about svmg | about me

how i think:

one of my favorite cultural eras is the punk and post punk era of the 70s-80s.

this era was the first to merge graphic design, music, and fashion.

all three of which are things that i love.

(my favorite hobbies are staring at art, listening to music, and buying clothes that i can't afford)

my obsession with this era led me to love counter culture.

i was initially drawn to the startup scene as I viewed it as a form of counter culture.

however the scene seems to now be heavily saturated.

with individuals that view the role of a founder as an accolade or a job title rather than a calling

and with venture capitalists with too much capital to deploy; attempting to index culture.

fortunately; there are many individuals that do not fall into these buckets — these are the kind of people i love to spend time with.

i am drawn to people that don't conform to the status quo — people that think and act in ways that are true to themselves.

people whose work and actions are a reflection of themselves and what they wish to see in the world.

(aka people that are dope as fuck)

the main things that i look for in people that i am friends with or work with are that they

• are kind

• are authentic

• are thoughtful

• have integrity

• have high agency

• have purpose

• care about their friends, family, and community

• care about their work

• consistently learn

• constantly grow

(in no particular order)

i do not give a shit about networth, status, or accolades.

i do not enjoy the company of sociopaths or grifters.

i enjoy spending time with good people.

i strongly believe in the phrase "kill your heroes".

i absolutely detest the concept of following pre meditated paths in an attempt to emulate "greatness"

the only way to become great is by being great

art:

i love learning about and experiencing how other people experience life.

so i am absolutely obsessed with art.

the list of artists and pieces i adore is too long to include here

but at the moment i love hedi slimane's work at dior, saint laurent, and celine,

tom ford's work at gucci,

helmut newton's photography,

john galliano's haute couture collections,

basically everything nadia lee cohen does,

pierre paulin furniture,

and henri alexander levy's enfants riches deprimes.

i'm also obsessed with lighting, flowers, furniture, and colors.

in my free time i like playing with synths and working on street art.

"experience":

in the past i worked on an organization called internetactivism.

we built software for humanitarian crises such as wars and earthquakes.

our thesis was simple.

in a world where more people have access to cellphones than toilets:

when humanitarian crisis occurs — a crud app + media coverage + the internet = lives saved in an efficient manner

this organization was scrapped together and very fast paced.

it did not last for a very long time.

but it allowed me to learn a lot about how people respond to crisis, the power of media, and working with people from various backgrounds.

some projects we developed at internetactivism include:

takeshelter - an airbnb style platform that enabled refugees to seek shelter provided by an international community of volunteers.

this platform was deployed for the ukraine war, turkey-syria earthquake, and sudan civil war.

hyperlocal - an uncensorable, untraceable, messaging app powered by bluetooth mesh networking.

this app was meant to grant the public the ability to communicate during internet shutdowns and humanitarian disasters.

the app is nearly complete but still needs rigorous testing in large group settings.

unfortunately as IA no longer has full time employees to manage and maintain this project properly — it will not be released for the foreseeable future.

(i would prefer to not treat involvement in geopolitical conflicts as a side project)

if you are reading this and are interested in taking over, please do reach out.

the code is open sourced.

more recently, i worked at shack15 to kickstart their venture studio.

i primarily worked on a business focused on vector databases and embeddings.

as a byproduct of working for what is essentially a social club — i had exposure to many interesting people, spaces, and experiences.

i learned a lot about people, management, context switching, and perception vs. reality.

at the same time i completed my undergraduate computer science degree at the university of michigan.

this entailed watching lectures remotely and flying back to Michigan for exams. (do not recommend)

getting home from work at 9pm and then having to watch a lecture and do a computer vision problem set is not a very fun experience.

some side projects i have worked on include:

• alexandria - open sourced embedding datasets of all the research papers on arxiv (as of May 2023) and all religious texts.

• saker - a visual and multiplayer version of the chatgpt interface - inspired by figma and google docs

i am now at greylock, primarily investing in consumer.

—

if you

• want to talk about what you're building/creating

• want to talk about art

• know someone or something that should be documented

• want to talk about life in general

feel free to reach me via email or twitter.