Episode 193 - New Beginnings
Max is interviewed by Aaron about his recent departure from Foursquare (again), the upgrades to the podcast studio, and future plans.
Related Episodes
Episode 174 with Jeremy Kauffman on LBRY
Episode 172 on the Fourth Turning
Episode 52 on the last time Max departed Foursquare
Episode 32 called “Woohoo no work” where Max does a Sabbatical
Transcript
You’re listening to The Local Maximum Episode 193.
Time to expand your perspective. Welcome to The Local Maximum. Now here’s your host, Max Sklar.
Max: Welcome, everyone. Welcome to The Local Maximum. You’ve reached another Local Maximum. Welcome to the show. Something is a little different today, wouldn’t you say?
Aaron: A little bit. Yeah. It feels like we’re in a whole new studio.
Max: Something hit me with a ton of bricks. I can’t tell what it is. But, sorry that was so cheesy.
Aaron: I didn’t know we were doing puns, I didn’t come prepared.
Max: Yeah. Well, you came prepared. Look, first of all, I’ll tell you what’s different. No laptops today. That’s pretty impressive.
Aaron: We’re going analog?
Max: I am going completely laptop-less. We are going to just talk and figure out where this goes. Okay, big announcement for today, which is, well it’s not as big— I’ve made the same exact announcement before, so it feels like it’s not as big as it was last time, but
Aaron: Are you the software engineer who cried wolf?
Max: Yeah, maybe. But, okay so, Friday was my last day at Foursquare. It was, I’ve been thinking about leaving for a long time, and we’re going to talk a little bit about that. And I finally pulled the trigger and now, this is the first time I’ve left a job without having another full-time job. So I am currently — not unemployed. Because I think unemployed means you’re actually looking for another job. I'm just like, I don't know what I am. I'm not retired, I'm still going to work, but taking a little break. Is there another sabbatical like I’ve done in the past? I don’t know. Taking some time to figure things out, which could be good for this podcast, could be good for a number of things. But, I think I just asked you to come up with a bunch of questions for me like we’ve done in the past.
Because back early on in The Local Maximum, there were two episodes. One was Episode 52, where I actually left Foursquare the first time and we talked about why I’m leaving. Because at the beginning, when we started this podcast four years ago, it was a lot of Foursquare stuff. Like I was talking about what I was doing in that company quite a bit. It was sort of an extension of a lot of my tech talks, I would say. And then there’s Episode 32, which was before that, when I was taking six weeks of unpaid leave from Foursquare because I was already starting to have enough, but also wanted to work on some outside projects. And that episode was entitled “Woohoo, No Work!” which apparently a lot of people searched “woohoo, no work” on Google. I don’t know why. I don’t think they’re looking for the episode. But some of them find their way into it.
So, with that, I think I’m just going to hand it over to you unless you have any more questions.
Aaron: Yeah, let’s dive right in.
Max: Let’s have questions before we get to the questions.
Aaron: So first of all, it’s hard to believe that your previous departure from Foursquare was a hundred and forty-something episodes ago? Is that right? Because this is 193.
Max: Yes. Correct.
Aaron: So that’s a lot of episodes. A lot of content between here and there.
Max: We did two two-part episodes which were on the same week, but I don’t think that makes a big difference.
Aaron: So, I guess to get some basic facts out of the way first, how long were you at Foursquare?
Max: So, if you count from when I started.
Aaron: Yeah, this is a two-park. Let's break it down by total tenure and then how long in your since you returned?
Max: Right. So I started on May 30th, I think, 2011. I started on one day and I immediately had to go to jury duty. And then I immediately had to go to the Yale reunion. Remember, we used to do those? The 15-year reunion was canceled. So that was May 2011. So it's been 10 years plus, 10 years plus maybe? Five months, four months? So yeah, pretty much four months. And with, there was a six-month break in between, from, in from February 2019 to, I came back in July 2019.
Aaron: So even with that break taken out, it’s very, very close to ten years of time.
Max: Yes.
Aaron: A decade on the Foursquare team.
Max: Pretty much more than that.
Aaron: If you're counting, start to finish.
Max: Yep.
Aaron: So before I get to a Gotcha Question on this.
Max: Oh wait, you, there’s going to be Gotcha Questions? Okay, so this prepares me for the fake news media. So, all right.
Aaron: You have not been given an opportunity to review these, your PR staff has not crafted answers for you. We're doing this on the fly here. This is the one thing that
Max: Just so you know he is trying to paint an inappropriate picture. He's trying to give you the wrong idea. Don’t listen to him. Okay, go ahead.
