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The Internet is full of software library reviews, hardware reviews, how-tos, and dev blogs. Most of these are either a victory lap, explaining how amazing XYZ is. Some are bake-offs, covering why you should use ABC, or why 123 is better than 456. Others are candid, deep dives into a single project, where a developer chronicles a verbose diary about one single, solitary project. This blog is different.
This is an autobiography of all the countless projects, finished and unfinished, that I’ve at least started to build. Along the way, readers get a shotgun seat into a rollercoaster ride through the pursuits of grandiose visions and delusions. Although each post is a separate project, these narratives span decades and, when combined, they weave the fabric of my mind. Every project spins a thread that oscillates between dormancy and mania. Many people have a false stereotype of the inventor as a Thomas Edison, solely focused on trying lightbulb filaments for years. The life of an inventor, particularly one creating software, is one of extraordinary serendipity. It’s both trial-by-error and trial-by-fire.
This is me. As of writing this I’m a senior manager at Facebook AI leading a project named ReAgent that I founded in 2016. ReAgent lets computers and people work together to make better decisions. The ReAgent AI makes about 200,000,000,000 decisions every day for Facebook, and probably even more than that across all the other companies that use it (it’s open-source at https://www.reagent.ai/ ). Although its been six years since the project started, I can still remember working 24-hour days during the most exciting phase of version 1.0. There’s something surreal about getting to your desk, seeing the morning cleaning crew twice over a span of 24 hours, then leaving with a mind full of new ideas that will have to wait until I could come back in. Before Facebook I worked in research labs across silicon valley, but we’ll get to all that later.
I co-host the Programming Throwdown podcast with Patrick Wheeler. We’ve introduced programming and engineering to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Anyone can grab a tutorial on how to write code, but we let people experience what it’s like to do the job. Our goal is to take “Google” from some ephemeral product to an actual building you can walk into, swipe your badge, sit at your desk, and work at.
The best project to date has been the Gauci Family project. I’m incredibly blessed to have such an understanding wife and amazing family. Even more important than inventing some new project is to take the time to appreciate all of the gifts life has to offer, and be mentally ready for all the challenge life throws in the way.
Let’s talk about some projects!