Hi, I’m Tyler
After studying computer science, I made software for Meta and Airbnb for 12 years. I learned how to turn vague concepts into tangible products people love to use. Then I decided to do something different.
I believe we’re entering a decade of scientific discovery, accelerated by AI. We’re also facing a future of massive bottlenecks in carbon-neutral energy and computing power. So I’m going back to school, pursuing graduate study in physics. My goal is to contribute novel, high-impact research and (eventually) contribute to technology that helps address these humanity-scale problems.
Currently working on
Syftt.io
Goal: Prototype by January 2026
Syftt reads everything on arXiv so you don’t have to.
Keeping up with preprint research in your field is becoming impossible – there are over 10k papers posted weekly. Syftt uses a language model to deeply understand your research interests, read everything posted to arXiv, and send you the few papers that are likely to advance your work.
I’m building Syftt because I think it will be genuinely useful, but I’m also building it as an experiment in AI-driven development. I aim to have 10 working researchers using a prototype by September.
Independent labs
Goal: 4 published reports by December 2025
Experimentation is at the core of physics. To prepare myself for working in a lab, I’m going through some of the most famous experiments from the history of lab physics and reproducing the results. This is made possible by ASU’s online Advanced Physics Lab, an amazing resource. In addition to familiarizing me with these critical experiments, equipment, and lab procedure, this process is helping me brush up on statistics and analytical Python. All results will be be published to GitHub as iPython notebooks.
Core physics curriculum
Fall semester 2025
Finally, I’m taking the following four courses at Fisk University in preparation for further graduate study:
- Crystal Growth & Scintillators
- Theoretical Mechanics
- Calculus III
- Math Methods for Theoretical Physics
Experience
If you’re looking for a proper CV, head to Linkedin. Below are a few career moments that were especially formative.
Built Airbnb’s first smart home product
In 2023, I launched my first true “zero to one” product: Airbnb’s connected smart lock platform. It was an innovative way to help hosts manage check-in, a magically simple experience for guests, and a hard technology to pull off. The 3 year journey included developing the initial concept, “selling” the idea, designing + building the technology platform, negotiating partnerships, orchestrating a launch event, and scaling. It strung together everything I had learned up to that point in my career about technology and business.
Built a tool to help 100k frontline workers get free housing during COVID
The early days of the pandemic were trying for everyone. At Airbnb, we saw our business in free fall as travel ground to a sudden halt. We also thought there was something we could to to help, so we activated a network of hosts to provide free housing for doctors, nurses, and other frontline workers who dropped everything to go to the hardest hit places. For my part, that meant rapidly building a (hacked together) fork of Airbnb.com, where we would validate a frontline worker’s identity, show them search results limited to the free options, and allow them to book without payment. It was the hardest I’ve ever worked, at a time of remarkable uncertainty.
Launched dozens of machine learning models to optimize Facebook news feed and Airbnb search
If I developed a “specialization” as a product manager, it was building and optimizing machine learning products. It got me deeply familiar with experimentation, complex analysis, and the fundamentals of large scale ML. It also got me comfortable leading people through hard tradeoffs: by definition, ranking models choose winners and losers. As the owner of these changes, I had to deeply understand and explain their impact on complex two-sided marketplaces.
Built the integrity system that keeps Instagram ads safe
In 2015, Instagram was a small but popular photo sharing app that was burning money. Recently acquired by Facebook, it was time to start running ads and making revenue. I was really lucky to be part of a small team that launched Instagram’s business. My task was to keep out the spam, scams, and smut that comes with building an ad platform open to millions of advertisers. I started by reviewing every ad myself, then built a team of reviews and system of ML models to handle the problem at massive scale. It was the first time I was really responsible for a component of a product launch, and it ignited the fire in me that led to a career in building products.
Tyler Sax 