Published in Nextdoor Engineering·Jul 6Typeahead Search at NextdoorBackground In a thriving community, people are connected to their friends and local businesses. Nextdoor is the hyperlocal platform that mirrors these offline relationships. Every day, through active discussions on the platform, new relationships are formed and existing ones strengthened. For example, a Nextdoor user can create a post like “I…System Design Project5 min read
Aug 2, 2020On Joining NextdoorThere is a Chinese saying 远亲不如近邻 which can be translated into A relative afar is less useful than a close neighbor. a.k.a Take whatever help is on hand, even from strangers. I grew up as an only child in China. Yet, I don’t recall being particularly lonely growing up. Looking…2 min read
Apr 6, 2018The Sad State of Crypto and How a Startup Struggles to Hand Out Free Money to Its UsersThe Big Short There is a scene from the movie The Big Short where the hedge fund manager Steve Eisman (played by Steve Carell) goes on a field trip to Miami to investigate the housing bubble. He speaks to a stripper that owns 5 houses and a condo and who has no clue…Finance6 min read
Apr 10, 2017The Easiest Way to Curate Email NewslettersGreat content is at the heart of any successful marketing campaigns. At ContentDJ, our mission is to create software that makes our customers ten times more productive. We do that by combining the state of the art data science with great design to save our customers hours of time each…Email Marketing1 min read
Mar 15, 2017Alternative to HootSuite Suggestions — ContentDJ Ludicrous ModeAlternative to HootSuite Suggestions — ContentDJ Ludicrous Mode Are you a fan of HootSuite Suggestions? Want an easier way to curate content based on hashtags or keywords? Unfortunately, HootSuite Suggestions had been terminated since February 1, 2017. …Tesla2 min read
May 10, 2016How I solo-traveled the world as a solopreneurHow I solo-traveled the world as a solopreneur It was late August last year in the coastal area of Croatia. I had been workcationing in Europe for three months. The Adriatic sea was calmer than a swimming pool. I was laying flat on my back, floating in the water. Floating…Startup3 min read
Jan 19, 2015WHY CANADA HAS NO BIG TECH COMPANIESToday, I watched a BNN interview with Boris Wertz, one of the leading VCs in Vancouver. You can find the video below. In the interview, Boris thinks that Canada doesn’t have large tech companies. He named two — Nortel and RIM, one dead and the other dying. Here are a…4 min read
Jan 18, 2015Monopoly at Work — the Illusion of Choice at Grocery StoresWhen I first moved to North America from China, I remember stepping into Safeway for the first time. I was awed by the copiousness — there are 20+ different kinds of candy bars, a shelf full of various brands of chips just to name a few. There were so many…2 min read
