But Christian was unfazed. When we got in the car, he asked me to open up my laptop. “Why?” I wondered aloud. He said we

In late August 2017 we entered our final week at Y Combinator. Demo Day, the much-publicized biannual event during which we would present Audm to a prominent group of investors, was only a few days away. We were feeling confident, even cocky. Cultivating new relationships and networking was an arena where both of us shone, especially together. Which was why we entered a final practice pitch with one of the YC partners feeling little trepidation. What followed, though, could only be described as a complete thrashing. The number of questions he asked which we returned with blank stares was gutting. Looking back on it now it’s almost funny to recall how stunned we were at the time. In the moment, though, it was like the wind had been knocked out of us. I was silently despondent as we staggered to the parking lot afterwards.

“Reading, I hold, is indispensable — primarily, to keep me from being satisfied with myself alone, and besides, after I have learned what others have found out by their studies, to enable me to pass judgment on their discoveries and reflect upon discoveries that remain to be made. Reading nourishes the mind and refreshes it when it is wearied with study; nevertheless, this refreshment is not obtained without study.”

Data Analysis, A Complete Roadmap for Learning Data Science — Part 2 Part two of my complete roadmap for learning data science takes a look at the important skills needed for data…medium.com

In sitting down to write this, I’m confronted with the question of how I would characterize my relationship with him. Were we friends? Sure. Brothers? In a way. But I think “cofounder,” an admittedly stilted-sounding word, is maybe what captures it best.

For a more comprehensive list of skills that you should learn, if you are studying to be a data scientist, I wrote a series of articles giving a complete roadmap for learning. They are linked below.

Christian had a deep, resonant voice, and he had the odd habit of snapping his fingers while he worked through a problem. He was tall, too, and his stature emphasized his philosophical, analytical spirit. He seemed, literally, to bear down on his work, to wrestle lofty questions to the ground. He built our iOS app from scratch, writing every single line of code until we made our first technical hire years later. He also helped develop our partnerships with other media outlets, refine our audio production process, and expand our user base. There was nothing he couldn’t do.

http://team.vidrio.org/xpy/Video-Tecnyconta-Zaragoza-Nizhny-Novgorod-BC-v-en-gb-1svp-9.php

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http://molos.bodasturias.com/qxz/Video-torpedo-nn-v-neftekhimik-v-ru-ru-1avf-18.php

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http://elta.actiup.com/cqn/video-TOP-Oss-Jong-Ajax-v-en-gb-off-.php

http://elta.actiup.com/cqn/video-TOP-Oss-Jong-Ajax-v-en-gb-lcn-.php

to validate my claim that reading from multiple files shouldn’t be fundamentally slower than reading from a single file, you may end up proving yourself right, but only because read amplification increased by a lot the amount of data effectively read.

Programming Skills, A Complete Roadmap for Learning Data Science — Part 1 A complete guide to programming skills for data science, includes links to free learning resources.medium.com

Here’s the rough chronology: On April 22, 2015, Christian Brink and I, two tech entrepreneurs in our early thirties, incorporated the company that would become Audm. A few months later we sat down with The New York Times to pitch our idea — an app that would let you listen to audio versions of magazine articles — in a meeting we thought we had hit out of the park. (We had not.) We toiled on, launching Audm to the public in August 2016 and eventually moving to Menlo Park to become part of Y Combinator’s S17 batch. In August 2018, we hired our first full-time employee. By the end of the year, we were a team of 9. And then, exactly four years after our first meeting with The Times, we signed a term sheet with them that resulted in the sale of our company. On March 9, 2020 the transaction was made official. Eight months later, Christian was gone.

A cofounder relationship can be a competitive one. The question of who is more “formidable” comes up a lot. Who will be the point of contact with investors? Who will represent the company to the outside world? Who will have the final say at an impasse? Navigating these questions can easily lay waste to your ego. The only reason he and I mostly avoided this pitfall was because we addressed our insecurities to each other directly, rather than let them simmer beneath the surface. I soon came to learn that one of the most valuable opportunities of an experience like this was that your cofounder’s strengths could become your own.

Ironically, death was a kind of specter that always hung over our heads. We gave life to Audm, and the anxiety that, some day, we would have to put it to rest was implied in every conversation we had about how to grow it. There was an inexorable logic to this: if the company wasn’t growing, it was already dying. The margin for error was that thin; the clock never stopped ticking. What a strange thing to confront now: Audm survives, but he does not.

Data Analysis, A Complete Roadmap for Learning Data Science — Part 2 Part two of my complete roadmap for learning data science takes a look at the important skills needed for data…medium.com

In these six short years, Christian and I lived what felt like a lifetime together. Based on opposite ends of the country, we communicated constantly. Initially, our conversations were focused on planning — fantasizing about a future for a product that seemed like a pipe dream. Then all we talked about were the cold, hard practicalities of execution. Then surviving. The grind wore me down more than once. Every day we faced the very real prospect of failure, along with everything that would have entailed — explanations owed to investors, public embarrassment, the need for an abrupt career overhaul. The stress was unstinting. But I always had Christian, who was three thousand miles away and yet also right there alongside me. When I teetered, he steadied us. When he had his doubts, I allayed them. Somehow, we always managed to level out.

The cofounder relationship begins as a bond of forced intimacy. For the good of the company, openness and honesty are paramount. There are no personal days when there’s only two of you. Tension in the dynamic isn’t something you can ignore, bury, or avoid. You will experience some of your lowest lows and highest highs with this person. The strain can be considerable. Sometimes the bond breaks. Sometimes it only survives the lifespan of the company. And sometimes, as was the case for us, you emerge from it all with a person you love as family.

Christian and I went to the same college and graduated in the same year, but we never crossed paths. I met him about five years later, thanks to an introduction made by my future brother-in-law. We talked about working together for years until one day, Christian and his wife strolled into the lobby of a hotel, in New York, where my wife and I were visiting her family. It was this chance encounter that set Audm in motion. Finally, Christian and I were in the same place, at the same time, with a shared purpose. We sat down and began fleshing out an idea that, until then, had been amorphous and aspirational.