Hi! I’m Richard Demsyn-Jones. I work at DuckDuckGo, after stops at Thumbtack, Google, and Capital One.

I write a technical blog, Simplicity is SOTA, on machine learning, engineering, and marketplaces. Peruse the archives or subscribe to receive new (infrequent) posts.

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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. Don’t be shy about reaching out if you would like to chat about a shared interest or if 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, LLMs

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

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