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 the side projects are the day job. I'm building Bakeoff, a private eval that runs real bugs from my own codebases through the current models in their own harnesses, and 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.