About
Bio
My name is Ari Wilson and I am a technology junkie.
I grew up from a very young age in Orange County in Southern California with two loving parents and a younger brother. I attended Mariposa Elementary School, Brea Junior High, and Troy High School with an International Baccalaureate diploma. I went to college at Vanderbilt University where I majored in mathematics and computer science. After withstanding the strong seduction of pure mathematics, I remembered that computer science is my first and true love and got an MS in computer science. I am adept in the art of the computer, the video game, and love taking long walks on the beach. Did I actually just say that?
Since then: 13.5 years at Google, on scaled frontends, APIs, distributed systems, and ML in ads; four years at Celonis, getting LA and US engineering off the ground and shipping several products in the process intelligence space; and four months at VideoAmp defining agentic workflows in my first executive role, which ended in a layoff in August 2026. I went from writing the code to running the org and, lately, back to both at once.
Right now I run FairBake, helping engineering teams work out what's slowing them down with coding agents, in the tools or in the process around them. It grew out of Bakeoff, an eval that runs real bugs through the current models in their own harnesses, and I'm still writing about what it turns up.
I am extremely interested in theoretical mathematics, computer science, programming, and the technology that makes all of our lives a little bit better. I have a passing interest in physics, am an avid science fiction reader and movie viewer, and, when I get the time, enjoy reading something about subjects I know nothing about. I love the Economist.
I am left handed with brown hair and brown eyes and enjoy the music of Iron Maiden, along with various other metal and rock bands. I respond to "Ari", "Airy", "Awwii", or some variant thereof. The generally accepted pronunciation of my name is the sound of the letters r and e said individually in quick succession. My name means lion in Hebrew. And this website is definitely a work in progress.
I'm 40, married, and a dad twice over. The best way to learn more about me is still the blog, which is updated semi-frequently.