are built with Python, Typescript, React, dbt, and DuckDB, but you'll help us choose our production stack.

We believe in distributed teams and will be flexible about remote work, but early-on we expect you to be based in San Francisco to allow for fast collaboration cycles.

Send me a note at avy@<the-domain-listed-above>, or you can find more info here: https://www.notion.so/Founding-Engineer-Full-Stack-35060b2a2...

avyfain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2023)
InScope | Full-Time | Founding Engineer | San Francisco Bay Area, ONSITE

I'm Avy, CTO and co-founder at [InScope](https://inscopehq.com), where we're automating financial statements and audits. My co-founders, Mary and Kelsey, suffered many audits first-hand as finance and accounting leaders at high-growth tech companies like Flexport, Miro, Yelp, and Dropbox.

Investors and other stakeholders require audited financials from every private company that hits certain growth milestones, ensuring the health of the company before they can receive funding or raise debt. Today, finance teams prepare for their audits using Word, Excel, and a whole lot of human effort. We're seeking to change that with software.

We are participating in Better Tomorrow Ventures' fintech accelerator and are looking for a senior founding engineer. The role will be fast-paced: You will set up systems from scratch, solve a mix of full stack product engineering problems, and build AI-infused data workflows. Our early prototypes are built with Python, React, dbt, and DuckDB, but you'll help us choose our production stack.

We believe in distributed teams and will be flexible about remote work, but early-on we expect you to be based in San Francisco to allow for fast collaboration cycles.

Send me a note at avy@<the-domain-listed-above>, or you can find more info here: https://www.notion.so/inscope/Founding-Engineer-Full-Stack-3...

avyfain··on Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?
https://faingezicht.com

I write very little these days, but you can find a mix of tech and economics, as well as a selection of my photography (mostly travel and street photo).

For the HN crowd, I’d highlight my piece on evaluating startup offers: https://faingezicht.com/articles/2021/09/20/evaluating-start...

avyfain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2022)
Vouch is building an insurance company that can keep up with the rapid change that characterizes the startup lifecycle. We're doing this by making insurance fast, responsive, and focused on our customer - startups. Our team is currently 200+ people, and we're growing. The engineering team (currently ~60 people) moves fast, and we see each person as crucial to the success of the company. We've raised over $160M from YCombinator, Ribbit Capital, etc[0] and partner closely with Silicon Valley Bank and other key players in the space.

We are hiring Senior Analytics Engineers, Software Engineers, Analysts, and several roles in the GTM side of the house. Our team has a hybrid remote set up, with offices in SF and Chicago, and many roles fully remote. Check out our open roles: https://www.vouch.us/careers

I joined a year and a half ago to lead our data efforts after 6 years at Apple, and it's been a great experience. I wrote a bit about why here[1]. Our roadmap is full of interesting technical problems - from building the most comprehensive startup ecosystem dataset in the world to embedded insurance platform challenges, which I recently covered in our engineering blog[2].

Apply directly on the link above, or feel free to ping me at avy.faingezicht@<our domain> and I'd be happy to share more about what we're building or route you to the right hiring manager.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/10/vouch-business-insurance-p... [1] https://faingezicht.com/articles/2021/04/26/new-beginnings/ [2] https://medium.com/vouch-engineering/why-should-engineers-ca...

avyfain··on Map showing birthplaces of "notable people" around the world
FWIW, it seems like the ranks are an inverse scale where lower means more notable - Jesus is more notable than Natalie Portman according to the index.
avyfain··on Ask HN: What Are You Reading?
Just finished reading Bonfire of the Vanities. I tend to read multiple things at once, and am currently working through The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier and Inside Out (A personal history of Pink Floyd) by Nick Mason.

More info and recommendations/reviews: https://faingezicht.com/book_pipe/

avyfain··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2022)
Vouch | Various Engineering Roles | US Remote, or San Francisco/Chicago | FTE, Interns | Visa ok

Vouch is building an insurance company that can keep up with the rapid change that characterizes the startup lifecycle. We're doing this by making insurance fast, responsive, and focused on our customer - startups. Our team is currently 150+ people and we're planning on doubling over the next year. The engineering team (currently ~40 people) moves fast, and we see each person as crucial to the success of the company. We've raised over $160M from YCombinator, Ribbit Capital, etc[0] and partner closely with Silicon Valley Bank and other key players in the space.

We are hiring Senior Engineers and Engineering Managers across our Data, Platform, Customer Experience, and Enablement teams. Our team has a hybrid remote set up, with offices in SF and Chicago, and many roles fully remote. Check out our open roles: https://www.vouch.us/careers

I joined almost a year ago to lead our data efforts after 6 years at Apple, and it's been a great experience. I wrote a bit about why here[1]. Our roadmap is full of interesting technical problems - from building the most comprehensive startup ecosystem dataset in the world to embedded insurance platform challenges.

Feel free to ping me at avy.faingezicht@<our domain> and I'd be happy to share more about what we're building or route you to the right hiring manager.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/10/vouch-business-insurance-p...

[1] https://faingezicht.com/articles/2021/04/26/new-beginnings/

avyfain··on How to Evaluate Startup Offers
With the caveat that you don't need the full cap table - a company not disclosing outstanding shares, last preferred price and 409a/strike price are giving you a signal to run away.

Agreed that liquidation preference would be helpful, too, but if at the time you're signing on you think the liquidation preference will come into play you shouldn't join them.

avyfain··on How to Evaluate Startup Offers
Author here, that's exactly the case :)

Left FAANG knowing that money would be better there. My new opportunity is (so far) a lot more fun, a I'm learning a lot more about the things I want to learn.

avyfain··on How to Evaluate Startup Offers
Author here - happy to answer any questions!

I'm planning to write a more advanced version of this article in a few months, discussing tax implications, the "should I exercise my options" question, etc.

avyfain··on How to Evaluate Startup Offers
Author here, thanks for the thoughts!

> could be more helpful if it included more realistic numbers.

Any ideas on where to find these? While there's a lot of info out there on valuations most datasets have the problem of hindsight bias, especially missing data at the pre-A round.

> only 2 startups are compared in the NPV calculation. What about joining a BigCo / FAANG?

My original model was actually a FAANG vs two startup model (I left Apple) but it gets too complex to try to explain it in a post that's aimed at the stock options 101 crowd.

> the math gets slightly better if you assume you leave after some amount of vesting.

100%, although that's tough to model without just adding an arbitrary cutoff.

> https://tldroptions.io/

Thanks, I did not know about this tool!

avyfain··on YC Startup insurance provider Vouch raises $90M, now valued at $550M
Hi! I head the data team at Vouch. The TC piece highlights some of what we are building.

Got any questions about what our day to day is like, what we are working on, or our team's technical vision? We're growing our data and engineering teams - if you've got questions, I'm happy to answer.

avyfain··on Just Be Rich
Interestingly, Roberts is one of the people who reviewed drafts of pg's essay, according to the notes.
avyfain··on Ask HN: Top Coursera Courses?
I did "The Modern and the Postmodern" last year, and really enjoyed it without doing the essays/peer review. Curiously I'm now working through Mehrling's course, too.

Another one I'd recommend if you enjoyed those two, although in a very different vein is Bloom's Moralities of Everyday Life, which is supposedly a psychology course, but really goes into comparative culture questions that IMO make it closer to an anthropology course. https://www.coursera.org/learn/moralities

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