Aaron: So, in preparation, I did re-listen to those two episodes to get a feel for what we talked about the last time we were on this merry-go-round. And one of the things you did bring up was your theory of two and a half year cycles and how big events in your career in your life seem to be moving along to that rhythm. You know it’s a miniaturized version of Strauss and Howe perhaps.
Max: It is, it is. We’ll refer to that episode. I have a personal, personal crisis in reawakening. Personal Strauss and Howe.
Aaron: Given that we just established it’s been roughly a ten-year period, it seems like it might fit very well, fit into that two and half year cycle pattern.
Max: Yes
Aaron: And would you say that your, your latest stint at Foursquare, which has just come to an end has fit that rhythm? And if so, what kind of turning would you have struck? Describe it as.
Max: Well, first of all, even though I have these two and a half year patterns, I looked at the cycle, it's not like they're four-fourths, it doesn't have the four-turning cycle that they have. They're all very different. But first of all, so it's a two-and-a-half-year pattern, so sometimes it ends. Sometimes it ends and starts at the beginning of the year, like a New Year's and sometimes right in the middle of the year. And it was scheduled to happen in the middle of the year. I didn't plan anything in particular. I didn’t plan to leave or something. But Dennis Crowley resigned from Foursquare on July 1st.
Aaron: Former CEO of Foursquare Labs.
Max: Yeah, he was on the show. That was the reason why I returned. We should probably refer to that episode as well. I didn’t review it. He left on July 1st. He left on July 1. So I would say that external variable happened, I'd say July 1 is about the middle of the year, wouldn't you say?
Aaron: Yeah
Max: Yeah, like sometimes it’s amazing how these things happen — almost like clockwork. Now, every two and a half year period has a theme. And this one, I don't necessarily want to get into all of it. We can get into some of it. But I mean, you know, I can't, some of them. The theme is productivity. Some of it is innovation. Some of it is excitement. I feel like this one has just been, for me personally, just a crisis.
Aaron: Well, and to be fair, the entire COVID-19 pandemic falls squarely within that period.
Max: Right. Right.
Aaron: So that was just not Foursquare crisis.
Max: No, but I know, it's not just me. But I think I mean, even in 2019, it was just crisis after crisis. And a lot of things that I wanted to get to in this period, I didn't get to, and maybe I've grown in other ways, I feel like keeping the podcast alive has been a pretty significant undertaking. I feel like the last one that I would have considered kind of crisis-like, that was different was the period from, say, mid-2006, to the beginning of 2009. And even though it was really rough to go through that kind of set up a lot of the, a lot of the life and the career moves I made after that. So hopefully, a lot of the things that happened in the last two and a half years could set up a few things for me in terms of projects and stuff. And a few things that look like, are really good jumping-off points for the future.
But I've got to tell you, it's been a rough two and a half years. There were a few high points that maybe we can go into. But yeah, a lot, a lot of rough stuff, too. And so I look back, there are a lot of things I wanted to get done that I didn't and maybe now is the time to kind of turn around and do that and now maybe have the opportunity to do that.
Aaron: We’ll hit on some of that, I’m sure. So one of the things that was mentioned, I think it was in Episode 52. The last time that you departed from Foursquare.
Max: Yeah.
Aaron: You talked about the kind of awkward experience of writing a goodbye email to the company.
Max: Right. I quoted it.
Aaron: And how has that played into your departure this time?
Max: This time, I didn't write a goodbye email. Because first of all, I haven't seen anyone, I've seen maybe three or four people, in person over the last 18 months, they completely shut down the office in the middle of March. And about halfway through my turning, Yeah, I think pretty much. I don't feel connected to anyone there anymore. There are still a few people there that I know, but not very many. I've either reached out to them, and they've reached out to me, but it just seems like when I rejoined, I was really rejoining to work with Dennis Crowley on the labs, on building kind of prototypes, new products, Mars bought audio, which was one of them. So I kind of felt like I wasn't even really working at Foursquare for the last two and half years, I was technically an employee there. But I wasn't really connected with the organization, I was really trying to focus on this one sub-team, which was a little bit separated from the engineering team. Honestly, I've evolved a lot, I've done a lot of early on, I did podcasts episodes on engineering management, and I just was never able to get into it, I was never able to crack into engineering management. So my solution kind of was to just secede from the whole damn thing. And just kind of work with the founder on kind of startup ideas, basically.
Aaron: Which sounds like it was a great solution until it stopped being one. Do just labs technically still exist?
Max: No, they were going to shut it down.
Aaron: Completely dissolved, whether explicitly or just by the nature of the key people leaving?
Max: Yeah, it wouldn't have made a difference if I stayed. So yes. And it kind of makes sense, because it really would not have worked. I left for square initially, because it was kind of frustrating working with the management on figuring out.
