Caleb KM

Want a preview of what I'm going to be talking about in my keynote for RubyConf? You can catch a glimpse of it here!

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What's going to happen to NVIDIA now that they've reached 3tn market cap? For the current employees and long timers... I've read stories of mid-level engineers who reportedly earned more than $60M via stock appreciation. Imagine the numbers for the more senior folks. How will NVIDIA keep folks around who are post-economic? And for all the new folks... The value proposition is complex. The company is the most valuable (by market cap) in the world. If they are heavily compensated via RSUs, the assumption is that there is significant remaining upside to be gained. It's incredibly difficult to continue orders of magnitude stock appreciation after reaching the absolute zenith... NVIDIA is an obvious tech darling - it looks and feels like a version of Google in the mid to late 2000's - but I'm really interested to see if the immense financial success of the stock will end up driving out the core talent group (eg, the long timers who are now mega rich) while also limiting access to new upstart talent who don't see a path to outsize financial success. Curious what others think!!

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Today, I am inspired after reading about the young people in Hawaii who have made significant strides by fighting for their health, safety, and the future of their home. Please take a moment to read this short article about their climate victory: "Hawaii Transportation Youth Climate Change Lawsuit Historic Settlement" Despite not having a title with the word "climate" in it, I am making it my goal to incorporate climate responsibility into my day-to-day work. I work in tech for a medical device company, but there are considerations I can make about how to implement software, keeping digital waste in mind when designing systems, and more. Everything we do has the potential to influence how we function within our global context. Merely initiating conversations about climate change is a step in the right direction. As I learned in my time taking the Terra.do Climate: Learning for Action course, every job is a climate job. Similarly, each of us has a role to play in our daily lives. Stay informed, and don't be afraid to ask questions! I look forward to being more active in these discussions and hope to share inspiration within my personal circle as well. It's intimidating, but exciting!

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Today, we’re publishing our biggest piece yet.   We partnered with Puzzle to write about the next generation of accounting tools.   Our CEOs, Alex Lee and Sasha Orloff, explain how AI can turn accounting from a repetitive chore into a major source of business intelligence.   They cover everything from decreasing costs to improving accuracy and enhancing customer support.   We also hear from Fouad Farhat of Soma Capital—an investor in both Truewind and Puzzle—about the current state of accounting, and where it’s headed.   📌Check out the full article here: https://lnkd.in/eUzvZjTm

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Love this piece by Will on refining engineering strategies, however the advice applies to so many endeavours (for example, you could easily replace the word strategy with product in what I’ve written below) The idea of “fire bullets, then cannonballs” perfectly aligns with strategy testing. Bullets represent small, low-risk experiments—designed to validate hypotheses and gather precise data without overcommitting resources. Once a bullet hits its mark, you can confidently scale up, firing the “cannonball”—a more significant investment or initiative based on validated learning. This approach ensures that your team refines its strategy iteratively, reduces wasted effort, and focuses on actions with proven potential to deliver impactful results. It’s a disciplined, data-informed way to allocate resources effectively. It then follows that as part of the refinement process, we need to focus on understanding failure patterns, learning to identify when a strategy isn’t working, and iterating quickly. This means aligning teams around clear metrics and ensuring outcomes reflect both technical and business goals. https://lnkd.in/erSd6EvX

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The newest issue of The Pragmatic Engineer found a surprise uptick in eng hiring in the typically slow summer season - I'm curious to see how the macro environment impacts this uptick as we head into the fall, but I remain hopeful. I asked Gemini to give me the tldr of the article to share with my team (sorry, Gergely Orosz) and found it missed one of the most interesting pieces of the article. Gemini's highlights - Unexpected surge: Tech recruitment has seen an unusual spike in June and July, contrary to typical trends. Increased demand: Startups, especially AI-focused ones, are driving the hiring uptick. Global phenomenon: This trend isn't just limited to the US; Europe is also experiencing increased recruitment activity. Reasons for hiring: Companies are backfilling positions, investing in growth due to improved financials, and responding to increased VC funding. Challenges remain: While the job market is improving, finding qualified candidates and offering competitive compensation remains difficult for many companies. What I found most interesting - The nature of the backfills: the article finds that a lot of new headcount are actually backfills of folks that were "over-slashed" during rounds of layoffs. Not entirely surprising with the "trim the fat" and "rebuild lean" mentality, but interesting nonetheless. Either way, the uptick is encouraging (and don't always rely on Gemini's tldrs). #hiring #startups #VCbacked #softwareengineering

