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derekpankaew

37 karma · joined September 29, 2016

Founder & CEO at Mythia, YC W21. We're launching an NFT in 2022.

YC Badge: 0x37d0c0d40b6544e50d771d12105075eebb128c35

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derekpankaew··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2023)
Listening.io | $140k to $200k | Full-time | 0.5% to 1.5% equity | Senior Software Engineer | San Francisco (Hybrid) Listening turns textbooks and research papers into audio, so students can listen on the go.

We're VC backed and growing like a rocket ship

We're looking for a senior engineer. Primary programming language is Python. Experience with machine learning a plus but not required.

The role involves:

- Improving our PDF extraction functions

- Integrating text-to-audio APIs

- Managing AWS server infrastructure

- Deploying machine learning models

- General backend: performance, reliability, observability, etc.

We move fast and ship things quickly. The code you write will be in users' hands in days. The team is highly technical, no middle management, self-directed.

We meet in SF 2x a week, work from home the rest of the time.

Please contact: derek@listening.io. Please include a cover letter and resume, and why you're interested in the role.

derekpankaew··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2023)
Listening.io | $140k to $200k | Full-time | 0.5% to 1.5% equity | Senior Software Engineer | San Francisco (Hybrid)

Listening turns textbooks and research papers into audio, so students can listen on the go.

We're VC backed and growing like a rocket ship

We're looking for a senior engineer. Primary programming language is Python. Experience with machine learning a plus but not required.

The role involves:

- Improving our PDF extraction functions

- Integrating text-to-audio APIs

- Managing AWS server infrastructure

- Deploying machine learning models

- General backend: performance, reliability, observability, etc.

We move fast and ship things quickly. The code you write will be in users' hands in days. The team is highly technical, no middle management, self-directed.

We meet in SF 2x a week, work from home the rest of the time.

Please contact: derek@listening.io. Please include a cover letter and resume, and why you're interested in the role.

derekpankaew··on Fine-tune your own Llama 2 to replace GPT-3.5/4
Can you clarify the 50x cheaper number? Is this for self-hosting, or if you're hosting on OpenPipe?

The pricing on OpenPipe says it's 0.0012 to 0.0016 per 1K tokens for Llama 7b. GPT-3.5 pricing is 0.0015 to 0.002, so not that different.

I'm assuming the 50x cost reductions are primarily from self-hosting?

derekpankaew··on Addressing the community about changes to our API
Christian's math assumes every MAU is worth the same. He took $600 million in revenue and divided it by 430 million MAU, to get to $0.12 per user.

In reality, the value of a MAU varies a ton by geography (and other factors).

For Meta, in 2023, US and Canada traffic is worth $48/yr, while developing world traffic is $3.35/yr. A ~15x difference.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average...

The typical Apollo user is probably much higher value than the average Reddit user, so the opportunity cost is higher as well.

derekpankaew··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2023)
Listening.io | Flutter | San Francisco, 50% remote | Full Time or Freelance

Salary: $90k to $135k (or hourly equivalent) Equity: 0.5% to 2%

Overview -

Listening.io is "Audible for Education". We turn educational materials, like textbooks & research papers, into audiobooks. We're growing fast, and are looking to hire a Flutter engineer.

Our entire team is technical, with no middle managers. You'll get to play with some of the latest technologies in your day-to-day work, including GPT-4 and text-to-speech APIs.

Finally, you'll also own a big piece of equity in a fast-growing, VC-backed startup.

Requirements -

You'll need to be able to single handedly own everything in the mobile app. That means we're looking for someone with a lot of Flutter experience, including fully developing every part of an app.

Although 95% of the work is in Flutter, we do need to bridge into native code ~5% of the time. So we're looking for experience in Flutter, as well as Swift, Kotlin, and native development (XCode / Android Studio).

This is a 50% in person position, so it's local to the SF Bay Area.

To apply, email: hello@listening.io

derekpankaew··on Galactica: an AI trained on humanity's scientific knowledge (by Meta)
LOL wut.

Question: Why can't we go faster than the speed of light?

Answer: This is a misconception. The speed of light is the maximum speed at which information can be transmitted. It is not the maximum speed at which objects can move. Objects can move faster than light, and in fact, they do. For example, the speed of light is about 300,000 km/s, but the speed of a jet airplane is about 1,000 km/s, which is much faster.

derekpankaew··on Withdrawals from BlockFi continue to be paused
You can't prevent someone from sending funds to a crypto address.

An address of an insolvent company may not be able to legally return funds; i.e. once they receive funds they may have a fiduciary duty to distribute them in a certain way, for example by order of a bankruptcy court.

tl;dr: They may only be able to ask people not to deposit, but not prevent them from depositing. And if users do deposit, they might not be allowed to give it back.

derekpankaew··on Ask HN: What piece of code/codebase blew your mind when you saw it?
YOLO v3's paper is hilarious. The model was state of the art at the time, yet it's written in a tongue-in-cheek way:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.02767.pdf

derekpankaew··on Coinbase employees petition to remove execs
What happened to the petition? It looks like it was taken down. I'm curious what the backstory is?
derekpankaew··on Algorithms for Decision Making [pdf]
I'd love an audiobook version!
derekpankaew··on The Scientific Paper is Obsolete (2018)
I hope the "trend" of researchers writing for the public, via books & blog posts, can contribute some incentive towards being clear and intuitive.

I'm thinking about the success of Freakonomics, Thinking Fast and Slow, The Elegant Universe, etc. These are all academics, who've "translated" their research for the masses. That translation ended up being much more impactful - and prestigious - than an intimidating paper.

