Major Wins, Major Losses

#announcements #ai

This is a retrospective on my wins and losses in AI research and development. It's a work in progress and will be updated as I reflect on my career. The list isn't exhaustive, I just track the ones that are most memorable.

Major Wins

  • Got Assistant Research Professor position at Duke on second application (2017).
  • Invited to speak at Duke Provost's Forum (2019, 2023).
  • Invited to present at Stanford HAI workshop on Benchmarking (2019).
  • Invited to keynote NeurIPS BIAI track on red-teaming and bias in ML (2020).
  • Invited to keynote ICML BIAI track on disinformation in AI (2022).
  • Received grant from Open Philanthropy for agentic AI R&D (2023).
  • Eyeo Festival Curatorial Fellow (2022)
  • Nominated as Visiting Researcher at Constellation for AI safety work (2023).
  • Invited to speak at Constellation Visiting Researcher Forum in Berkeley (2023).
  • Received grant from Open Philanthropy for ARG (2024).

Major Losses

  • Rejected from Assistant Research Professor position at Duke on first application (2017).
  • Made it to the final round at OpenAI but wasn't selected (2019).
  • Withdrew from the HuggingFace interview process after they asked for more work examples (2020).
  • Rejected from Google (2021).
  • Passed on contributing to Anthropic's RSP (2024).
  • Rejected from Y Combinator (2024).
  • Unselected for the UK AISI grant (2025).
  • Unselected for the Lauder Institute Slingshot grant (2025).
  • Rejected from Y Combinator (2025).
  • Rejected from countless VC pitches (2023-24)