About

Hi, I’m Saif Ahmed, a proud Brooklyn native. I’ve been a lot of things in life, but i’d define myself as an execution-focused developer, artist, and investor.

On the art front, I’m particularly intrigued by generative models – statistical/AI models which generate original art. My graduate projects at UC Berkeley were on original lyrics generation using NLP and Crafted & Designed by original music generation using LSTM models. Given my professional interests in Computer Vision, and academic interests in generative models, and personal interest in art, i’ve also done lots of generative visual art projects.

I’m also a long-time SLR enthusiast a focus on portraits, candids, travel, and urban grit. Usually EOS 5D Mark III + 50mm portrait / 200mm telephoto and the iPhone XS Max.

Most of my professional career has been as an investor and providing quantitative support for investment. I left Wall Street in 2015 and now invest independently via Maiden Voyage Capital and Maiden Voyage Venture Partners. I devour good books, papers, long-form articles, and podcasts on process and data driven investment. I also love contemporary finance history books!

…and finally tech! I’ve been coding since eight and was blessed to be have grown up in a family that fostered this. I’ve been a tech startup co-founder, and more recently, i’m at a mid-sized tech company leading ML and distributed computing efforts. Tech is my secret weapon – I’m good at it, seriously good. It helps me accomplish extraordinarily difficult goals anywhere I place focus. I get excited by ML+CV for data-driven investments, and CV+ML for smart city, autonomous vehicles, and model government.

Inspiration is found everywhere if you look hard enough.

– The RZA

Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of combining all my interests – tech, travel, photography, and investment. We’ve been privileged to live+travel extensively: NYC, California, Washington DC, Boston, Chicago, London, Germany, The Philippines, and Qatar.

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

– T.S. Eliot

So why the site? To help me become a more precise and thinker. Join me!

Note that all opinions on this site are solely my own, and do not come from my employer, the University, or any portfolio companies.