I'm Brandon, or my friends like to call me ogb or brantality.
What people know me for:
- grew up in Singapore
- 6'2 dude making things for computers
- loves reading biographies (fav: Einstein) and history (fav: Chip War)
- enjoys simple things
- founded Gigit AI, along wth Inez
- once upon a time:
- served the RSAF as an officer
- played for the flag football national team as a reciever
- contribute to the entrepreneurship initiatives at my alma matar
- enjoy creating good work with motivated people
What I'm working on now:
- discovering how language models can be valuably useful in the real world as intelligence augmentation tools
- hypothesis #1: encoding domain expertise into an input-output interface which scales knowledge distribution orders of magnitude better with finetuning
- hypothesis #2: powerful tool for thought: process complex information and generate useful insights at a higher throughput
- hypothesis #3: powerful tool for creativity: identify patterns that are tediuos and not immediately obvious
- improving my cardio and mobility
- more genuine and thoughtful conversations
Some things that inspire me:
- creating more positive sum games
- creating more research, open source knowledge and (sometimes) startups compound the value of existing quantities
- consumption by one party does not diminish the availability nor potential value available to be accrued by another
- contributing to these causes gives me energy to work hard
- ambitious projects that changed the world
- hardworking underdogs that disrupted their field
Some things I value:
- moving fast creates energy and momentum
- doing things fast is a forcing function to focus on what's most important
- action and progress creates energy
- this repeated cycle creates momentum to keep going for prolonged periods of time
- personal growth
- working on difficult and ambitious goals has proven to be one of the most effective ways to grow fast and holistically
- truth seeking always
- removing the bullshit layer from how I perceive the world changed my life significantly
- being genuine
- bad information compounds; saying what you actually think supercharges relationships
- bad news can be communicated truthfully with a careful choice of words, sometimes reversing the outcome even
- less is more
- simplicity and minimalism
- conducive environment
- mimetic behaviour is real and insidious - we severely underestimate how we unknowingly pick up bad habits from people around us
- positive habits, energy and intuition in a high performing environment naturally rubs off on us
People who have influenced my thinking the most, whom I'm grateful for:
- Lei Xu
- the opportunities he gave me at Workstream changed my life. Of the many lessons, he inspired me to be relentlessly resourceful, that I could learn anything I needed to and be a genuine person
- Hasan Sheikh Faridul
- his story and mentorship at EF fuels my belief that I could possibly create a dent in the world one day
- Lee Yeow Leong
- his lessons on software engineering and dedication to helping me understand difficult programming concepts influences the way I write code till today