Aaron: You're getting back in 2019.
Max: Yeah. And it hasn't gotten better. So, it's not like the only reason is okay, well, if you're working with the founder and the chairman of the board, then, okay, we'll make sure nobody bothers us. But now, it's just going to be back to the same. Back to the same old thing and by the way, a lot of good things to say about Foursquare. I got the Foursquare pin right here. For those of you who are watching the video, I've got this t-shirt here. This is the newest t-shirt. I've got Foursquare Hack Day. Fourth-quarter 2021. I don't remember that happening, but I did get the shirt.
Aaron: It's q3, q3.
Max: So I don't see how you have a hack day when people aren't with each other. Right. It's q3. So it should have probably happened a couple of months ago. I was oblivious. Which is kind of sad. But we used to get some cool things done in those hack days.
Aaron: The work from home virtual versus in-person collaboration thing that I'm sure we could have some interesting discussions on that, and maybe some interesting guests.
Max: I am not good at this new world.
Aaron: It's a challenge, I think for everyone, but there's certainly those who've found better ways to thrive in it than others.
Max: Yeah, for sure.
Aaron: So shifting gears a little bit, and I think we'll come back to some of that. But what do you foresee as potential changes for The Local Maximum coming into this new stage? I know, the last time I think was actually on the sabbatical that the major change was the creation of the website, which is an extensive trove now. And I think when you left Foursquare, there were also some significant upgrades that happened during that period to the website as well.
Max: Right.
Aaron: But any local maximum specific plans for changes, additions, anyway that listeners and viewers should expect things to be different in the near future.
Max: So on the sabbatical, I promised The Local Maximum website and boy did I deliver, if I may say so myself. So now I don't know what to promise, but I definitely want to increase the amount of content. So now we've done shows that have been multiple times a week. I mean, that's a possibility. That's kind of not where I want to go. I don't want to be like, Okay, let's just do more shows. Because there's a certain purpose to the show, which is sort of a forum to speak, it's not really for a finished product.
Like we're talking right now, it's we're talking a little bit off the cuff. Sometimes we do a little bit of research, and I bring on guests, but it's basically a forum to talk about what we're thinking about. I'm actually thinking of just expanding the amount of content that I'm putting out there. And I'll announce it on The Local Maximum.
But one idea I had is to put out lectures like public lectures on mostly math and computer science, and we have this recording studio here. I use this recording studio. I kind of admire people who do that. I admire people who put out math lectures. I've had Henry Abrams on the program, who does those Jewish history lectures, I just feel like it's a good thing to do when people use them. And I have a lot to say, and I have a lot of things to teach. I have a whiteboard right here. So I think maybe I'll do some of that. And then, of course, I could expand the website with more experimental stuff. Now there was some stuff on the sabbatical that I didn't get to or I did
Aaron: I have a question about that, okay, hold that thought
Max: I did get to those. But what I might do, my kind of dream goal, like kind of my dream job is to have work on some of these tech projects that I've been talking about, and which we'll get to in a minute, and then kind of use consulting projects to further those.
I'll only take consulting projects that either I'm interested in, or that further the kind of personal research work that I'm doing now, this research work, I can either just do it personally here. Again, I hate working alone. So I'll probably go over to your house and like, make sure I know, I'm already bothering you with it. But, there's also the possibility of going into academia, but I don't know if that's the right idea. Maybe the pure just work on your own, or possibly hire someone, if you have enough, like consulting gigs, whether it's machine learning or distributed systems or something else. And then put it all together, every project furthers the research and vice versa. And so maybe after a bit, it's kind of really nice.
But one of the things I realized, especially with Foursquare, you really want to own your own stuff after a certain point. Like with Foursquare people asked me for help on the venue database, or what their user is doing, or, you know, The other day, somebody wanted to know, they were locked out in a swarm? Because they thought they were spam. Can you fix it? Yes, I can fix it. But now I can't. But it's just like, I don't really have control over that anymore. And I either want to have, you know, my own systems and my own data stores that I have control over, or build out some of these distributed systems, blockchains, whatever, whatnot, and we can get into that, that are kind of permanent communities, and that those are very difficult to set up because you never really know if it's actually going to be permanent. But like, something that is less dependent on, you know, a single company changing priorities. To build long term stuff
Aaron: The short version is don't expect The Local Maximum daily to be a new feature. But there's high potential for some new types of content, whether that's going to be showing up on the website, or in the Locals. Go to maximum.locals.com
Max: Yes.
Aaron: And that I imagine that would probably be the place where information about new developments would drop first.
