申请书要求回答的问题
- 为什么设计工具不能更像谷歌文档呢?
- Thiel Fellowship 最初的想法是关于无人机的想法;
- 请描述你参与的团体或活动中,你的角色是什么,你做的具体的事情又是什么?
- 列举你获得的成就奖项;
- 你是否曾经成功的创办过企业、或者参与一个项目、或者领导过组织
- 你曾经面对过的挑战或者风险,你做了什么,表现如何,最后成功与否,这又反映了你什么性格
- 你想做的事情,需要什么样的专业能力知识
- 你最喜欢的人是谁,用6个英文单词或者更少描述为什么,不算名字
- What important truth do very few people agree with you on?
- 你打算如何改变世界?
- 你花了最多时间思考的问题是什么?
- 最后也用 6 个英文单词描述你自己
结构化笔记
- 在 Flipboard 实习期间,每天使用 Fireworks 让我感到很沮丧。
- 为什么设计工具不能更像谷歌文档呢?
- 所以 Evan 和我决定使用 WebGL 在浏览器中构建一个云优先设计工具。
- 我在 Theil 奖学金应用程序中最初的想法是关于无人机的,离创造工具还很远 。
下面是问题的回答
- 在过去的一年里,我非常参与了布朗的计算机科学系本科生小组——简称“ CS DUG”。当我第一次来到布朗大学时,我被同学们所拥有的知识和创造力所折服。然而,我悲哀地意识到,虽然他们很聪明,但大多数学生最终还是为大公司工作,并且在课外没有做很多独立的项目。为了改变这种文化,我在大二的秋天加入了 DUG,并与微软和 Zynga 合作组织了新英格兰学院黑客马拉松(nech2011. com)。有超过120个参与者和20个黑客被提交。
- 今年秋天,我被选为挖掘部的主席,并与我的同学一起工作,以进一步改变该部门的文化。我们主办了关于创业的活动,提供周五的“黑客之夜”(Hack Nights)作为兄弟会派对的替代方案,让学生们可以轻松地宣传自己的独立项目,还参与了一个将于今年春天进行的部门改造工作。最后,我们提高了部门内部对 DUG 的认识,并使我们的会员人数增加了一倍。文化很难量化,但我们已经注意到在课外创建应用程序和考虑创业的学生人数大幅上升。
- 第一名,LinkedIn 实习生 Hackday,2011年
- 2009年,光速创业夏季基金
- 新闻民主党社区青年服务奖: 2009年数学/技术杰出贡献奖
- 我有意选择不提交我的 SAT 成绩作为申请的一部分。我认为 SAT 考试不能很好地反映学生的能力,很容易上当。标准化考试的概念与泰尔奖学金支持的两个价值观是矛盾的: 终身学习和独立思考。我希望这个选择不会使我的申请失去资格。
- 大学一年级后的那个夏天,我在 LinkedIn 的数据分析团队实习。我的导师 Pete Skomoroch 发现了一种创新的方法,可以从 LinkedIn 的个人资料中提取和消除技能的歧义。虽然算法还有改进的空间,但是已经有了一个数据宝库。对于任何配置文件,我们都可以确定每个用户的技能。我们还可以返回每项技能的最多连接用户的有序列表。为了使数据可用,Pete 和我为每项技能开发了信息页面。然而,我们的直觉告诉我们,还有更多的方式可以利用这些数据。
- 我这个夏天的任务之一就是探索使用这些数据的新方法。我设计可视化效果,发现趋势,创造游戏。然后,在六月底,Pete 和我看了一个叫 Robert Munro 的计算语言学家的演讲。门罗刚刚完成了一个项目,他将海地地震后克里奥尔语文本信息的翻译众包出来。在报告中,门罗描述了主要的瓶颈不是缺乏应急人员在海地。相反,他面临的主要挑战是找到能将克里奥尔语翻译成英语的人。
- 这引发了一个想法: 也许技能数据可以用来匹配志愿者和非营利组织。我开始研究非营利领域,意识到这是 LinkedIn 能够解决的一个真正的问题。在数据团队领导层的支持下,我向产品评论介绍了这个想法——“ LinkedIn for Good”。然而,LinkedIn 的一位高管指出,我的解决方案不可能适用于所有非营利组织。我被告知要回到正常的工作中去。