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Best trend I'm seeing at Notable re: #GenAI – yesterday's users/non-engineers are becoming tomorrow's builders. 🔨 The cost and skill required to build is dropping so rapidly, the need to write a spec is becoming obviated. The flow is the spec. Since Notable opened up our platform with Flow Builder, we've seen this accelerate even more. But you can't just be a wrapper on Anthropic/OpenAI. If that's all you are, you're dead 😵 Certain things really matter. If anyone wants to have a conversation about what those things have been for us, hit me up! Also, if anyone wants to help us simplify and optimize healthcare for humanity, we're hiring! 😀 https://lnkd.in/gKJThs37

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Who's got a Waymo experience to share? I just had my first truly bad one. First, I should say I love Waymo. It's not in many places yet, but it's poised to be everywhere soon. The app tells me I've done 26 rides covering 97 miles in SF and mostly it's been an exceptional experience. Apart from some quibbles like getting dropped off a block away up a big hill, it's a zen-like experience and a smooth better-than-human-driver experience on the way to wherever I'm going. But I think we're all bound to experience some hiccups as we journey to the future. In my case, I was taking a trip into the Financial District for an event and I had 6 minutes to spare given the ETA. Then all of the sudden it decides it wants to pull into the left lane, which is filled with parked cars. I sit at first amused at this decision. It pulls up right behind the parked car and waits. Then it goes through a dance of deciding it wants to get back in the original lane (everybody loves to snub a driverless car in traffic!) and pulling ever closer to the parked car ahead. Miraculously the driver of the parked car shows up, loads his trunk and departs with ease. The Waymo decides the next course of action is to pull directly behind the next parked car in the lane. My amusement fades. I call support via the touchscreen. My 6 minute buffer that had evaporated to 1 minute suddenly tells me I'll be 13 minutes late, a driver assistance team is dispatched and on their way. Yikes! Then magically (I think they manually took control), the Waymo behaves like a normal driver and inches back into the normal lane and I'm on my way, arriving 1 minute late to the meeting. So in the end, a bit of time stress for someone who really likes to be on time (I started a time company after all) and not really world-ending. In fact, despite this unfortunate experience, I'll be loyally riding again. And so I guess this ends as a parable about what Product Market Fit looks like. If you can mostly deliver superior experiences, there's room for rough edges. (pictured below, mom's first trip in a Waymo)

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Is this a game changing breakthrough for capturing carbon from the air, yet this isn't front-page news? This innovation could reshape our fight against climate change! Check out the details: https://lnkd.in/gdGf4Kyu

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Its about solving the problem, not 'having AI' in the system. This is from last March, but the Wave 1 vs. Wave 2 distinction does seem to be playing out. Less 'generate me content', more 'synthesize vast amounts of relevant data and aid in decisonmaking or signal extraction'. https://lnkd.in/ehFBFC32 They don't talk about multi-agent systems here, but looking forward to more startups with a focus on leveraging agentic design patterns (https://lnkd.in/ed5rMmFe) to streamline real world workflows.

