projects & work
Manifest, OPTIC, Manifund, Quantitative Trading Bootcamp, undergrad, EAG/x, Brandeis EA. Smaller projects at the bottom.
Manifest
Lead Co-Organizer
Manifest is a festival/conference on predictions, markets, and mechanisms. It’s happened twice so far, and for both of them, I’ve been one of 2-3 central organizers. If you want to get the gist without diving into the details below, I’d suggest reading some of the kind words people said about Manifest 2024.
The details:
Nominally, the events were about prediction markets, Tetlock-style forecasting, and mechanism design — but really, they aimed at a bundle of ideas that the attendees found interesting, ranging from genetic selection in embryos to financial journalism to cultural drift to ancient philosophy. Each event was about 2.5 days, and although Manifest ‘23 hosted ~250 attendees, Manifest ‘24 more-than-doubled in size to ~600 attendees.
Speakers included: Nate Silver, Robin Hanson, Emmett Shear, Dylan Matthews, Scott Alexander, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Chris Best, Ben Mann, Tarek Mansour, Shayne Coplan, Zvi Mowshowitz, Byrne Hobart, Patrick McKenzie/patio11, and a lot more — you can see the full list of speakers for Manifest ‘23 and ‘24, and you can watch the talks they gave at Manifest on Youtube (‘23, ‘24).
Sponsors for ‘23 were Kalshi, Polymarket, and Sovereign — all of the ‘23 sponsors returned for ‘24, and we added Futuresearch, Lighthaven, Metaculus, Beeminder, Futuur, and PredictIt. Manifest ‘23 was centrally hosted by Manifold, and ‘24 was cohosted by Manifold & Manifund.
Manifest 2023 was written up by the New York Times (original, no paywall) and The Diff. For Manifest 2024, we kept a lot better track of all of the kind words people said about the event.
Manifest 2024 made $335k in revenue with +$63k in profit (full budget); Manifest 2023 made $82k in revenue with a -$33k loss (full budget).
For more details, see manifest.is. For references, talk to Austin Chen (my boss, cofounder of Manifund, and cofounder-emeritus of Manifold) and Rachel Weinberg (co-lead of Manifest ‘24, cofounder of Manifund).
OPTIC
Cofounder
I ran OPTIC alongside Jingyi and Tom. We built infrastructure for university-level forecasting, primarily by running in-person, intercollegiate forecasting tournaments. Competitors are given a handful of questions on real-world events ranging from geopolitics to celebrity twitter patterns to financial asset prices. They make probabilistic predictions on the outcomes of those events, and the best forecasters get thousands of dollars in cash prizes and access to exclusive internships.
We also incubated & supported university forecasting clubs across the US and Europe.
For more details, see opticforecasting.com. For references, talk to Juan Gil (my mentor).
Manifund
Operations & Strategy
Manifund is a philanthropy built like a startup — Manifund writes code and runs programs to connect effective, impactful projects to funding.
I was Manifund’s first “hire” (contracted for a few months, never a full employee), during which time I: wrote updates & retros; coordinated between funders, grantmakers, and project founders; helped kickstart the largest successful round of an impact market ever; and various other strategy & operations work. For references, talk to Austin Chen and Rachel Weinberg.
Quantitative Trading Bootcamp
Operations & Strategy
Quant Trading Bootcamp (QTB) runs programs that teach the fundamentals of quantitative trading: markets, order books, auctions, risk and sizing, adverse selection, arbitrage, and how quant trading firms make money.
I was QTB’s first ops/strategy “hire” (currently contracting since November 2024, never a full employee). For references, talk to Ricki Heicklen.
University
Undergrad
I’m currently an undergraduate studying philosophy at UC Berkeley (previously at Brandeis University — I transferred after taking a year off). I’m interested in ethics, epistemology, maybe philosophy of math, and anything else I find interesting along the way. I’m considering additionally minoring in computer science, math, legal studies, or something else.
Effective Altruism Global (EAG/x)
Team Lead
Effective Altruism Global (EAG & EAGx) conferences “bring together a wide network of people who have made helping others a core part of their lives. Speakers and attendees share new thinking and research; coordinate on important projects, and work together to solve pressing problems.”
I’ve attended ~five EAG/x’s. For most of them, I volunteered as a team lead, managing 10-25 adult volunteers full-time for 2.5 days. I was the point-person overseeing tasks & shifts, training volunteers, coordinating with other teams, etc. For references, talk to some combination of Frances Lorenz, Rob Harling, Ivan Burduk, and/or others on the EAG Events Team at CEA; at different times I was-managed-by/worked-with different people.
Brandeis Effective Altruism
Executive Board Member (January 2023 to May 2023)
I helped run Brandeis Effective Altruism (BEA), mainly planning & facilitating two weekly, in-depth discussion groups for 5-15 undergraduates on topics like existential risk, animal welfare, and global development, and meeting weekly with other board members and organizers to develop short- and long-term strategies for BEA’s growth and robustness.
Some projects I built for BEA: the website; feedback forms and the contact doc, including the general BEA feedback form, organizer feedback forms, and event-specific feedback forms; and the Slack. For references, talk to Joseph Pendleton.
Smaller projects
Brass Tacks
I write a blog, wherein I discuss the brass tacks. Hence the name of the blog.
Take a look at it here: brasstacks.blog
Map of the prediction market/forecasting ecosystem
There are a huge number of “things” in the prediction market/forecasting ecosystem — enough that just getting your feet wet can get disorienting. I sketched out all of the major organizations, platforms, exchanges, consultancies, tools, events, funding sources, etc in the prediction market/forecasting ecosystem to help folks who want to become more involved find their way around.
Take a look at it here: predictionmarketmap.com
Poker Drills
Mostly, I wanted to try building a webapp leveraging LLMs as much as possible. But also, I wanted to start beating my friends in poker. So I built a webapp in JavaScript (React + Vite) that lets you drill poker skills — I’ve started pretty simple, but intend to slowly add drills as my own poker skills improve.
Take a look at it here: poker-drills.vercel.app
Masterdoc of Forecasting Club Materials
As part of my work helping forecasting clubs with OPTIC, I built/organized/collated a massive amount of materials for forecasting clubs — general advice/templates/tips for running organizations, university clubs more specifically, and forecasting groups even more specifically.
Take a look at it here: bit.ly/masterdoc-forecasting-clubs