At the end of each year I attempt to write a “year in review”. I started this trend for a few reasons. The most prominent reason was that I am simply unable to remember all I do in a year. So much happens—even though it often doesn’t feel like it—that I eventually felt the need to write some of it down.

The second reason is that it’s simply meaningful to reflect on how one spends one’s time, and by extension how one values it. I find this practice particularly meaningful. I’m acutely aware of the finitude of my time. By reflecting on my year, I am attending to the effort I put into valuing my time and giving it its due. If you’re like me, then I suggest you engage in this practice as well.

Of the accomplishments I feel I have attained this year, I believe my professional achievements were particularly notable.

Professional

As I’ve said, work-related accomplishments took precedent this year. However, due to IP concerns I cannot openly describe many of their specifics. At a high level, I spent this year building out AI/ML infrastructure that we are able to deploy at enterprise scale. I started this side project earlier in the year due to my conviction that it could be impactful. Eventually, what started as a side project became a proof of concept for a large enterprise customer, became a fully containerized “experimentation and monitoring platform” that handles everything from data extraction to embeddings generation and analytics for our customers.

It’s pretty cool to look back and see how a solo project based on a hunch turned into a core offering for enterprise companies—many of which you’ll have heard of—replete with custom LLM pipelines and all. What I most appreciate about this process was how much software engineering and system architecture knowledge it required of me. In the end, it took just as much effort to implement to build out the software ecosystem as it did to build the AI/ML pipelines. The result is that I find myself a much better engineer than when I started the year.

Below is a list containing some of my 2024 professional successes:

• Built an enterprise grade experiment and monitoring platform that leverages embeddings for unique client analytics
• In April, I presented to Professor Hamsa Bastani’s class on Optimization and Large Language Models (OIDD 321) at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. For the presentation, “Building a Workforce Optimization Platform From Scratch, I used mock data to decompose real-world work activities into tasks, embedded the tasks, assigned those tasks to OCC SOC codes, and then demonstrated that, given these tasks, how one might go about optimizing how organizations are structured depending on their priorities. Code here.
• In early January of 2024, I gave a presentation, “A Normie Approach to Validating LLM Outputs”, at an LLMOps workshop gathering. The talk, really more of a deep dive into a real POC, discussed how we can implement normal software engineering practices upon LLM output to validate their results. Presentation materials here.
• I consulted a few companies this year who reached out for advice on how they can start out their AI / ML journeys, which tech stacks to use, how they can think about their development and product pipelines, and more! I love doing this kind of work and am eager to continue doing so in the future.
• I built a bunch of small software tools involving LLMs about which I will write about in the coming months.
• I have started to contribute to research in the field of economics of work and AI more directly. I hope to have this work published in the new year.

Personal

Like every year, this year I wanted to take more risks and try new things. After thinking about it for a while, I tested a few hobbies that I had been considering for a while: the first was lifting, which I discuss more below (see [[#Health]]). The other was archery, for which I quickly gained an affinity and for which I quickly determined I have an aptitude! After two practice sessions at my local range, I decided I’d buy a compound bow of my own. I’m now fully ensconced in the practice. In the coming year, I hope to practice even more.

Below is a list containing some of my 2024 successes:

• Spent time visiting family and my niece in particular
• Hiking, camping, and traveling:
  • I did a bunch of traveling from within California in which I had a bunch of firsts
    • First trips to: San Fransisco, San Jose, Palm Springs, Cupertino
    • Hiked and camped Joshua Tree, Cleveland National Forest
  • Hawaii x2 — helps when there are direct flights from San Diego
  • Boston for my good friend’s wedding
  • Illinois (to visit family!)
• I engaged with and talked about poetry and literature at a level rivaled only by my college days. I loved this and I’m hoping to continue this into the new year.
• Started streaming coding and video games on Twitch on a lark
• Archery and lifting

Where I Can Improve

• Service
  • I’d like to live a life more dedicated to service. I donate money to causes I care for; I live a life that I would argue is relatively conscious in how my actions and choices affect others. But I’d like to give my most valuable resource—time—to those who could use it. I’ll be looking for volunteer opportunities this coming year.
• Patience
  • I think I can overvalue my time, which causes me to lose perspective and not be in the moment. I want to be more patient with those I love, if not with myself.
• Socializing
  • I’d like to dedicate more time to friends and family this year. Simple as that.
• Study and reading habits
  • This year it was hard to keep with my study habits. I’d like to develop and maintain a better relationship with studying instead of simply building. I think this first starts with curiosity, and I find my curiosity is best fueled by reading often and widely. This coming year, I hope to give myself room to explore my curiosity more.

Goals for 2025

• Write one post a month, no matter how small
• Attend more economics conferences
• Contribute more (and publish) economics research, especially as relating to AI/ML and the economics of work
• Practice archery twice a month
• More twitch streams, especially with regard to coding and machine learning
• I live 45 minutes from the Mexico border. I’d like to visit Mexico in 2025!
• Making more friends in the area
• Camp more in National Parks!
• Complete 2 educational courses this year
• Hopefully I’m able to get back to lifting and endurance running!

A note on health.

Health

Upon reflection I find that I didn’t “accomplish” as much as I’d have liked in the latter half of the year. This year was tough in many ways. This particular lapse in productivity is due to health issues I developed in August. It turns out, in the process of “valuing my time” by picking up a new hobby—namely lifting—I exacerbated an underlying health condition I wasn’t aware I had. Since these health issues emerged, I quickly realized that sometimes valuing one’s time means treading water and fighting to retain equilibrium. If this past 4-5 months have taught me anything, it’s how impactful health-concerns can be on my sense of homeostasis.

Thankfully, after a few months of trying to figure out what even was causing my symptoms, my doctors and I were finally able to devise a process that will, I dearly hope, cure my symptoms. I’m currently undergoing that process now. And even though it comes with some difficult (and hopefully temporary) tradeoffs, I can already tell I’m improving. Should I overcome these health issues in 2025 and return to a sense of normalcy, that will far and away be my best achievement.

Happy New Year all! May 2025 bring us peace and growth.