XYO Data Scientist Erik Saberski on Oceanography, Multidimensional Scaling, and Unicycles!

On any given weekday, you’ll find flip flops-wearing Erik Saberski crunching numbers and analyzing copious amounts of data to help the blockchain team fine-tune our location network. But on Saturdays and Sundays, XYO’s Data Scientist plays the cello, reads Charles Darwin, and sometimes even… rides a unicycle.

Welcome to our first edition of XYO Insider, a new feature created to take you deeper inside our company.

We’ve asked Erik, the recent author of two of our papers, one yellow, one white, to give us the lowdown on both work and play. Here’s what he had to say:

Q: Who are you?

A: My name is Erik, I am almost 24 years old, and I am the Data Scientist here at XYO.

Q: Where did you go to school?

A: I went to college at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

Q: How did you end up in California?

A: I got a research position at UC San Diego, so that brought me here.

Q: Let’s talk about your relationship with technology. Did you gravitate toward technology when you were little?

A: I did, and my parents always thought that I was going to be an engineer of some sort — I guess I am kind of close.

Q: What did you do to make them think that?

A: I don’t know, I think they just thought that I was a nerd or something (laughs). I played a lot of video games.

Q: Tell us about your big “Aha!” moment. When exactly did you realize that this is what you wanted to do?

A: The moment that I realized what I wanted to do was my senior year of college. It wasn’t really a huge Aha! moment, but I was applying to medical school while I was working on my senior thesis in physics in which I created a data-driven algorithm based on Empirical Dynamic Modeling, which is what I still study. And that’s when I realized that I wanted to study data and data science, and not go the medical route.

Q: So before that, what was the plan?

A: Through college, before I became a data scientist, the plan was to become a doctor. But I decided that I wanted to work more with numbers, and I kind of just let the wind take me where I went.

Q: Tell us about your interest and work in Oceanography:

A: I study Oceanography I am getting my PhD at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. And to some people, it seems like it’s not connected, but it is actually closely connected to everything I do here, because I study data-driven theory in ecology. There are a lot of chaotic systems and non-linear dynamics that are really hard to study in ecology without a lot of data.

So we look at tons of data from population dynamics, or any other interactions in ecosystems, and we collect this data, study it and analyse it, and come up with theories. It is very similar to the way we collect data in a blockchain. We could analyse that data, and study it, and make hypotheses and get more results.

My job is all about collecting data and studying it, and I think both ecology and blockchains are two really cool places to do that.

Q: What is your job like? What do you do now?

A: I just finished defining our network protocol in the yellow paper with a lot of help from our team — Carter (blockchain application developer), Arie (XYO’s CEO), Nate (Blockchain Developer) and Ryan (Senior Software Engineer) — and we all worked together on that pretty nicely.

And now I am moving on to some other things: Using the data in our network to figure out location of things, and using a suite of algorithms based on multidimensional scaling. There are tons of unique ways to use multidimensional scaling, and I am coming up with a pretty neat use case.

Q: What would be an average day at XYO for you?

A: An average day at XYO would start with me strolling in in my flip-flops and shorts. But beyond that, every day is different. I always have interesting conversations with Carter, our Blockchain Application Developer. He comes to me with problems to solve, and the blockchain team works together on those— in calls or meetings — to solve them.

Q: What’s your favorite video game?

A: Favorite video game — that’s a tough one! I have played a lot of Guitar Hero 3, and I’m pretty good at that. But my other favorite video game is called Alpine Ski, made by Taito in 1981. I have a local record on Alpine Ski, and I’m proud of that.

Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?

A: Sometimes I ride a unicycle for fun — no one really knows that about me. I also swim laps in the pool, I play guitar and I play the cello. I recently picked up reading. I never really read much before, but I am now.

Q: What are you reading?

A: I just finished Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, a great book by Nobel Laureate and Physicist Richard Feynman. And now I have moved on to On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.

Q: Predict the future:

A: I would like to see XYO create an impact in the future, whether XYO is actually taking over the world or being everywhere at all times. And people will know our name, and know that we were the stepping stone for whatever is to come. I want us to be the giants, or be the shoulder that the giants stand on. I want people to say “I remember XYO — we wouldn’t be here without them.”