Daniel Shorr (Reactor ‘22)
Hometown: Beijing, China
School: Stanford University
Work: ModulusLabs
Contact: Twitter @realDanielShorr
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What inspired you to work on what you are?
At first, a joke. Seriously. Something so obviously impossible that we could only consider seriously because we are entrepreneurs. And well, it’s our job to consider what others would overlook:
- Blockchain = really expensive compute. AI = massive compute. So… AI + Blockchain = a bad idea / an extremely contrarian bet
More earnestly though, it was really each other. I know it’s super corny, but it’s the truth. Unsurprisingly to the wiser amongst us, we ended up pursuing a problem area that we were most equipped to tackle, found the most inherently interesting, and were therefore most motivated to understand. Unlike our past product, Kontra, where 3 awkward guys effectively tried to become popular by building their own social media app… (it didn’t work)
We ended up tackling a really, really hard technical problem. And our bona fides? Ryan comes from a background of academic AI research, Nick has been an industry practitioner for years, and I worked on FPGAs in aerospace. And so, of course, now we’re doing accelerated AI proofs on Ethereum. It makes so much sense looking backwards…
Start-ups are not easy. Why work on one?
My overinflated sense of ego? Just kidding haha…
Quite frankly, because I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else. Or at least liking myself very much while doing something else. I grew up as a “white” only child in China, constantly reminded of my American-ness. That is, before moving to the states for high school where I was constantly seen as “the Chinese kid”. My parents have had a very difficult relationship, and I barely saw my father growing up (he’s a traveling salesman). We also moved every single year for over a decade while I was in Beijing. So… a lot of movement and chaos.
I guess between growing up a mixed kid, seen as a constant outsider, and learning to rely more on my friendships given past difficulties with my folks… somehow being an entrepreneur became the only job that fit a kid who had a hard time fitting anything else.
What do you think the next ten years look like?
Hehe lots more of right now: not enough sleep, a lot of stress, tons of unbelievable highs and unimaginable lows, a lot of learning, regret, joy and anxiety. Oh and a lot of fun :)
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Daniel was a part of Floodgate’s summer Reactor cohort. If you or someone you know may be interested in joining next summers’ cohort, feel free to check out the link below or contact us at reactor@floodgate.com