- 我按照他们的指示做了,但是每天我都在完成日常工作后回到项目中。我解决了这个想法中的一些问题,并与 LinkedIn 的市场部副总裁帕特里克 · 克莱恩合作,使得 LinkedIn for Good 成为员工们在 LinkedIn 的第一个“ InDay”上可以参与的一个节目今天,公司所有成员参加的黑客马拉松取得了巨大的成功。超过四十人(当时公司的6.5%)决定使用 LinkedIn for Good。仅仅一天,我们就完成了产品规格,创建了模型,开发了基本原型,设计了验证 npo 的 QA 流程,并定义了一个上市策略。就在我被告知停止使用 LinkedIn for Good 的一个月后,我发现自己在一次全体会议上向整个公司推销这个项目。的首席执行官 Jeff Weiner 称赞这个项目是成功的,突然间整个公司都在讨论这个想法。
- 不久之后,我结束了实习,回到了学校。一开始我担心这个项目会被淘汰。然而,领英聘请了前雅虎“永久性”负责人梅格•加林豪斯(Meg Garlinghouse)领导这项计划。在过去的一年半里,这个项目发生了巨大的变化。虽然我的名字已经不在了,但是意识到我作为实习生所播下的种子已经成长为 LinkedIn 的一个主要创新,还是很令人兴奋的。
- 达·芬奇: 好奇,富有想象力的博学者,懂得美
- 巧克力令人厌恶。甚至它的气味都让我想吐。
- 一位讨厌巧克力的同事,同时也是 Gilt Groupe 的作家,发现霍夫斯特拉大学的一项研究表明,整整2% 的人不喜欢巧克力。我个人的理论是,讨厌巧克力是一种隐性特征——我奶奶也不喜欢它。
- 总有一天我要研究这些现象,找出真相。雀巢公司的科学家在2007年的一篇论文中写道,我的信念是由于肠道细菌的不平衡,但是我不确定我是否相信他们的样本量为11。也许研究人员是正确的,总有一天我的信念会因为科学而改变。与此同时,一块简单的糖饼干或一片新鲜的黑莓派(当然是香草派)就足以让我心满意足。
- 硅谷沉迷于“反向”理念。(最近人们开始称它们为“叙事违规”ーー一样的差别。)这种痴迷源于风险投资公司... ... 如果你对未来没有独特的洞察力,那么成为一个好的投资者真的很难。无论如何,“反向投资者”的说法总是让我感到困扰,甚至在2011年,所以我认为这个回答中的“元反向投资者”应该很有趣。
- 在过去的几个月里,无人驾驶飞行器,又称无人机或无人机,因其在反恐战争中的应用而受到了媒体的广泛关注。然而,无人机技术最有趣的应用却没有引起人们的注意。6月23日,三名持枪男子在北达科他州的一个农场追赶一名警长。作为回应,治安官召集了一大队增援部队和一架“捕食者”无人机。当增援部队在农场周围等待时,无人机确定了嫌疑人的位置,并在头顶上观察。一旦嫌疑犯手无寸铁,警官们就被派到房子里。
- 我将通过为无人机开发更好的软件来改变世界。在 Flipboard 完成学业后,我将与我认识的最聪明的程序员共同创办一家公司,并解决这个问题。与此同时,我正在尽可能多地学习有关无人机空间的知识,并将 ROS ( http://www.ROS.org/wiki/)改装成低端无人机。
- 当我写这篇文章的时候,我完全沉迷于无人机。Evan (他实际上花了很多时间构建/编程无人机)已经在推动我们做一些与 WebGL 相关的事情。在我提交这个应用程序几周后,Evan 说服我,我们不应该进入无人机领域,因为(a)硬件的运行/调试周期令人讨厌(b)规则是一个未知数(c)我们无法想出一个无人机的想法,不伤害人们或侵犯他们的隐私。回顾过去,我后悔写了这篇文章ーー作为一个非常关心保护隐私的人,我不想在这个世界上存在这种技术。
- 1. 隐私的定义是什么? 在开发应用程序时是否有可能考虑到隐私?
