Never Too Much AI: Upwork's Andrew Rabinovich
Andrew Rabinovich began his career in technology working on AI applications for cancer detection. He also spent time at Google, working on early iterations of products like Google Glass. Now at Upwork, as vice president and head of AI and machine learning, Rabinovich and his team are working to enhance the digital labor platform’s capabilities with AI solutions to enable more sophisticated matching of resources to projects.
On today’s episode, Andrew shares his views on the ways AI could take on more complex projects while using fewer resources. In the way of AI’s rapid progress, however, are slow advancements in hardware. While AI has made huge strides in cognition, he says, hardware struggles to match its capabilities, especially in wearable tech and robotics. Still, Andrew envisions a future with hyper-personalized digital assistants for everyone. Read the episode transcript here.
Guest bio
Andrew Rabinovich is vice president and head of AI and machine learning at Upwork. He previously held R&D leadership positions at Google before joining augmented reality company Magic Leap as head of AI in 2015. In 2020, Rabinovich cofounded Headroom, an AI-powered videoconferencing platform that was acquired by Upwork in 2023. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from University of California, San Diego, and has studied machine learning with an emphasis in computer vision and multimodal AI for over 20 years. He has also authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and patents.
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Prioritize principles in crisis, w/Upwork’s Hayden Brown and Merck’s Ken Frazier
Navigate today’s uncertain climate with a steadfast resolve. Recorded live at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, former Merck CEO Ken Frazier and Upwork CEO Hayden Brown talk with host Bob Safian about how leaders should trust their values when faced with social, political, and economic challenges. Brown shares how leading through the chaos of the pandemic brought new opportunities to increase diversity and productivity. Frazier details Merck’s reactionary strategy to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and offers clear advice to socially conscious leaders.
Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/
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This Is How We'll Know If the CHIPS Act Is Working
The US government is spending billions of dollars to build out state-of-the-art domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity. But spending money is no guarantee of success. In fact, there are already worries that the CHIPS Act passed by the Biden administration isn't succeeding, due to various roadblocks, speedbumps and unforced errors. So what are the odds that it will pay off? And what should we be watching for as evidence of its efficacy? On this episode of the podcast, we spoke with Dan Wang, technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics and Adam Ozimek, chief economist at the Economic Innovation Group. This episode was recorded live at Decades, Adam's bowling alley in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, during the #EconTwitterIRL event in April.
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Bonus: Five ways to burnout-proof your organization
If you’re a leader right now navigating the global pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and your own mental list of what’s keeping you up at night, the issue of burnout is probably on your mind. You can’t shield your team from all stress, but you can find effective ways of supporting your employees through it. This episode highlights the best conversations we’ve had recently about stopping burnout in your organization, before it takes hold.
Featuring BetterUp’s Alexi Robichaux, Upwork’s Hayden Brown, Merck’s Ken Frazier, Chobani’s Hamdi Ulukaya, director J.J. Abrams, Girls Who Code’s Reshma Saujani, BW4BL’s Tokunbo Koiki, and FuelFinance’s Alyona Mysko.
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Rapid Response: Redesigning work in a crisis, w/Upwork CEO Hayden Brown
Most future of work conversations revolve around the “where,” but Upwork CEO Hayden Brown says it’s more important to focus on the “who.” 10% of the workforce at Upwork, the global tech platform for millions of freelance workers, was directly impacted by the Ukrainian war. Hayden’s people-focused approach to the difficult decision of how to manage remote employees in Russia is the same mindset she applies to meet the needs of all workers, from people feeling conflict to working mothers.
Learn more about scaling your hybrid workforce with highly skilled talent: www.upwork.com/masters-of-scale
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SaaStr 532: The Secrets to Scaling a Public Company with a 75% Freelancer Workforce with Upwork CEO Hayden Brown
Talent Acquisition to Talent Access: Building a winning culture with a workforce that is 75% freelancers
Upwork CEO Hayden Brown addresses common myths around working with freelancers, such as, "Freelancers aren't reliable," and, "I can't build my company culture with freelancers."
She'll share how Upwork has scaled by including freelancers in every part of the company and treating them as part of the team rather than outsiders, and how it can benefit every company to have access to the talent it needs, when it needs it, regardless of geography or business ebbs and flows.
Full video: https://youtu.be/APgXDu37UIk
Blog post: https://www.saastr.com/the-secrets-to-scaling-a-public-company-with-a-75-freelancer-workforce-with-upworks-ceo-hayden-brown-pod-532-video/
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SaaStr 396: Buying patterns in the Enterprise: CEOs and More- Who's Really Buying & Why with Godard Abel, Co-founder & CEO @ G2, Mike Weir, Chief Revenue Officer @ G2 and Samantha DeStefano, Vice President, Enterprise Sales @ UpWork
As digital business and collaboration models have been permanently accelerated by the events of 2020, our panel of SaaS experts discuss who's buying in the Enterprise, and how to drive conversions across multiple business functions.
Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/buying-patterns-in-the-enterprise/
How To Run A Bowling Alley-Arcade-Restaurant-Bar In The Middle Of A Pandemic
The pandemic has been brutal for restaurants and other indoor entertainment venues. So imagine running a space that's a restaurant, a bowling alley, an arcade, and bar all in one. Our guest on this episode does just that. Adam Ozimek is the co-founder of Decades in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He's also the chief economist at online freelance marketplace UpWork. We talked about the crisis from the micro-perspective (running the space) and the macro-perspective (what he sees in the broader economy right now). He also explained what we need from a policy perspective to save the restaurant industry right now.
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323: Data Science as a Freelance Career
I chatted with top Upwork freelancer Wesley Engers who has worked over 150 jobs in data science. He’s worked in a variety of industries and shared a few of his most interesting jobs and offered advice for those considering diving into freelance data science work.
In this episode you will learn:
Wesley on Upwork [9:11]
Wesley’s background [16:20]
How Wesley onboards a client [26:32]
Good clients vs. bad clients [31:12]
Tools [37:23]• Wesley’s best projects [45:09]
Freelance vs. full-time work [59:26]
Tips about getting into Upwork [1:06:48]
Additional materials: www.superdatascience.com/323