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smaddali

463 karma · joined August 29, 2012

Co-Founder/CTO Coris, Inc. YC-S22 ex-WePay,ex-eBay
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smaddali··on Starlink Aviation
I think technology itself is enabler here. Airlines have to figure how to price the convenience of video calls vs privacy/solitude/disturbances to the co-passengers. i think having dedicated video call booths priced per 5 min chunks can address the issue.
smaddali··on The Secret of Nanda Devi
Recently this was in news. There was a rumor that the plutonium device planted in Nanda Devi exploded and caused floods in India. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56102459
smaddali··on Ask HN: Why there are so many cyberattacks?
yeah, there is a definite asymmetry for sure. Bad guys have to get it right once and good guys have to get it right everytime.
smaddali··on TikTok and the Sorting Hat
Eugene mentions that the algorithm is the one that built this latent interest graph and this algorithm itself is worth a lot of money. Given that most personalization is using ML/Deep Learning and various video features like scene descriptions, object identification in each scene etc, Is it really that proprietary to warrant this level of premium. Once the awareness of interest graph could be built to this level of efficiency using usual techniques, Is the algorithm and approach exclusive to TikTok ?

Awesome Insights from Eugene !!

smaddali··on Dropbox sets IPO range $16-18, valuing it below $10B
Are they pricing it for the pop ? Seems like the valuation will be between 7B and 8B, well below 10B of the last round.
smaddali··on Andrew Ng is raising a $150M AI Fund
i thought Daphne Koller taught CS228. probabilistic graphical models. It was very very grueling when i took it in 05.
smaddali··on Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letter
I particularly like the concept of 'Day 1'. No matter what stage you are in as a business or individual, it is still day 1 for rest of your life. Taking long term view , keeping where you want to go in focus is really important.
smaddali··on SpaceX: CRS-10 Hosted webcast
It looked so routine, therefore so exciting.
smaddali··on Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity utility, officials say
from the quick read, it looks like a spear phishing attack at the root of it. --- According to the report by the FBI and DHS, the hackers involved in the Russian operation used fraudulent emails that tricked their recipients into revealing passwords. --- This incident should be investigated thoroughly and serious defenses should be put in place. Destabilizing the electric grid like the Kiev incident shouldn't be allowed.
smaddali··on What Does Any of This Have to Do with Physics?
A quote from this long article.. --- “Now you know what makes theoretical physics so hard,” he said. “It’s not that the problems are hard, although they are. It’s that knowing which problems to try and solve is hard. That, in fact, is the hardest part.” --- As with startups, all startups are hard but knowing which one to pursue and give life is very hard.
smaddali··on The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020
While manufacturing may comeback to US, the employment in Manufacturing sector may not increase as much due to automation.
smaddali··on People's underestimation of AI
"" - Elites will be benevolent overlords who take their stewardship of the species seriously, and we all live blissfully in massive space-elevator-anchored orbiting ring habitats with UBI and free soylent, while the mysteries of the universe are probed until the end of time. ""

Regarding the above, that has been the way of life in the past. Feudal lords took "care" of the folks under their dominion. I think the key is "Social/Economic Mobility". If the people who at the apex can perpetually be at top by using AI and stomping out any challengers then it would be a major problem.

smaddali··on The Tesla Advantage: 1.3B Miles of Data
Looks like data is being collected and probably used in learning algorithms even when the auto-pilot is switched off.. --- The 1.3 billion miles of data Tesla said it has collected represents those covered by its vehicles even when Autopilot isn’t switched on—it operates in “shadow mode,” with sensors tracking real-world data when it’s off. ---
smaddali··on Radeon Instinct – Optimized Machine and Deep Learning
Nvidia 1080 is a good one. Take a look at this write up. http://timdettmers.com/2014/08/14/which-gpu-for-deep-learnin... its updated in July 2016 with info about the later versions.
smaddali··on U.S. life expectancy declines for the first time since 1993
one interesting note is that life expectancy at 65 years of age did not change, Indicating that the diseases behind the lower life expectancy occur in middle age or younger. The reasons behind the decrease. [deaths per 100K population] The heart disease went up from 167 to 168.5 Also'Unintentional Injuries' went up from 40.5 to 43.2.

On the positive side, the contribution of cancer has come down.

smaddali··on Talking to users
Overall I agree with the spirit of the article but 30% could be too high based on the vertical you are in. Collecting feedback when you dont have direct connection to your users ( like you don't have email address ) is hard. Progressively engaging with users and asking/helping them what they want to accomplish will yield lot of insights.
smaddali··on [dead]
this does look like the Uber Ridesharing company. Scott Sassa has ~20% stake and seems like it went to deadpool. http://techcrunch.com/2008/09/26/ex-friendster-ceos-uber-hea...
smaddali··on The Startup That Built Google’s First Self-Driving Car
Regarding Elon Musk being considered as PayPal Co-founder or not. Here is Elon Musk's take on that http://gawker.com/230076/an-alternate-history-according-to-e...
smaddali··on You Are Not Late
very true. PG articulates the "obviuosness" in his essay http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html Founders tend to live in future and build the missing things. Hence these holes appear obvious to them.
smaddali··on Who Needs a Boss?
Do you work at Dunder-Mifflin ?
smaddali··on Facebook Fraud [video]
Having worked on Fraud Detection and Risk Management at eBay previously, I can understand the difficulty in solving this. As it was explained in the video, the fraudsters will want to look like the regular folks as much as possible. I think this is solvable problem. I will not post the features here, My guess FB folks already know how to address this specific aspect of Fraud.

Btw, has anyone had better experience/ROI with FB Mobile app installs ?? How is the effectiveness of those Ads ?

smaddali··on Sony’s 2001 offer from Steve Jobs to run Mac OS on Vaio laptops
In an alternate version of history, It may have been possible for Apple and Sony to seal the relationship and may be co-operate on iPhones and iPad, possibly slowing down Samsung Juggernaut. Well.. you never know...
smaddali··on Lenovo to buy Google's Motorola handset division
I agree with you. This may be a straight up barter with Samsung
smaddali··on Good News You Might Have Missed in 2013
Logically you would think this may help women but .. Let me explain. I come from a part of India which supposedly experienced bad sex ratio in 1920s-40s. I learnt from my parents and Grand Parents that the greedy parents of Women were 'selling' their daughters for higher money to older widowers. Also women were bought from other states. These were captured well in Telugu Drama 'KanyaSulkam' as an effort to get rid of evil. Apparently changes in sex-ratios don't result in correction of power balance.
smaddali··on Revisiting why incompetents think they’re awesome (2012)
I wonder how Dunning-Kruger effect impacts entrepreneurs/Startups. I contend that the founders need to exhibit certain amount of Dunning-Kruger at the initial stages. Otherwise how would one take on any large impossible goals venturing into unknown domains. But when they start exploring and getting into thick of things, they become less and less susceptible to this effect as they get feedback from the system and put in efforts to improve their skills.
smaddali··on Keep Saturdays Sacred
This is awesome. Anything similar in the Bay Area ? I recently quit my job and am working on a project but facing issues keeping myself accountable. Would love to attend weekly sync up like you mentioned.