Max: Yeah, absolutely. Also, taking suggestions on new development on new angles?
Aaron: Yeah, cuz if you are a member of The Local there, it is a two-way conversation.
Max: Yeah. I'm also thinking maybe I'll try to get more guests and try to get more local people who can actually come into this studio. And, talk and sit in that seat that you're sitting in now.
Aaron: I was about to ask when was the last time you had an in-person recording with a guest other than myself, but I know you've gone to a couple of guests not that long ago to record, in their living rooms.
Max: Right. So I went to Jean Epstein, and I had Jeremy Kaufman in here. So there are going to be a lot of political, liberty-oriented guests. Probably. I'll try to get some computer science or tech. Well, obviously Jeremy Kaufman is very much in the tech industry, one of the most interesting pieces of it that's going on today, but and so that's actually a good kind of intersection. But I think I'll try to get a more eclectic group here. I don't know if I can, are there people willing to travel up from Boston, who are affiliated with one of the universities down there? I don't know, people don't like to go that far.
Maybe they don't like to schlep to New Hampshire. We'll find out though because the thing that I used to be in a really great groove of like sending out emails and getting guests. And I've kind of slowed down on that a little bit as we've gone through a bunch of transitions, which is fine. We've kept the show going just fine. But maybe start getting those guests in a little bit. Maybe you can come in here too. And we'll like, I don't know how if you fit three people in here, like
Aaron: It is a four-sided table. So we can at least fit a third person.
Max: Okay. It might be a little awkward with the two cameras
Aaron: But we've recorded three or more person recordings at the tech retreats before?
Max: Oh, sure. I'm sure.
Aaron: But that's kind of the exception of this.
Max: And this zoom has four sections. Yeah.
Aaron: So we're TechEd up to handle it. Okay. Yeah, we'll see what the future hold might be cool. I was going to say that there's, in this brave new world, with people having been more or less sequestered for the last 18 months, people are going to be, on the one hand, much more hesitant to venture out. But I mean, on the other hand, they might be desperate to go do something, right?
Max: I mean, you know, sequestered is here in New Hampshire, we haven't been sequestered. But basically, I have because my office is in New York, and it's, but essentially, I am now firmly established in a suburban lifestyle. Now, maybe it's kind of an awkward suburban, suburban lifestyle, because it's not like, you know, a family with, you know, a minivan or whatnot.
Aaron: Everybody in the suburbs has two and a half kids and a dog.
Max: But no, I have a town now, which is very different from being in the city. I'm going back to New York City, by the way, in a couple of weeks. And so it'll be interesting to see what my feelings on that is. But, I asked people like people from the city keep saying it's back, and then I keep on responding. Oh, yeah. What about this place? What about that place? And then they're like, it's closed, it’s closed. I'm like, Yeah, I know. It's not that. But, I'm not sure exactly what they mean when they say it's back. Other than that, not as bad as it was.
Aaron: But yeah, I mean, everything is relative, right.
Max: But what I'm saying is New Hampshire's been like when I moved here in February, it was almost normal. And now it's like, completely normal.
Aaron: So you mentioned a few minutes ago, some previous projects and goals. And so I'm going to take you to task on that. So, I know when you announced your six-week sabbatical, you talked about a few things that you wanted to work on, some that you call that by name, and some that you refer to in more generality. So the first one I'm going to ask about is subjective tagging. Did that ever happen?
Max: Right? So I wrote a doc. I remember, like reviewing everything at the end of that, and I got about half the stuff done.
Aaron: Let's take a second and give us the quick spiel on what it actually was for those who haven't listened.
Max: This was like two and a half years ago that I was working on this. So it's hard for me to remember, but actually, it's still a problem that I am interested in, and I might get to solve, which is how do you think about tanking content when it's going to be subjective.
So for example, in Foursquare, if you have a venue that has outdoor seating, I would consider that an objective tag, either it's true or it's not. Now, people might give you conflicting information, like somebody might say, yes, there's outdoor seating, somebody else might say no, but I'm just confident in saying, hey, it's either one or the other and somebody is mistaken. Or whatever their, the tag I got from them is wrong, for whatever reason. And so, you come up with a probability. A subjective tag is something more like, you know, does wood Aaron, would you consider this place to have outdoor seating but outdoor seating doesn't make sense because it's subjective. Such a good place for a first date. Right? Exactly.
Aaron: Is this a good place for a first date?
