floating questions

Wen Tong is an imaging engineer and (aspiring) colorist — his job is to make sure what you see on screen is exactly what the director intended. Turns out, that's almost impossible.  Two people literally cannot see the same color. I went into this conversation expecting to learn about color science, and I did — but we ended up somewhere I didn't expect. We talked about: Why working in tot...

In this episode of Floating Questions, we sit down with Mason Grimshaw, an MIT alum and mission-driven data scientist driving critical progress at the intersection of environmental conservation and indigenous empowerment in the age of AI. We explore how his work, life, and community view intertwine to thread a journey that spans from the Rosebud Sioux Reservation to the cutting edge of geospatial...

You might have heard of Amine Bennouna from a previous episode ( here )  – from the Math Olympiad in Morocco to an MIT PhD and now a Professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. Recently, he has been thinking deeply about a critical question: Do we actually need more data for AI?  In this episode, Amine discusses the idea that data is the "fossil fuel" of AI , and we ha...

For the final episode of 2025, we are joined by a guest who embodies the spirit of exploration: Eric Wang .  By day, Eric works in private equity in New York City, managing commercial real estate deals on Wall Street . On weekends, he trades his spreadsheets for a chef's knife, running 81 Eats – a supper club and pop-up series featuring "Chinese-inspired comfort food."  From growing...

Today on Floating Questions , we sat down with Shaka Mitchell - Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellow, Senior Fellow at the American Federation for Children, constitutional law lecturer, long-distance runner, creator of the Come Together Music Project, and father of three.  Shaka has spent decades building bipartisan coalitions in education and civil discourse , guided by humility, principled think...

Timothy Chen’s story isn’t your typical Silicon Valley success arc.  He didn’t start as a hotshot coder - Microsoft once slotted him into the IT track, nothing more. Yet he went on to become a member of the Apache Software Foundation, contribute to open-source projects like Kafka and Mesos (the one-time rival to Kubernetes), and now runs Essence VC, where he backs infrastructure founders with a ha...

In this episode, we sit down with Julia Morton - a writer, art curator, fashion designer, early YouTuber, and author of a Substack chronicling how artists are experimenting with AI (https://aiplusart.substack.com).  We chatted how Julia views art as a time capsule for a species going from analog to cyber, why AI-aided films can feel more personal (smaller crews, fewer gatekeepers), and how new too...

In this episode, we are joined by Joshua Pulsifer - narrative designer and co-director at Zipit! Games , an indie studio in New York. Joshua and his partner Ben are building The Wide Open Sky is Running Out of Catfish , a story-driven photography game set on the back of a giant flying catfish. Beneath its playful exterior lies a meditation on memory, friendship, and the impermanence of life .  We...

Data breaks. AI models go crazy. Downstream teams scramble to put out the fire. In this episode, I talk with Chad Sanderson , CEO and co-founder of Gable - a startup rebuilding data quality and governance from the ground up. We dive into the “shift left” philosophy: why upstream engineers must own their data outputs, how data contracts create accountability in AI systems, and what it takes to driv...

How do you measure whether an education policy is actually working? In this episode, I talk with Stephanie Franklin, Deputy Associate Commissioner of Strategy and Analytics at one of the largest education agencies in the U.S. We dive into the grounding yet complex role data plays in education - how student outcomes are tracked, how metrics are built to drive accountability, and the delicate balanc...

In this episode, we sit down with Sean Chen - a former data scientist at Google and one of the first AI product managers at Walmart/Sam’s Club - to unpack his whirlwind journey through tech and startups.  Sean reveals how VC pressure can steer or stall your vision, and how he and his co-founder built “Shelfer,” a voice-driven inventory app for SMB retailers, in just two days on London’s shop floor...

From a hacker's perspective, what are some of the most overlooked - yet critical - problems in tech? In this episode, Clarence Chio shares his journey from giving DEFCON talks on adversarial AI before it was cool, to building two startups at the intersection of risk management and AI. We dive into his experiences hacking alongside white, red, and black hats in an abandoned warehouse near the...

Floating Questions welcomes Ashish Ranjan Jha - former AI lead at Revolut, author of Fight Fraud with Machine Learning , and now founder of Nativ . In this episode, we trace Ashish’s journey across three continents and a range of roles - from customizing LSTMs for interpretability before it was cool, to scaling fraud and identity verification AI systems at Revolut, to founding Nativ, a startup hel...

Floating Questions welcomes Matt LeMay, a product leader, musician, and author of two books: Impact First Product Teams and Product Management in Practice . With experience at Spotify, Mailchimp, Bitly, and beyond, Matt shares his thoughts on navigating ethical dilemmas in big tech, driving real impact in product teams, and the essential traits of a great product manager. Beyond work, we dive into...

Floating Questions welcomes Nivedita Gaur, whose extraordinary journey spans from India's Space Applications Centre to shaping the future of augmented reality (AR) as a Silicon Architect at Meta, where she contributed to the cutting-edge Orion AR glasses. In this episode, we delve into not only her remarkable achievements but also her passion for empowering women to forge their own paths. Niv...

What is even fairness in AI? Is there such a thing as too much diversity in AI output? Should AI reflect the world as it is, or the world we wish it to be?  In this episode of Floating Questions, Brian Hsu, a Senior Responsible AI Engineer at LinkedIn, takes us into the heart of responsible AI, sharing his journey from grad school stardom to the trenches of building fair and impactful machine lear...

In this episode of Floating Questions, we sit down with Amine Bennouna, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT and soon-to-be professor at the Kellogg School of Management. We explore his childhood in Morocco and how competing in the International Mathematical Olympiad inspired him to co-found Math&Maroc, an NGO dedicated to unlocking the scientific potential of Moroccan youth, one equation at a tim...

In this episode of Floating Questions , we sit down with Daniel Kofman , a serial entrepreneur who co-founded a solar panel company and started a defense technology startup recently, with a lifelong fascination for defense technology - rooted in his mother’s passion for martial arts.  Daniel shares insights on the largest challenges in solar deployment, his ethical approach to choosing the defense...

In this episode of Floating Questions , we sit down with Shane Weisberg, an MIT graduate, hiking in the woods and dabbling in creative writing. Our conversation delves into Shane’s passion for sci-fi and fantasy, his thoughts on emotional vulnerability in sharing his work. We also touch on the classic debate of separating the art from the artist. On a different note, Shane shares why he initially...

Dive into our debut episode of "Floating Questions" where we explore the intersections of data science, social enterprise, and personal history with Tristan Aubert.  From his early years moving across continents to spearheading data initiatives in Kenya’s largest forestry social enterprise, Tristan shares how his diverse background and passion for mission-oriented work shape his approach...