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🎈Attention!! 🎈 Calling all SWE Technical Leaders with “at least 3-4 years” leading/mentoring teams and handling end to end large scale projects, located in the Bay Area, CA or NY Metropolitan locations, supporting Product/Backend Systems or Machine Learning/Data Science domains, and have “NOT” interviewed with Meta in the last 12 months! If you meet these qualifications, please send me a message to connect and chat about the exciting opportunities at Meta! Last week, we released the new version of Meta AI, our assistant that you can ask any question across our apps and glasses. Meta AI has been upgraded with a new state-of-the-art Llama 3 AI model. We believe Meta AI is now the most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use, and marks a significant milestone in our AI investments. By open-sourcing this technology, we aim to encourage collaboration and knowledge-sharing among developers worldwide, ultimately leading to even more advanced tools and applications. In addition to this, we have made progress towards our vision for the Metaverse, opening Meta Horizon OS - our operating system powering Quest - so others can design more headsets in our ecosystem. This will allow new headsets to be created in the coming years, focused on productivity, entertainment, exercise, gaming, and more. We also announced new product features and styles for Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, including AI integration. These are just a few examples of the groundbreaking work that we are doing at Meta, and we believe that there is no better time than now to join! Learn more about our Meta AI assistant built with Llama 3 here:

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I'm sure there are a few of you out there wondering what I have been up to since I left Cadence. I was lucky enough to join a terrific startup called Metrics Design Automation. I’d like to tell you how wonderful our products are, but it would be better if you saw for yourself. If you have any interest in simulation, please go to www.metrics.ca and check it out! While you're there, watch a couple of the videos we put together that show you how easy it is to get started with DSim.

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Building regulation around AI requires a conversation that supports both innovation and responsibility. I'm happy to see that bills are being drafted and vetoed—it's a process we go through to make things better. I just hope this is a trend that leads towards more bills being presented and more discourse being had in public about this important topic. At the same time, the tech industry needs to think responsibly about guardrails. It's why I'm optimistic about companies like meetsynthia.ai and Squirro who are building real-world solutions today to help organizations leverage Generative AI solutions today while maintaining responsible guardrails. Drew Rayman

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I’m currently working with two incredible founders in early-stage startups, helping them find the tech talent that will drive their visions forward. Lately, I’ve been connecting with some truly brilliant Machine Learning Engineers to support these companies (particularly those focused on GPU/LLM inference projects). Many believe that finding talent is difficult. The truth? Finding the right talent is the real challenge. When a company invests in innovation, the stakes are high. Hiring the wrong person can be costly, but partnering with the wrong recruiter can be just as damaging. Your energy, money, and reputation are on the line when you choose a recruiting partner. I’m eager to connect with more founders who understand that at this critical stage, every hire is vital. If you’re not just looking for resumes but for the right talent that fits your vision, let’s connect. #startup #artificialintelligence #GPU #LLM #techtalent #talent #opentowork #hiring #engineers #chatgpt #AI #opensource #leadership #recruiting #partner #management

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To all my fellow Arizonans in particular… Here’s the Cliff Notes version of why our Silicon State focus on “atoms” in addition to bits is SO on point for our times. The world of atoms shall be underserved no longer. And Avanced Manufacturing (of all kinds of things in all kinds of industries) is right on the $! 🙏🏼🌵🚀 https://lnkd.in/gNbGmPsC

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Some great Roblox insights on this recent Deconstructor of Fun podcast: https://lnkd.in/gjMvFPUQ A few key points surfaced when talking to Voldex CPO Andrew Rose: 1) Genre innovation hits different on Roblox: we're inherently social, and genre mashups that lean into social interactions tend to retain players better. 2) The power of Roblox's community driven development to help any creator get started. 3) Roblox is multi-platform by design, and games that can easily be experienced across mobile, pc, console (and even VR) thrive. Great podcast if you're curious what's driving success on Roblox. #roblox #gamedevelopment

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Yarn workspaces can come in handy and help reduce the tooling overload when working with monorepos that end up publishing multiple artifacts to different destinations and need to handle inter-dependent packages. In this hands-on article let's see how much we could do with just yarn and a few bash scripts without any additional tooling. https://lnkd.in/eyfEJ-br

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