Max: Right. That one you might want to consider more objective because there might not be too many differences. But yes, now, you might want to consider the subjective right? Would you consider this point a good place for a first date? And then the calculation is not? Is this objectively a good place for a first date calculation given this person? Do I think they would say that this is good for a first date? So that's the idea of a subjective tag, it's now infinitely more complex because it's now tied to a person. But I also feel like this kind of problem is key to a lot of flagging and tagging online, which, you know
Aaron: Is certainly a hot topic issue. Today, at least as much as it was back in 2018.
Max: Yes, for sure. So, I ended up looking into it and writing a doc on it.
Aaron: When you say doc, is this, like a white paper or something a Google Doc, more informal than a little more informal than that?
Max: Yeah. So I had six weeks, and you think six weeks a lot. But when you're trying to do all these things, like reading a ton of books and doing the website, and I read all these Blockchain books and white papers, a lot of stuff going on.
Aaron: It's good to be ambitious. Yeah if you set a lot of goals, and don't hit all of them, at least you still hit some.
Max: Right yeah, so then I ended up not getting into a lot of this stuff in 2019, 2020, 2021, just because of all the stuff that was going on in the world and in my life. So again, that's definitely something that I could pick up. And it's definitely something that could be part of the larger projects that I pursue, I would say that.
Aaron: So the other thing that I think you mentioned, during the sabbatical episode, I don't know if you call it up by name. So new map AI? If yes, if we can't say that publicly, you can bleep that out and post.
Max: We can.
Aaron: So I know we've talked a little bit about this recently. So, this seems like it's definitely on your radar as one of your goals for future development. Right.
Max: So when I said I'm going to have a kind of a research project, that every project I do is going to help improve. That's it, a new map that AI and I actually did a project with that with the NYU, there's a course at NYU Infotech projects, it's actually one of the courses you have to take for the program I was in for my NYU master's degree, where I took six classes at the computer science department, six classes in the business school in this one class, and you're essentially set up with a company or a person, and you're a client, and you build stuff with them.
So I actually did stuff with a small NYU team on that. And, we did a little research on how you could kind of connect, coding, and like database, querying with Slack. So it's basically like you're almost doing it in public. And it's sort of saved as a chat log, which is really cool. And so yes, I'm going to expand on that.
That was in 2019. That was when that luminary job was driving me crazy. And I basically felt like I was dizzy every day. So I barely got through that. But I got through that they produce some good work. And then I even built on their work a little bit, and kind of not so much built on it, but more like, archived it properly before collapsing, and it's ready to be picked up on again, but I never got to it again. Because then Foursquare started and I got into that. And then just as I was ready to pick it up again, the pandemic started, and that really knocked me off, and then a bunch of other things not be so it. But now I'm definitely starting to pick it up a lot more again. And now without this full-time job in the way, maybe I'll be able to pick it up even further. But it's really it's kind of my approach is very much the opposite as to what the startup approach or tech approach is, which is just do the simple thing, and get it working. Because that's how you get things done. Whereas this, I'm just trying to take the long view and be like, I'm going to be doing this for years and years and years, and I'm going to try to build it right from the ground up.
Aaron: So that's a very deliberate approach. Yeah. Do you foresee any quantifiable short to medium-term milestones for that that you're working towards? Or is it still a little bit amorphous for the path that's going to take?
Max: Right. So that's a good question. So the way I describe is it's a new kind of database at first, but the innovation is not like how it stores like a lot of people say, “Oh, the database is faster, it's easier to query”. it's not really about that, it's more a difference in how the data is organized. Because right now you have sort of relational databases, those are very old or no sequel or whatever. So I'm going to organize the data with a very strong and deliberate type system, almost like a programming language. And I think you can almost store code in the database as code like each step is an entry in the database. And I feel like a lot of these systems that work, it's a lot harder, it's very hard to deploy code. But it's very easy to change something in the database. And so I am, I'm looking at that. And I'm also looking at the idea that because it's going to have such a strong metadata system, it's going to be very good at connecting data between people, very good at versioning the data, very good at having collaborations between where does this data come from? who's allowed to add to my collection and all that. And then also very good at like, suggesting here are statistical models you can run on various things, man, essentially, it's going to learn over time it's going to learn it. Okay, the long-term goal is to make it kind of like the personal assistant that Alexa and Siri who's going to talk to me now have never done that actually understands the world in a deeper way. And the long run is the long run, this is kind of cracking general AI.
Aaron: So let's leave it at that. Yes, I'm sure we could have one or a series of episodes going in-depth on an explainer on that. But we'll leave it as a teaser there.
Max: I'm not saying that I'm the one to crack general AI. I'm just saying it seems like a fun problem. Why not do it?
Aaron: So are there any other projects kind of in parallel to that? Any smaller, shorter-term things that you have lined up that you want to talk about?
