Tessellating in London
Summary: Along with my long-time best friend Dion Almaer, I’ve joined Tessl, a developer AI startup, and I’m moving to London with my family.
Earlier this year, a friend and I nearly founded a developer AI startup. Near enough that I started asking folks in my network for counsel. One of those was Guy Podjarny, a dear friend I’ve known since 2010. “Ben, just so you know, I just quit my job and founded a company to do something very similar to what you’re describing.”
Fast-forward a few months, and my family and I have decided to do something pretty crazy: I quit Google, and we’re moving to London so I can join Tessl, the startup Guy founded. Guy and I nearly worked together a few times before this, and I’m delighted we’re finally making it happen. And, my family and I have always been up for big adventures — such as living in Hong Kong for the summer of 2016, and travelling across the Americas, Europe, and Asia through the years — and relocating to His Majesty’s kingdom will be our biggest one yet.
So what’s the story with Tessl?
We all know generative AI is a true disruptive innovation. Is it just getting started, or are we already in diminishing returns territory? Guy and I, and the brilliant band of ~twenty other Tesslers that have joined this venture, believe that we’re just getting started. The destiny of genAI isn’t just to augment the efforts of software developers; we think there’s enough innovation capacity in the current generation of models and their near-term successors to enable us to rethink software from the ground up.
This isn’t the right time to fully explain our vision or the product we’re building, but the name Tessl is derived from “tessellating:” the perfect fitting of simple individual pieces to create complex and beautiful mosaics that transcend the sum of their parts. More on that concept soon.
This is going to be an incredible ride, and one that I’m absolutely thrilled to be a part of. But, I’ve saved the best part of the news for last: at Tessl I’m also reuniting with my long-time professional colleague Dion Almaer, who joined Tessl a couple of weeks ago. Since we first met somewhere in the midwest about 20 years ago, we’ve had in each other a grand friendship and the most meaningful professional collaboration of my career.
And now, back to work!
