Mar 15An Example of How OpenAI’s GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 Sometimes Produce Quite Different ResultsUnless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve heard of ChatGPT — In its own words (prompted by me, of course) it is an “artificial intelligence (AI) tool, created by OpenAI, designed to chat with us just like a real person. The secret to its success is something called the GPT, which stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer.” It’s an AI model that…Chatgpt5 min readChatgpt5 min read
Sep 9, 2020Verifying Advertisers on Facebook & InstagramOver the past few months, people have asked me about Facebook’s advertiser verification process: who we verify, how we do it, and where we’ll go next. First, let’s start with what Facebook already does. We require a wide swath of people and businesses to go through some sort of verification…Advertising4 min readAdvertising4 min read
May 29, 2017“The transformation is everybody’s job”If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing. William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 — December 20, 1993) Years ago I discovered Genichi Taguchi and the work he did to help move manufacturing towards a model of continuous, incremental improvement (more…Quality3 min readQuality3 min read
Feb 1, 2017Why we sold Optimal’s technology to SovrnMy first company was also called Optimal (after we first called it XA.net, that is). My cofounders and I started THE NEW Optimal with the idea that we would give people a way to block ads while still paying content providers. I’d seen publishers struggle with online ads. I’d seen…Advertising6 min readAdvertising6 min read
Jan 12, 2017Moving Back to the SF Bay AreaI’m starting a new role at Facebook in February — In a few weeks, I’ll be joining Facebook as a Product Director on the Ads team, where I’ll be focused on protecting people’s trust in Facebook’s business products. …Advertising2 min readAdvertising2 min read
Nov 22, 2016Headlines Count As Much As Articles Do!Why we should delete tweets if an article title is corrected — This was something I wrote 4 years ago, on 11/24/2012, seems even more relevant now: Has this ever happened to you? Someone writes an article with a salacious headline, you click and read the article only to discover that it’s really NOT what you thought it would be, that the…Social Media4 min readSocial Media4 min read
Nov 10, 2016Advertisers Don’t Care About Fake News SitesNot yet. Soon, they might demand action from ad networks — Buzzfeed wrote “How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News”, and that their primary motivation is economic and not idealogical or political. …Advertising2 min readAdvertising2 min read
Oct 30, 2016Let’s Support Websites AND Avoid AdsHere’s a way you can do both at a realistic price — A good friend told me this week that they subscribed to the Washington Post and were surprised on their phone to see the same page-hogging ads. “I’m a subscriber, surely that means I get fewer ads or no ads instead? Huh.” My single-article visit to a major website is probably worth between $0.01 and $0.03 to them This is assuming 5 ads on a page, at…Advertising5 min readAdvertising5 min read
Oct 5, 2016The Startup Ego BubbleThe folly of making your personal identity = that of your business “I became unethical, that’s it,” he said, tearfully. “I totally lost perspective.” … [his] financial fraud victims includes investors and retirees, his colleagues, associates, old college roommates, his nanny, and even his mother.” Financial advisor sentenced to nine…Venture Capital5 min readVenture Capital5 min read
Aug 15, 2016Escaping the Tragedy of the CommonsThe plight of the bluefin tuna (and our online attention) — The average mature Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis) measures 1.5m in length and weighs over 60kg (130 pounds) but specimens twice as long and 7 times as heavy have been seen. The Pacific bluefin lives for up to 26 years, and can move through the water at up to 30…Environment5 min readEnvironment5 min read
