Hi! I’m Richard Demsyn-Jones. I work at Thumbtack, where I manage applied scientists and engineers in our Marketplace and ML Infra teams.

I write a technical blog, Simplicity is SOTA, on machine learning, engineering, and marketplaces. Check it out!

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I am an avid reader of books, papers, articles, newspapers, newsletters — anything, really. See the list below for a sample of the topics I spend my time reading about. I’m always excited to find intellectually curious folks, to share ideas with or collaborate. Don’t be shy about reaching out if you would like to talk or I could be of some help to you.

Machine learning

Learning to rank, neural network architectures, causal ML, recommendation systems, reinforcement learning, feature stores and aggregation, prediction at scale

Software engineering

System design and evolution, programming languages, bug patterns

Leadership

Mentorship, team construction and growth, strategy, process

Mechanism design

Auctions, incentives, game theory

Financial theory

Asset allocation, arbitrage, EMH, market failures, government intervention

Sports analytics

Player and team predictions, randomness and playoff systems, in-game decisions, multi-season strategies

Economic growth and history

Long run growth, innovation, convergence/divergence, the Industrial Revolution, institutions

Moral philosophy

Utilitarianism, population ethics, humanism, capabilities

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