Tesann

Trying to tell people who you are is difficult. Especially while in your 20's.

I grew up in the Washington DC area and moved to NYC to study Physics at Columbia University. Until moving, I was obsessed with fantasy novels and philosophy. I spent a long time wrestling with the existence of God, playing poker, and trying to understand how to spend time well. I also did normal stuff like competitive soccer and video games.

I came to Columbia intending to do my PhD in Chemical or Theoretical Physics, but learned my disposition is not well suited for research. I hadn't appreciated the advantage of genuine passion in my work until I surrounded myself with brilliant minds.

I have distinctly human interests. If you saw my resume, the impression would be that I think solely in terms of data and software. In reality, I only see these as tools. Humans are far more interesting than machines and I want to spend my time thinking about us. Physics, Mathematics, CS are just the constraints of the system.

So what does it mean to have human interests. To me, its a respect for the ineffable qualities of humanity. I'll write more about this, but here are some thought experiments: Mary's Room, Molyneux's Problem, Boltzmann brain.

I plan to spend my career working on frontier tech and I want to ensure this is useful to as many humans as possible. I enjoy thinking about economics, design, and psychology just as much as I enjoy thinking about machine learning and hard tech. What marries these ideas is a obsession with practicality.

I spend my free time playing poker, writing, and thinking about the future.