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Build an OpenAI Assistant to chat with your Postgres database
Recently I wanted to get my hands dirty using some of the new dev tools from OpenAI. I really wanted to try using their LLM “with my own data”. The typical approach for this is using RAG – Retrieval Augmented Generation. This is where you chunk up a bunch of unstructured text, store it in…
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Learning from Amazon
Over the winter break I read Working Backwards, written by a couple of Amazon OGs. I thought it was quite good – definitely worth the read. I had two big take-aways from the book that are very relative to startup/scale-up life. Being metrics driven Not surprisingly, Amazon is a very data-driven company. The authors place…
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The AI revolution
(Editor’s note: this post was written by human hands. No AIs were harmed or employed in writing these words.) I can’t say at the moment that I have any great revelation to add to the AI discussion. I am as impressed, excited, and scared as anyone. Some of the best things I’ve read so far…
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Planning fictions
Right around quarterly planning time, I wrote a little bit about the lies we tell ourselves in engineering, especially around planning time.
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Engineering metrics for stakeholders
I really enjoyed Will Larson’s recent post on measuring engineering. Excellently written as always, and Will provides a great framework for thinking about measurement for different audiences. He provides a taxonomy for thinking about measuring for different stakeholders. This is a recent shift that we have made at Tatari, from measuring for ourselves to doing…
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The Elon effect
As we roll into 2023, the headwinds in tech continue. Most of the big guys have done a round of layoffs now, with the notable exception of Google. But there is incessant chatter that Google will find some way to reduce headcount cost. Smart engineering leaders have already pivoted from “boom cycle” concerns around hiring…
Startups and Engineering Leadership
scott persinger 