Moving to California nearly a decade ago was one of the best decisions I’ve made. It feels fortuitous that I’m here for this generation of AI, having missed the web and mobile eras. I know we’re still at the top of the AI hype cycle, but it feels like seeing the vague outline of a massive structure through the fog. You can’t make out the details yet, but you know it’s something big.
My career has taken me through studying electrical engineering, verifying chips, building virtualization for data centers, deploying Kubernetes in large enterprises, scheduling jobs across CPUs, GPUs, and TPUs, and creating abstractions over distributed systems. Connecting the dots, I’ve consistently gravitated toward vertical integration, open-source software, and building developer-friendly products.
It’s this path that has led me to this point and a whole new chapter.
I’m excited to share that I’ll be building and leading the inference product at Together AI. Inference is where models come to life; powering everything from chatbots to copilots to generative tools. I’m betting on open-source models and openness in AI. We know the fallibility of security by obscurity, which is why I believe open models and open weights lead to better outcomes for everyone.
As this graph from The Information illustrates, tokens are the currency of the time we live in, and it highlights the rapid growth of Together AI and the broader AI landscape.
I listened to Eric Vishria from Benchmark on Turner Novak’s podcast recently and he made an observation that I thought was astute. In the AI world, product management has flipped. While previous wisdom was to listen to what users want, the fact that AI is evolving so quickly means the technology itself dictates what products and features can be built, before users even know what’s possible.
Together AI is building a world-class team and product, shepherded by some of the strongest researchers and executors I’ve met. The pace and scope of what they’re building is unmatched among startups at this stage. That’s what it takes to thrive in a rapidly changing, intensely competitive market, and I’m here for the ride.
I’m deeply grateful for my time at Temporal. It’s a rare experience to work on a product that users adore and it’s not just the product I’ll remember, but the people who made it so special.
There’s so much to explore at the intersection of open models, infrastructure, and developer experienced. If you’re thinking about these spaces too, or want to trade notes on where things are headed, I’d love to hear from you!