Max: So I have one academic paper that I was working on. And I should have done it. I was trying to do that during my Foursquare employment, but for some reason, I was unable to sit down and focus on it. But then now all of a sudden, I've been gone for three days, and I'm able to focus on it again. But it's a machine learning paper on how to properly run a Bayesian model when the data has been sub-sampled in an uneven way. So in other words, I want you to learn something and I'm giving you the data and the examples that you need to learn it, but I've told you that I've removed part of it. And so you have to kind of take that into account.
So what you should do is take into account that stuff has been removed, and do the best you can, given the stuff you have, and fill in the blanks. And so I'm basically formalizing the mathematics needed to do that. And we actually did that to solve a problem at Foursquare in causality when we were trying to figure out, you know, whether ads were causing people to go to places, so it actually has real-world application, but I'm giving kind of a more general solution, where it's like, you could have any sampling function, almost any sampling function. And this is how you adjust your equations to make it all work.
Turns out, it's actually not that simple. It's not just like, oh, you multiply by a certain factor at the end or something, no, you actually have the factors that change are actually embedded deep in the equations. But you can write it out. And it actually turns out, if you use a Bayesian framework, everything becomes exactly clear on what to do. And so I've kind of outlined all that now, you're not going to understand the paper if you don't know Bayesian inference if you don't know calculus and things like that. So it's not really going to be for a general audience. But you should be able to understand it. But that's going to come out and maybe, a lot of this I can do more of this stuff. Maybe I can do a video about it up on the whiteboard. But I'm thinking about doing some simpler stuff on the right or they may be like a high schooler can understand it.
Aaron: Work our way up to it.
Max: Yeah, exactly.
Aaron: Is that a solo paper? Will you be the sole author on that?
Max: Yeah, I mean I invited other people to help me but people are busy.
Aaron: And where do you expect that this will be released or published when it is completed?
Max: I'll publish an archive. And I'll also put it on the website.
Aaron: Cool. And I assume this is not your first paper, you have at least one or two others under your belt, correct?
Max: I have a bunch of others. If you go to scholar.google.com and search my name, you can see a bunch of my papers. So none of them are technically peer-reviewed. There are the papers that I submitted to the RecSys Conference, which are kind of connected with the poster. So those are two or three pages describing some of the stuff we built at Foursquare.
Aaron: And for those who haven't listened to our previous episodes. RecSys is the recommendation system conference.
Max: Interestingly, I have not been there since 2016, which is since this podcast started. But I used to go there, I went three times, I went once in Dublin and 2012, in Silicon Valley in 2014. And here in Boston at MIT in 2016. And I'll go probably, again, if it's in the US, or not, I'll go if it's in person, their virtual, if they do another virtual one, they'll forget it. Sorry.
Anyway, I have some papers associated with that. That actually had a bar to cross. It's not a very high bar, because they're like, “We know you're busy and working. So we'll get it.” And then I have the one on the Dirichlet Distribution that's out there that again, I just put on the archive. I tried to submit it to a conference, but then they like gave me stupid reasons why they wouldn't do it. And I'm like, okay, whatever. It's not worth my time. And then there are a few others where I am cited as an author on the paper, but really, I was the guy at Foursquare, who got there who handled their partnership and made sure that they were getting the data they needed to do the study. So they put my name on the paper, but I didn't really write any of it. But I appreciate the call out there.
Aaron: Now, in the world of machine learning and software, are peer-reviewed papers kind of the common standard? Or is it, I don't know how much that differs from medicine, and like the biological sciences and some of the more classical hard sciences where that's a big deal.
Max: I feel like if you work for a company to plan these things, nobody cares. If you want to do academic research, then people do care, but to different degrees, and I actually am not really so certain about to what degree. All I care about is actually coming up with the right solutions that work and that are simple enough to make sense. And so yeah, that's as far as I can go to answering that.
Aaron: I know in academia, a big deal is how often your papers have been cited by other papers. Yes. Is that something that you watch for?
Max: I do, actually and some of them have been cited. I don't know if it's quite a bit, but some of them have been cited like 20, 30 times. But then I look at these other papers. And I'm like, Well, you know, what's there? First of all, why did they cite me? And what's their deal? And then we have a couple of Foursquare patents that are out there. And actually, the paper I'm working on right now is going to reference the latest Foursquare patents. So I have those in my name as well.
I read my patents, they come in the mail. And I talked to some lawyers when I was working there. And then I read what they wrote. And I'm like, “Oh, look, this is what I invented. I have no idea what this is talking about. I have no idea what I invented. It makes no sense to me.” But that's what it looks like.
Aaron: I would assume that even though your name is on those as an inventor or Co-inventor that you don't actually have any ownership over them the Foursquare property.
