Welcome to my personal blog! My name is Ankil and I'm currently a software engineer at Salesforce. Feel free to chat with me regarding any of my previous work at Salesforce, Electronic Arts, Thales or the University of Waterloo. Please note that all opinions are my own. (more)
Aug. 30, 2023
Motivation I asked a former manager (I haven’t asked him yet if I can use his name in this blog post) about how to build resilient systems and his response was that I had the wrong idea. The holy grail wasn’t in resilient systems - it was in anti fragile systems (from the book by Taleb). Anti-fragile systems are able to learn and become better with new stressors. How do we build antifragile systems?
Nov. 30, 2022
Here’s a few short stories/excerpts that I wrote for a class and wanted to share. As always, I welcome any and all feedback at ankil335@gmail.com.
Do we make prophecies or do prophecies make us? If you’re here, he had the nerve for it after all.
Taken aback, the bloodied noble lowers his sword.
Come! I will show you how we make prophecies!!
With a toothless grin, the old woman flared her nostrils and beckoned him to her cauldron.
Oct. 17, 2022
I wanted to publish a short list of poems that I wrote for a class. I would love to hear feedback on them at ankil335@gmail.com.
International X Day It was cause for celebration recently To commemorate well-deserved progress gleefully. Imagine my disappointment to see some naysayers Amongst the politically vocal taxpayers. Too eager to miss the forest for the trees Too eager to burn the tree for the forest Too eager to make podiums from twigs We are to aspire to the creator Not the common denominator.
Oct. 17, 2022
While walking by a billboard of a large tech company, I noticed that underneath that billboard, sat several encampments. I start to wonder what the point of the ad is. I see them plastered everywhere in the city - it’s not like someone is going to miss the company. More generally, I wondered how relevant that company was in the community it was advertising in.
Why not take the marketing budget and reallocate it to funding microloans to start businesses, help pay utility bills or rent, etc.
Oct. 17, 2022
When you hear personalized ads, you think the ad itself has been personalized for you. However, it’s the distribution of the ad that’s been personalized. The company can choose to offer you a different ad based on user group preferences. While I believe having the granularity of user group preferences is great, I think it misses the point - we need to flip the model. This is not to say that all advertising is broken or ineffective.