- 2. 如何更好地传播内容?
- 3. 谁拥有数据?
- 4. 当任何人都可以操纵视觉数据时,我们还能相信什么?
- I'm a hardworking, innovative risk taker.
原文
When I talk with entrepreneurs that are just starting off, I’m often asked about how Evan and I came up with the idea for Figma. Here’s the short answer:
During my Flipboard internship I was frustrated using Fireworks every day. Why couldn’t design tools be more like Google Docs? So Evan and I decided to use WebGL to build a cloud first design tool in the browser.
While this story is technically true, it’s just one small part of a much longer saga. On the path to the Figma of today, there were so many twists and turns — we did not wake up one morning with a fully formed idea.
Because of today’s attention economy, most of the “founding stories” you hear favor narrative simplicity over a deep dive into the messy, complex and often existential process of starting a company. As a result, first time founders have unrealistic expectations for how long it takes to build something of value.
In the rare occasions where founders do share the messy details, their memory is not always reliable. As a species, entrepreneurs are optimists with very high pain tolerance. We forget the painful parts and skip over key details that no longer serve us.
Given these challenges, how can we accurately tell any origin story? My point of view is that the only “True” way to recount a company's founding is through sharing artifacts from the past. In this post, I’ll share my Thiel Fellowship application, one of the first steps on Figma’s journey. And in future posts I’ll follow Reid Hoffman and Mathilde Collin's lead and share annotated versions of Figma’s Seed, Series A and Series B pitch decks.
Startups are creative endeavors and they usually don’t follow clean, predictable trajectories, especially in the early days. The “perfect idea” rarely comes from fancy spreadsheets and market analysis. My original pitch in the Thiel Fellowship application (below) was around drones — quite far from creative tools! While I didn’t have perfect confidence in what we were going to build, I did know that I wanted to work with Evan Wallace — the TA for several of my classes at Brown and also the smartest, kindest, most humble person I had ever met. A two year program, the Thiel Fellowship offered time and financial resources that enabled us to play and explore. This eventually led to the Figma of today.
The application I submitted in 2011 is below. It’s unmodified except for the removal of private data, even in places that make me cringe. 2020 commentary in italics.
My hope is that by sharing these artifacts, others will feel permission to embrace ambiguity and take a similar path. Despite the conventional wisdom, don’t let the lack of the “perfect idea” stop you. Have faith in your abilities to iterate towards a meaningful product / business even if you don’t yet know exactly what you are going to build.
Submission Timestamp: Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 10:07 PM
Legal Name: Dylan Field
I am applying as: an individual
Optional - Personal or Company Websites: dylanfield.com
Optional - LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanfield
Optional - Publications about you:
- http://www.npr.org/2011/11/30/142893065/the-search-for-analysts-to-make-sense-of-big-data
- http://www.edutopia.org/technology-web-privacy-safety-hacking
- http://www.browndailyherald.com/new-course-tool-links-to-facebook-1.2662356#.TvIjriNWojJ
- http://www.browndailyherald.com/coursekick-revamps-post-registration-1.2669313#.TvIjmyNWojI
- http://blog.linkedin.com/2011/08/03/linkedin-open-hackday/ (see video for short clip of a very sleep deprived interview – I was on the winning team with three friends from Brown: http://hackday2011.linkedin.com/#entry-winners-0)
- http://thecommunityvoice.com/archive_article.php?id=1224&articleType=archive
Optional - Publications written by you:
- http://www.make-digital.com/craft/vol03/?pg=126
- http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/radar-roundup-sensors.html
Education
Currently I am: stopped out of school
Most recent High School, College, or Uncollege: Brown University
I'm currently a... Junior
Please list all the colleges to which you applied for admission: Brown, Olin, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Please list any colleges to which youʼve been accepted for a degree program: Brown, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Were you homeschooled? No
High School GPA and maximum possible GPA: 4.23 / 4
College GPA and maximum possible GPA: 3.75 / 4 (Calculated)
Activities and Achievments
Please describe your activities and clubs, your role in them, and what you accomplished. This needn’t be an exhaustive list. (200 words maximum)
Over the past year I’ve been very involved with Brown’s Computer Science Department Undergraduate Group – the “CS DUG” for short. When I first arrived at Brown, I was amazed by the knowledge and creativity my classmates possessed. However, I sadly realized that while brilliant, most of the students ended up working for big companies and didn’t do many independent projects outside their classes. Hoping to change this culture, I joined the DUG in the fall of my sophomore year and organized the New England College Hackathon (nech2011.com) in partnership with Microsoft and Zynga. There were over 120 attendees and 20 hacks were submitted.
