After 15 years of building Wingify, Paras Chopra spent some time deliberating about his next stint.
For years, he had chased the 0 to 1 journey of building something from the ground up and watching it grow. He wanted that again.
But he knew it had to be different.
There would be no product. Forget that, he decided the next project would barely have any commercial inclination. Instead, he chased his curiosity as a child passionate about science.
That’s how Lossfunk, a “cosy home” for “independent researchers” was born.
Paras describes Lossfunk as the place where everyone — from undergrads to PHDs to just inquisitive people— ask foundational questions on AI away from the pressures that burden academia and labs attached to big tech companies.
In this episode of Zero Shot, Paras gets into the journey of Lossfunk and talks about its motivations and principles.
Now, a lot of the questions Lossfunk is asking might not result in a flashy new product that changes consumer behaviour. They might just become a research paper. Or two. For Paras, that's completeley alright because building a “research attitude” may fully be the point.
____
This episode was produced by Vidhatri Rao and edited by Rajiv CN.
____
Zeus, the mascot of Zero Shot, was generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken.
Write to us at Zeroshot@the-ken.com. We are all ears!
____
Additional Resources
Lossfunk
https://lossfunk.com
Inverted Passion
https://invertedpassion.com
Esoteric programming languages
https://spectrum.ieee.org/esoteric-programming-languages-daniel-temkin
Manifesto for doing good science in AI
https://letters.lossfunk.com/p/manifesto-for-doing-good-science
Particle Fever
https://particlefever.com/
