I’m a computer scientist interested in self-improvement.
- now: working on AI infrastructure at Google
- 2020: distinguished engineer, head of ML at Lacework - a promising cloud security startup, raised $2B @ 8.3B, acquired by Fortinet. I trained foundational GNNs for detection across lots of log data.
- 2018: EIR @ rocketship.vc - I explored using RL to train agents to trade based on market microstructure: see deeptrade/
- 2013: Chief Scientist+CTO, C9/Insidesales - one of the first companies to apply ML to sales data. Acquired by insidesales.com (grew to ~800 people, ~$1.5b valuation)
- 2012: founder, featurestream - I built a streaming ML system but decided against building an MLaaS company.
- 2009: founder/CTO, Acunu - a streaming data analytics company, acquired by Apple. We built a streaming analytics engine on Cassandra and worked on cache-oblivious indexing algorithms for SSDs.
I was previously an academic:
- 2008-13: Fellow in Computer Science, Oxford (St Johns College. Took a sabattical to found Acunu.
- 2006: PhD Computer Science, Cambridge University (Systems Research Group). Thesis: Compact forbidden-set routing
I enjoy working with deep technical VC firms:
- neotribe.vc - technical advisor since 2018
- tiny.vc - founding LP, highly active seed/preseed fund in EMEA (eg Wayve, Sorare, ..)
- rocketship.vc - built company embedding models
- pioneer ai fund - LP, post-YC AI fund
I grew up in the UK and live in the Bay Area. I play drums and I rowed for Cambridge men’s lightweights.