This fall I was elected President of the DUG and worked with my classmates to further change the department’s culture. We hosted events around entrepreneurship, offered Friday “Hack Nights” as an alternative to frat parties, enabled students to easily advertise their independent projects, and worked on a department remodel that will take place this spring. Lastly, we raised awareness of the DUG inside the department and doubled our membership. It’s difficult to quantify culture, but we’ve already noticed a large uptick in the number of students creating apps outside the classroom and considering entrepreneurship.
2020 commentary: it’s worth noting that the hackathon mentioned above was a complete disaster. (They say comedy is tragedy plus time, and nine years later it’s still not funny…) Thankfully, the culture of entrepreneurship at Brown seems to be getting stronger! I’m especially impressed with campus groups like Hack@Brown.
Please list or describe any achievements and prizes. (200 words maximum)
- Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) Engineering Fellow (not publicly announced yet), 2012
- First Place, LinkedIn Intern Hackday, 2011
- Lightspeed Ventures Summer Grant for Indinero, 2009
- The Press Democrat Community Youth Service Award: Outstanding Contribution in Mathematics/Technical, 2009
- Rohnert Park Cotati Educators Association (RPCEA) Scholarship, 2009
- Outstanding Academic Achievement, President's Education Awards Program, 2009
- Sonoma County Science Fair, Student Choice Award, 2008
- 2nd Place Putnam Exam, Sonoma State University, 2007
2020 commentary: To be clear, 2nd place for Putnam was out of the people who took the exam at my local university. I’m not actually that good at math... my biggest regret from my time at Brown is not taking more math classes. (My second biggest regret is not taking RISD classes.)
If you feel any of your answers require context (such as a country-specific issue or an extenuating circumstance), please explain here (200 words maximum).
I am intentionally choosing not to submit my SAT scores as part of this application. It is my belief that the SAT is a poor reflection of aptitude and can easily be gamed. The concept of standardized testing is contradictory to two values the Thiel Fellowship supports: lifelong learning and independent thought. I hope this choice does not disqualify my application.
Leadership Experience
Have you ever started a business, led an organization, or dedicated yourself to a major project?
Yes.
If yes, in 500 words or fewer, please describe the organization or project you started, your reason for starting it, and your role.
I interned for LinkedIn’s Data Analytics team the summer after my freshman year. My mentor, Pete Skomoroch, discovered an innovative way to extract and disambiguate skills from LinkedIn profiles. While the algorithm had room for improvement, there was already a treasure trove of data. For any profile, we could identify the skills each user had. We could also return an ordered list of the most connected users for each skill. To make the data available, Pete and I developed informational pages for each skill. However, we had a gut feeling that there were more ways the data could be used.
One of my tasks for the summer was to explore new ways to use the data. I designed visualizations, discovered trends and created games. Then, at the end of June, Pete and I saw a presentation by a computational linguist named Robert Munro. Munro had just finished a project where he crowdsourced the translation of Creole text messages after the Haiti earthquake. In the presentation, Munro described how the main bottleneck was not a lack of ground responders in Haiti. Rather, the main challenge he faced was finding people that could translate Creole to English.
This sparked an idea: perhaps the Skills data could be used to match volunteers and NPOs. I started to research the non-profit space and realized this was a real problem that LinkedIn had the solution to. With backing from the data team’s leadership, I presented the idea – “LinkedIn for Good” – to product review. However, one of LinkedIn’s top executives pointed out that my solution could not scale to every non-profit. I was told to return to my normal work.
