2025 Summer TBD

Work

To address the elephant in the room: it was a big decision to leave OpenAI and join Meta. I think there were several factors:

• Although I really enjoyed the work and people on the health team at OpenAI, most of the people who I was really excited to work with when I joined OpenAI, like Barret and Liam, all had left to do new things.
• Meta is a great opportunity to do something new and out of my comfort zone, and it made financial sense to diversify from OpenAI.

At Meta, it was interesting to see a new lab come together, and from what I saw, things were very smooth. The first month or so was a bit slow since the infra was not really working and we didn’t have any data, but work became busy once we had a lot of things in the pipeline. The teams I was on are predominantly Chinese, and I begun to develop an appreciation for the Chinese work culture. People really work hard and see work as a virtue, and don’t seem to pursue extracurricular activities or hobbies as much. I think this culture around work will be a big reason why Asia will be a big player this century.

To focus on work, I haven’t been tweeting much, which is unfortunate because I think writing my ideas in public is one of the best feedback loops. But I hope to get back to it one day!

Life

Birthday party. I threw a joint birthday party with Jerry, and it was great to see all my friends come together. We had it at the FutureHouse event space with a speakeasy, which was an amazing venue. I think people had a lot of fun. Because it was a SF party, I brought Bryan Johnson’s blueprint Longevity powder and protein mix, and it turned out to be a huge hit! The fact that the event was so fun made me want to invite more people in the future.

Left, me with Jerry at the bar; middle, Blueprint drinks; right, with Hyung Won and John Ling.

AI race. With Liam and a few other friends, I did an “AI race”, which was a short relay race in addition to a one rep max bench press and a pull up competition. There is something so fun about a bunch of guys competing in various exercises, especially AI researchers!

Menlo Park. Moving to Menlo Park was a big change, just as I was settling into my life in Mission Bay. Although I used to always think I liked South Bay more, once I moved here I realized that I miss the energy of the city. However, Menlo Park is really good for focusing on work, and it’s a nice area and commute so I can’t really complain. One fun activity I went to a few times was beach volleyball at Stanford.

Left, AI race hosted at the Canyon; middle, Jerry’s housewarming party; right, Great Gatsby party with the cousins.

Left, dinner with Mom at the Vasara rooftop; middle, hanging out with Kevin and Yifei and Bedwell Bayfront Park; right, with Hyung Won at Meta.

Health

I had a septoplasty with Dr. Johnson. The first few days of recovery were horrible! I had a headache and had to breathe through my mouth, which was extremely uncomfortable. Overall, I believe I feel a bit better typically, but not in a “game changer” sort of way. So I’m leaning positive on the procedure overall. In terms of actual measurable metrics, there did seem to be a positive improvement, though sometimes my right nostril is still a bit congested at the nasal valve (outer) area.

PNIF metrics before and after septoplasty.

One thing I tried doing at Meta to improve productivity was to skip dinner. It was an easy choice to make because the dinner at Meta doesn’t taste very good and the lines are long. I need to get my blood checked at some point, but so far it seems that removing the additional burden of a dinner has really improved my productivity, and I tend to feel pretty good. I also started eating a lot healthier food, because the salad bar at Meta is pretty good.