Max: No, those are Foursquare property. I signed them over to Foursquare completely, but it's nice to have your name on it.
Aaron: Oh, yeah. The recognition is not nothing.
Max: Yeah. Also, I don't really want them. They're not really the kind of things that I wouldn't. A patent is sort of a legal fiction that is like a piece of property that you have for a particular purpose. I have no purpose for these patents.
Aaron: Right. You're not looking to monetize that method or technique in a way that you need to defend it from other users.
Max: I mean, I feel like Foursquare's reason for having it is mostly defensive. But yeah, I have no need for it.
Aaron: So we talked about the internal dock that you did on subjective tagging on your previous sabbatical.
Max: By the way, I have not, I haven't looked at that since then. I did look recently at New Map AI and I was like, “Okay, let's see what I wrote on it before”. So I opened up my document from 2019. And I was like, “Holy crap, I wrote 30 pages. I can't get through that. Oh, wow.” Okay, so I have a lot of reading to get through. And I have a lot of stuff to live up to, as well. Because sometimes you look at yourself in the past, and you're like, man, I was really smart back then? I don't know if I can still do it.
Aaron: So we’ve got New Map AI, which is your big long-term project yet. There’s this academic paper you're working on squaring away. Any other projects you want to talk about? Before I move on to the other big questions here.
Max: No, I'm open to taking projects on but it has to be something that is really interesting. So I have nothing to announce right now. But I probably will, in your future.
Aaron: Cool. So we already talked about new content for the podcast and beyond yet and some potential opportunities there. And this next question you've kind of alluded to, but I'm going to ask it outright. What are your plans for work and or your career going forward?
Max: So I have no idea. I feel like I found success in other ways than what you're supposed to. So like, a lot of times in an engineering career, software engineering there are different levels, right. And then you level up from software engineer to senior software to staff software. I suck at those levels. I feel like I've only been moved up begrudgingly after some arm twisting. And it's like, okay, well, I guess I'm not good at this.
On the other hand, I did a bunch of work. And then the founder of the company was like, “You know, I like what you're doing, I want you to be in my private team.” And then secondly, when I was working on the ad product attribution, I did a bunch of work that I felt kind of fought on it quite a bit. And I pushed for it anyway. And then eventually the CEO came to me a couple of years later, he said, “Thank you for building this attribution product, because that helped us do our $150 million merger deal with placed.” So, I feel like those two facts show that I'm actually good at what I do, I'm just not very good at moving up in the engineering organizations. So why should I play that game? So I have no idea where my career is going or I'm just done with that game, I guess. The next phase is to just build what I want to see in the world. That's it. That's what I'm going to focus on.
Aaron: Let me rephrase that question in a little different way. So are you familiar with the FIRE movement? Not at all. Okay, so it's an acronym. It's Financial Independence, Retire Early. Okay, are you retiring?
Max: No
Aaron: Because you've built your stability, are you walking away from the workforce? And yeah, so it sounds like the answer is no, even if it means for a while you're going to be doing some independent stuff. You're not opposed to returning to working on large projects with large teams at some point in the future.
Max: Right, right. But it would have to be the really right conditions but I'm not retired, first of all, I'm 37 years old. I'm not retiring. I think you said this to me like I didn't like the idea of just not working. It's like you're an adult, you get up, you go to work. Now get up is one thing I don't really get up that early but going to work is another thing
Aaron: You never know, you’ve moved from living in Manhattan, up to New Hampshire, maybe you're just going whole hog and you've decided you're going to move to a cabin in the woods with no internet.
Max: Well, you never know, maybe the next two and a half year cycle that's going to be what happened.
Aaron: But not yet?
Max: No, not yet. I think that I'm just going to try to do it my way now. And, and that's it. Yeah, I don't know what else. I don't know what else to say.
Aaron: Kind of analogous to that. But so that I think the last question I've got on here is any major lifestyle changes you foresee? Coming with this? I mean, you've had a big lifestyle change, like, like I just said, moving from New York, up to New Hampshire, you talked about, instead of being a city being in a town and how that's, that's changed a lot of things in your daily life. Do you foresee a major change in how you're living your life now that you're not, technically, in the rat race anymore?
Max: Yeah. So I mean, I've checked out of the rat race a while ago, but now that I'm not technically employed, there's a little bit more of a fire to be like, “Okay, you better produce something.” And one of the things that I took away from the sabbatical was that when left to my own devices, I eventually got going, and started doing things. So I was like, “Okay, there's a good chance that I don't say I'm going to do something.” And then now, yes, there'll be projects that I say, I'm going to do that kind of get put to the wayside because I get something else. But I'm not going to end up just being totally lazy and do nothing when left to my own devices, at least I hope not. That maybe that's evidence that I won't but so that's the hope actually. But it's going to be different, it's going to be kind of more on my own time. I do need a little bit more structure.