I followed their instructions, but each day I returned to the project after completing my normal duties. I worked out some of the kinks in the idea and partnered with LinkedIn’s VP of Marketing, Patrick Crane, to make LinkedIn for Good a track that employees could work for on LinkedIn’s first “InDay.” InDay, a Hackathon for all members of the company, was a huge success. Over forty people (at the time 6.5% of the company) decided to work on LinkedIn for Good. In just one day, we finished a product spec, created mock-ups, developed a basic prototype, designed a QA process to validate NPOs and defined a go-to-market strategy. Just one month after I was told to stop working on LinkedIn for Good, I found myself pitching the project to the entire company during an all hands meeting. Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn’s CEO, hailed the project as a success and suddenly the entire company was buzzing about the idea.
Shortly afterwards I finished my internship and returned to school. Initially I was worried that the project would die out. However, LinkedIn hired Meg Garlinghouse, the former director of Yahoo’s “for good” effort to spearhead the initiative. The project has changed significantly over the last year and a half. Although my name is no longer attached, it’s exciting to realize that the seed I planted as an intern has grown into a major initiative for LinkedIn.
Short Answer Section (250 words or less)
Tell us about a risk youʼve taken or a challenge you've faced. Tell us whether you failed or succeeded, how you behaved, and how you think this reflects your character.
One week after I graduated from high school, I moved to Berkeley and worked with Jessica Mah and Andy Su on a startup called Indinero.com: the “Mint.com for small businesses.” We coded all summer and built a (very) minimal viable product, but in the end we had trouble raising money. Jessica and Andy offered to make me a cofounder and give me a sizeable amount of equity if I stayed onboard and deferred Brown.
This might sound odd, but I viewed enrolling at Brown as a risk. I truly believed Indinero had a lot of promise. However, at the end of the day I just wasn’t very interested in accounting. My gut told me I should go to Brown so I declined their offer. Today Indinero is by some measures quite successful – they got into YC, received $1.5 million in angel funding and have paying customers. Despite their success, I believe I made the right choice by following my instincts.
What expertise do you have to execute on the work that you want to do?
When I started middle school, I was lucky enough to participate in an annual LEGO Mindstorms robotics challenge. I discovered my love of code through some of the harder tasks like a game called “Woots and Snarks.” After graduating, I helped run the competition as a volunteer and judge.
I chose to attend Technology High School for two reasons: the school’s FIRST robotics team and the opportunity to take math classes at a local state university. If I wasn’t so engaged with FIRST and higher math, I probably would have dropped out of high school. Instead, I formed compromises with my teachers where, provided I kept my grades up, I could skip class and play with robots or work through math problem sets.
At Brown, I’ve taken classes in Robotics and Computer Vision. Outside the classroom, I’ve learned how to process large data sets – a skill I think will be increasingly important as we move into the world of cloud robotics. Unfortunately, I have very limited electrical engineering background and almost no mechanical engineering background. However, I don’t think my lack of engineering background will block progress given the wide range of low cost drones available in today’s market. If it is a problem, I think I can work with others to fill this gap in expertise.
Who is your favorite philosopher, writer, entrepreneur, scientist, poet, economist, or historical figure? In six words or less, not counting his or her name, explain why.
Leonardo da Vinci: curious, imaginative polymath who understood beauty
2020 commentary: OK, so this answer was really cliché
Did you apply for a Thiel Fellowship last year? No.
Two Sentence Pitch
What do you want to accomplish in the next 10 years?
Ten years from now I hope to be growing a disruptive, profit generating company that has made a significant contribution to the world.
What do you want to accomplish in the next 2 years?
Two years from now I hope to be growing a disruptive, profit generating company.
What do you plan to accomplish in the next 3 months?
During the next three months I will travel to Israel, spend two weeks with the Obama campaign and work in a product role at Flipboard. (2020 commentary: I didn’t end up working for the Obama campaign)
Essays
Tell us one thing about the world that you strongly believe is true, but that most people think is not true. If this belief shapes the way you live, tell us how.