I hope this becomes more of a trend, and an incentive structure, in the future.

derekpankaew··on Ask HN: Own .com for 7 years, a new company trademarked my name registered .NET
Dropbox ran into a similar issue, but they were on the other side. They wanted Dropbox.com, but someone else owned it. They kept running under a similar name for a while, until Dropbox.com started advertising for their competitors. Then they threatened to sue Dropbox.com, and Dropbox.com sold the domain to them.

There's a really interesting episode on the Tim Ferris podcast, where Drew Houston shares the story.

derekpankaew··on In 2019 40% of San Francisco traffic fatalities are from left turns
This website makes me really dizzy. It scrolls horizontally and diagonally as you scroll down?
derekpankaew··on Lead poisoning among US children
They just got a slap on the wrist? It seems like there should be much heavier penalties for spreading a neurotoxin ... ...
derekpankaew··on Why don't you accept donations?
It sounds like the amount of work he'd have to do, to be rewarded for his work, was not worth the work.
derekpankaew··on You click a link to a news site, to read an article that seems interesting
News sites don't view people as "users" but as "pageviews". Clickbait and SEO drives pageviews, and you monetize pageviews by getting the highest payment per impression.

This obv comes at a long term branding cost - but only large brands like New York Times can really afford to care about the long term. Most news sites are commoditized and barely surviving these days =/

I don't agree with the practice, but I also kind of understand why it's there.

derekpankaew··on YouTube suspended my account for posting DeFi hackathon video
I had a similar experience with AdWords. Then they randomly re-activated me about 5 years later.
derekpankaew··on Don't send your Google phone in for warranty repair/replacement
You lost your Google account by sending your phone in for repairs?
derekpankaew··on Ask HN: What's your current favorite programming font?
Monaco, Visual Studio Code's default font.
derekpankaew··on Boox Mira Pro – 25.3" E Ink Monitor
Wait for it to show up on Amazon Prime, then use the 30 day return policy as a method to try it out?
derekpankaew··on Google removes Pirate Bay domains from search results citing Dutch court order
The headline is a bit misleading. Google's only removing Pirate Bay from Netherland results, not global results, due to a local court order. That makes a lot of sense - Google complies with local laws in many countries.
derekpankaew··on Show HN: Motor Admin – No-code admin panel
FYI, there's a typo on the home page: "Motor Admin allows to launch a custom admin panel for any application."

- It's missing a "you"

derekpankaew··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2021)
Mythia | Android Developer | Remote or San Francisco | Full Time | https://www.mythia.com/

Salary: $60k to $110k USD | Equity: 0.25% - 1%

Mythia is a rewards card for gamers. Instead of airline miles, users get free PlayStations and video games. Users can team up with friends and tackle weekly challenges for more rewards.

Our leadership team is highly technical. We have 90%+ unit test coverage, well documented APIs, a smooth CI/CD process, and 1 week sprints.

You will be fully responsible for our Android app. This is a unique opportunity to own a mission critical part of a fast growing startup.

We're funded by Y Combinator, as well as the founders of Tinder, Nerd Wallet, Scale.ai, and more.

Interested? Email us with "HackerNews" in the subject line: careers@mythia.com

derekpankaew··on Show HN: Listen to any web article in your podcast player
I've been using this almost every day for the last month. I try not to read any article the moment I see it now, and instead just send it to my podcast player.
derekpankaew··on Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?
The Remarkable tablet!

It has completely replaced paper for me. Diagraming, reading, etc. I waited 5 months for the device, and it was definitely worth the wait.

derekpankaew··on Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google
The demand she made was for her manager to share the names and comments of everyone who reviewed her paper.

> Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities of every person who Megan and I had spoken to and consulted as part of the review of the paper and the exact feedback. Timnit wrote that if we didn’t meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an end date. We accept and respect her decision to resign from Google.

Source: https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a...

derekpankaew··on [dead]
The user doesn’t have to enter weight. We use a device called an InBody, which can measure weight as well as body fat %.

Body composition is used to determine if users are on track towards their goals. It’s a more accurate metric than weight, because muscle is more heavy than fat. If you gain muscle as you burn fat, you can actually stay at the same weight. So measuring body fat is important.

derekpankaew··on [dead]
Thank you! That was my thought as well. Also, tracking body fat % was really difficult, and I wanted that integrated into my gym experience also.

Overall I think the reaction has been good, though there's been a little bit of pushback. I'm curious what your reaction is?

derekpankaew··on [dead]
We're in San Francisco, 5th and Folsom.

The personal training market is about 8B and the equipment industry is 5B, but the gym industry itself is about 85B per year. That's consumers paying gyms money, rather than gyms buying equipment.

So we're going after a fairly huge market :)

derekpankaew··on [dead]
Hi HN!

We’ve been working hard on this for the last year, and I’m super excited to share this with you guys.

We built an A.I. powered gym. At our gym, everyone works out in front of smart mirrors. The mirrors demo how to do each workout, counts your reps, gives you feedback on form, and adds gamification. We use computer vision to automatically track workouts. All the data is pulled to a smartphone app at the end.

Essentially we built a gym that gives everyone a personal trainer, for free.

Happy to answer any question! :)

Derek

Technology Note: Our tech stack includes ML models we’ve trained from scratch, including YOLO-based object detection models (for tracking dumbbells & barbells) and Hourglass-based pose estimation models. Happy to answer any questions about our tech.

Technical demo: https://youtu.be/4a_U00KZ7uo

Privacy Note: All our inference is processed offline, no data is sent to cloud providers like AWS. No personally identifiable visual exercise data is ever stored, on our servers or cloud servers.