One of the problems with the pandemic work from home thing is there's just not enough structure. I miss a ton of meetings because I don't see everyone getting up and going to the meeting. And then it turns out those meetings are horrible anyway, I mean, okay, I'll tell you one thing that I wrote my exit interview, which I feel bad I kind of let drop some bombs on my exit survey. And I don't want to get into all of them. But one of them I wrote was like, Yeah, forgive me. We're not usually very this crass on The Local Maximum. But I believe I said that the engineering meetings are boring as shit, and make me want to vomit. And it's totally true. So I started, like, now that I'm two days out of it, I started thinking, “do engineering meetings have to be boring?” Do they have to be boring? So I thought about that because they might say, well, well, what do you expect? Blah, blah, blah? No, they don't have to be boring. I've been in plenty of situations where the engineering meetings aren't boring. Why do managers and people who lead meetings choose to make it boring? Or do they not? Maybe they just are wiped out themselves? Maybe it's kind of a sign that morale is kind of low and the people running these meetings have checked out? So I don't know where I was going with that other than that was like.
Aaron: Are you saying you're going to need to have some way of creating structure? That had fallen apart long before.
Max: Right. So I started checking out at the meetings. And so that's another topic that I think we need to get into just a point I wanted to make, the meetings don't have to be boring. But it's good to have some structure where you go somewhere on a schedule, even if it's not five days a week, it could be like, hey, Mondays, I go here, Tuesdays, I go here. And, just so that there's a little bit of a structure to like, get things done, because otherwise, you can end up wasting a lot of time and not realizing it.
Aaron: Fair enough.
Max: I tend to get off on tangents, and then end up at a dead-end and be like, I don't know where I am.
Aaron: So where do we go from here? Yeah, yeah, it's a big change, exciting opportunities in the future. But the exact path to get there is not necessarily crystal clear.
Max: Okay. Yeah. But The Local Maximum is not going anywhere. Well, it's going lots of places, but it's not disappearing.
Max: Yeah, we've been doing this for four years. It's kind of crazy. It's changed quite a lot.
Aaron: And there are precious few things that I can say I've done for that long. Yeah, regularly.
Max: No, I know. You've done some bunch of things. Yeah. First of all, there's a lot of things you've done for longer than four years. Don’t sell yourself short. I can list lots of things. I can list family stuff. You've been a father for more than four years, married for more than four years. You've been skiing for what a million years? 60 years. So yeah, I wouldn't say that. But yeah, that is a long time for this kind of project. To think about it's longer than when we're in high school.
Aaron: Yeah, I was going to say that's a bachelor's degree.
Max: I see no reason to two ends now. I see, if I wanted to start another podcast like that's a particular theme, I might do it on top of this one. And that might be where the additional ones come from. The only way I could see ending The Local Maximum is if we had some other podcasts going. And then we decided to phase one out and do the other one. But it would essentially be very similar. But, I love doing this kind of stuff from being doing radio in college all the way up to now. It's a lot of fun. And it helps me work through issues. And to some people, it is actually entertaining to listen to us. So I kind of like that idea of putting it out there.
Aaron: People who are apparently real humans and sometimes talk to us on The Local. So again, yeah maximum.local.com
Max: Yeah, I really appreciate that, by the way, yes, there are people who are interested in the same stuff that we're interested in. I feel like we present it and try to present it in a way that's engaging. Again, try not be boring. But try to learn something. But, here's to another Local Maximum 2022. I don't know where we're going from here. But it'll be fascinating.
Well, it’ll be very tough to do it without you, by the way. So thank you. I think, I know you probably see that I do episodes and guests, but it would be really hard to do all solos and guests. Because it's I'm either talking to myself, or I'm talking to someone for which there's no like, follow up. So it's much appreciated, Aaron.
Aaron: Well, it's always fun to come up here and talk and sometimes we turn on the cameras and the microphones for it. Yeah. That's all I've got for this episode. I don't know if there's any last words, any last thoughts you wanted to get in?
Max: No, I think I'll listen to this. And then if there's anything else I want to add, I'll just do a solo show later and add again.
Aaron: Excellent. Well, the capstone on a decade-plus at Foursquare. And the two and a half year period. But I think it's going to be the start to some new and exciting projects and opportunities. So yeah, looking forward to seeing that all developed.
Max: Alright. Yeah, thank you very much. And for those of you out there, thanks for listening. Have a great week, everyone.
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