Chocolate is repulsive. Even the smell of it makes me want to vomit. Although I have other beliefs that distance me from the majority, no conviction elicits a stronger reaction than admitting I detest chocolate. As a young child, I quickly realized I was not normal. One of my first memories is of a little girl frankly asking me on the playground if I was an alien. Others simply labeled me as a freak.
Even today, my peers are shocked when I reveal this preference. Just a few weeks ago a girl I was interested in dating offered to share her dessert with me. “Too full,” I told her. “Come on,” she implored. “It’s soooo good. Just take a bite.” Finally, I admitted the truth. At first she just stared at me. Then, slowly, she turned away. “We can’t be friends anymore.” She told me.
According to research into hours of baby videos, I have never enjoyed chocolate. My mother tells me the first time I was allowed to try any sweet was on my first birthday. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion. I don’t have any recollection of the incident, but footage shows me happily sitting in a high chair surrounded by family friends. A guest blows out the candles on a large, chocolate cake and I am fed the first slice. My face changes from joy to confusion to visible disgust – then the video ends. I like to imagine that I spat it back out.
Over the years, I’ve been offered chocolate countless times. At first I refuse. Some people, like the girl I mentioned earlier, are persistent. After I tell people that I don’t like chocolate, they react in one of two ways: either they immediately classify me as a mutant or inquire about the condition. Many ask if I’m allergic. I’m often tempted to lie and end the discussion, but the truth is that I’m not allergic. I’ve forced myself to swallow the black goo before and – besides having the impulse to make myself throw up – nothing bad has happened. I just abhor the taste.
While my hatred is rare, I’m not alone. A fellow chocolate hater and writer for Gilt Groupe found a study by Hofstra University that determined an entire 2% of the population doesn’t like chocolate. My personal theory is that hating chocolate is a recessive trait – my grandma also disliked it.
One day I intend to research the phenomena and find out the truth. Scientists at Nestle wrote in a paper from 2007 that my belief is due to an imbalance of gut bacteria, but I’m not sure if I believe the results given their sample size of 11. Perhaps the researchers are correct and one day my belief will be changed through science. In the meantime, I’m perfectly happy with a simple sugar cookie or a slice of fresh blackberry pie à la mode – vanilla, of course.
2020 commentary: Silicon Valley is obsessed with “contrarian” ideas. (Recently people have started calling them “narrative violations” — same difference.) The obsession stems from venture capital firms… it’s really hard to be a good investor if you don’t have unique insights about the future. In any case, the whole “contrarian” thing has always bugged me for some reason, even back in 2011, so I thought it would be fun to be “meta contrarian” in this answer.
How are you going to change the world?
Over the past few months, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, also known as UAVs or drones, have received significant media attention for their use in the war on terror. However, the most interesting application of drone technology flew under the radar. On June 23rd, three men with rifles chased a sheriff off a farm in North Dakota. The sheriff responded by calling in a large team of reinforcements and a Predator drone. While the reinforcements waited around the farm’s perimeter, the drone identified the suspects’ location and watched from overhead. Once the suspects were unarmed, the officers were sent onto the property.
This was the first known civilian arrest conducted with the assistance of a UAV. It has inspired discussion about the way drones may be used in the future to aid police in manhunts or hostage situations. Personally, I am more excited about low hanging fruit that the media is ignoring: monitoring traffic and catching reckless drivers.
Our current method for catching reckless drivers is inefficient. Police officers are distributed to strategic locations and wait inside their car to catch speeding or inebriated motorists. Because the risk of getting caught is low, drivers will often ignore speed limits and simply slow down when they see a police car. If a speed trap is well known it can easily be avoided.
In contrast, UAVs can monitor a much larger area than any single officer. Even with the price of maintenance and gas, drones can reduce law enforcement operating costs and save taxpayer money. The technology already exists to directly replace police helicopters with UAVs. Eventually an officer will be able to control multiple drones and dispatch officers to intercept reckless drivers. It’s not difficult to image a future where traffic control is completely autonomous with drones automatically identifying reckless drivers, recording license plate numbers and notifying drivers when they receive a ticket. Officers would have to be dispatched only in the most drastic of situations.
The prospect of using UAVs in civilian settings faces three limiting factors: software, battery life and the FAA. Battery life is gradually improving and the FAA just approved pilot programs for civilian drone use. However, software needs to be developed so that fewer operators are needed. Among other features, the software also needs the capability to determine how fast a vehicle is traveling.
I am going to change the world by creating better software for UAVs. After I finish at Flipboard, I will cofound a company with the smartest programmer I know and work on this problem. In the meantime I am learning as much as I can about the UAV space and adapting ROS (http://www.ros.org/wiki/) to low-end drones.
This is a crazy idea. I’m looking forward to working with the Thiel Foundation to make it a reality.
2020 commentary: when I was writing this, I was totally obsessed with drones. Evan (who had actually spent a lot of time building / programming drones) was already pushing for us to work on something related to WebGL instead. A few weeks after I submitted this application, Evan convinced me that we shouldn’t be in the drone space because (a) the run / debug cycle for hardware is annoying (b) regulation was a wild card (c) we couldn’t come up with a drone idea that didn’t hurt people or violate their privacy. Looking back, I regret writing this essay — as someone who cares a lot about fighting for privacy, this is not a technology I want to exist in the world.
Additional Section
What questions do you spend the most time thinking about?
1. What is the definition of privacy? Is it possible to account for privacy while developing an application?
I thought at length about the nature of privacy when working as a research assistant to danah boyd, a sociologist studying how teens use technology, during my freshman year at Brown. At the time, Facebook was being accused of exposing user information and obfuscating privacy controls. It’s easy to criticize others mistakes, but when I interned at LinkedIn and Flipboard I realized that baking privacy into a social product is difficult.
In addition, my first question contains flawed assumptions; there is no static definition of privacy. The norms around what is considered private have changed dramatically in just the last few years. While it’s impossible to define privacy, it is possible to define a violation of privacy. A violation of privacy is the delta between a user’s expectations and reality. Therefore, the best answer I have found to this question is to understand and respect user expectations throughout the development cycle. However, I return to this question often in search of a better solution.
2. How can content be distributed better?
For the past century, mainstream media has had a monopoly on the creation and curation of content. Now anyone can post a tweet, start a blog or upload a video. Flipboard has improved the experience of digesting content, but distribution of content is still an unsolved problem. I spent a lot of time asking myself this question and look forward to implementing the answers I’ve come up with when I return to Flipboard. (Unfortunately I can't write about specifics.)
3. Who owns data?
Big data applications are fueled by the aggregation of users’ individual data. Often, the sum is greater than the parts; any individual’s data is almost worthless, but all the data combined is valuable. Should users be notified if data is being collected about them? Do they have the right to get their data back out of the system? I asked these questions and more on a panel at Strata 2011 (http://strataconf.com/strata2011/public/schedule/detail/17602) but we didn’t come up with many answers.
4. What will we trust when anyone can manipulate visual data?
The most mind-blowing paper I read this year was “Rendering Synthetic Objects into Legacy Photographs.” (Karsch, et al, 2011) In the paper, Karsch describes how to realistically insert models of objects into photographs or videos of scenes with minimal human annotation. The results are so good that I can’t tell they are doctored. Words can’t do this paper justice – if you have the time, it’s worth watching a video describing the work: http://kevinkarsch.com/publications/sa11.html.
This paper has huge implications. Currently we regard visual information as universally true – we don’t worry that photographs or videos have been altered. When every person can manipulate photographic reality, we will no longer be able to trust visual data. In the future, how will we navigate trust? Will we develop verification schemes? Rely on centralized authorities? Create new content types?
2020 commentary: not going to lie, I’m kinda proud of calling deep fakes back in 2011.
Tell us, in just six words, why you should be a fellow.
I'm a hardworking, innovative risk taker.
That's it! In the coming weeks, I'll also share our Seed / A / B decks to show how Figma developed over time. If you have any questions about this post, please leave a comment below. Thanks for reading and stay safe!