Recent content on Rushabh Doshi
Hiro is not a financial advisor. It is an AI powered financial assistant. Any responses should not be considered financial, tax, or legal advice. The Hiro team has had an epic ship week. We launched two new features and completely redid a critical data import flow. One feature for agents, another for humans, and the third to keep all your financial data clean and usable. Without much further ado,…
After using many claudes non-stop for a month, I feel stupider. Not in a good way - I am not awed by the sheer brilliance of super intelligent coding agents - but in a way where I find myself becoming increasingly lazy, deciding not to put in the cognitive work required to build a computer system of any meaningful complexity, and looking for quick “productivity hits” rather than…
I attended the Pragmatic Summit this week. One striking thing from the summit was the amount of airtime dedicated to justifying the financial cost of continuously running Opus 4.6 / Codex 5.3. Brags like “We gave all our engineers an unlimited budget for tokens” immediately begged for the counterfactual - you mean that was a real constraint at your company before you stepped in? Why?…
In December 2025, with the release of Claude Opus 4.5, the software engineering world realized that things will never be the same again. Opus 4.5 is the first model that is able to run complex reasoning chains and create code that is correct, succinct, and feels like code you would have written yourself - including following your code style and conventions across multiple files and refactors. When…
Many people managers I know are facing some variant of the following crisis: wants me to consider coming onboard as an IC. But I haven’t coded professionally in 10 years. I’m not sure I’m a good engineer anymore. If you’re a professional manager who isn’t coding regularly, this probably feels familiar. After talking to a host of smart friends, I’m convinced this isn’t a crisis of ability. It’s a…
We live in a world where human knowledge is more accessible than it has ever been, yet people continue to use old, linear methods of learning (books, papers, videos) as if nothing has changed. The modern LLM stack compresses months of learning into days. This post is about how I learn today. Not theoretically, but the literal tools and workflows that enable me to make progress in solidifying my…
Hi, I’m Rushabh. I co-founded Hiro Finance to build the first AI-powered financial advisor. We are a small, passionate team working on challenging problems, and we care just as much about the people we build with as the products we build. Before Hiro, I was the CPO at Digit where we helped millions save over a billion dollars and eventually joined forces with Oportun . Prior to Digit, I…
Everyone at Hiro cares deeply about building a great product - one that solves real problems while maintaining an extremely high quality bar. We take inspiration from other software products like Linear (the first issue tracking product that has actually given me joy) where every interaction feels intentional and polished. This obsession with quality isn’t just about aesthetics - we want Hiro to…
I’m back to writing after nearly two years. A lot has happened since then. First, my explorations around AI and LLMs kept increasing my excitement about the area. This excitement has proven well founded, as we are collectively in the midst of one of the greatest revolutions in computing that we have ever seen. Second, I started a company! Ethan and I are back into personal finance, but this…
Introduction # What do electricity, steam engines, printing presses, and large language models (LLMs) have in common? They are (likely) General Purpose Technologies: technologies that have a broad impact on all sectors of the economy. Given this broad applicability, how do we reason about the impact of LLMs? If you’re an investor or builder, where do you start? The GPTs are GPTs (1) paper by…
Instead of asking GPT to write my material, I used it as a critic to help strengthen my writing. I like the result: it feels much more authentic and less like generated text. Ministry for the Future # I enjoyed Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. This book is difficult to pigeonhole into a particular genre - somewhere in between “climate fiction” and “hard…
A fun little trivia game, co-written with my friend Vivek Patel . Enjoy: https://demos.rushabhdoshi.com/trivia/
I used GPT to generate cocktail recipes. A bunch of recipes are pre-generated and cached, but you can generate new ones on the fly. 🥂: https://demos.rushabhdoshi.com/bartender/
llm-code # tl;dr: llm-code is a CLI tool that helps you write code. It’s powered by OpenAI’s models. It’s open-source and free to use. Check it out on github or install it with pipx install llm-code . I’m really excited about this project. Excuse the enthusiasm. I’ve been messing around with LLMs since leaving my job in February. In part, I’ve tried to get back…
A Shift in Focus # More AI, more random, less focused # I wrote this post as a catchup for my substack newsletter . Reposting it here. Hello dear reader! It’s been a while - nearly a year to be precise, since the last substack post. I’ve been writing more regularly on my blog but didn’t crosspost here because the content was simply not worthy of the lofty ambitions of this blog. This bar was a…
My Development Stack # I’ve been programming since for 30+ years now. There have been a few times in my life when I’ve felt like a kid in a candy shop who couldn’t wait to get to their computer and start coding. First - the very early days with Basic and a junky ZX Spectrum clone. # Everything was new and amazing and 🤯s were common. This was pre-internet, so we had to get…
Random thoughts on the valuation of foundational model companies Companies like OpenAI , Anthropic , and Google are currently leading the development of foundational models, which are highly valued for their potential to unlock fast value across a range of industries. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Github co-pilot, Bing’s search assistant, and Jasper’s writing assistant are examples of the…
Live Demo # A small chat bot to talk to a historical figure. I try to explore whether chat is a fundamentally better didactic medium (I believe so) and play around with python and react. Github is private. Let me know if you want the code. YouTube screen cap: https://youtu.be/guUCG5yh-Ws
https://github.com/radoshi/audio-summarizer A toy summarizer for english language podcasts. Testing with audio lengths of 15-30 minutes. The summarizer uses OpenAI APIs to transcribe speech and generate summaries from the transcriptions.
That’s a Wrap # Last week, I wrapped up my three year journey with Digit and Oportun. Grateful to so many - few I’d like to call out in particular. First, Ethan Bloch for bringing me along - from 🍕 at Delfina, to joining three days before the pandemic, to building products that helped people become financially healthier, to building a team that I’d go into the trenches with any…
I was trying to build a really simple redirector to get back into the mode of building and deploying things for real. It’s been a while - management and children don’t leave that much time for hacking on the side. I started by building a simple thing with Go . I love Go. It’s simple and straightforward. I cheated. I used copilot to get me through rusty syntax. Copilot is amazing…
Happy 2022 everyone! We at Digit joined forces with Oportun just before Christmas! 2021 has been a wild year. We started the year by refocusing our efforts on building the world’s smartest bank account from the ground up. We strongly believe that people want to lead financially healthy lives but need help getting to their goals. We set out to extend our automatic savings functionality to the…
Accelerate was written in 2018 following four years of survey based research data compiled by its authors. In 2021, the book feels a bit dated: the practices mentioned in the book are treated as fairly commonplace in high performing software development organizations. Most of the ideas presented in the book make intuitive sense are accepted without much argument in today’s software…
Key Takeaways # Establish and spell out leadership principles (see Amazon’s fourteen leadership principles ). Enforce these principles through mechanisms . Three mechanisms extensively used at Amazon: annual planning process, S-Team goals process, and compensation plan. Create Single Threaded Leadership to drive autonomy and accountability. See Single Threaded Leadership Communicate using…
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash Digit is a Slack-only company. While we use email for automated alerts and GitHub emails, nearly all of our communication happens on Slack. We’re north of 100 employees, and without proper usage, Slack can get incredibly noisy and distracting. While one may be tempted to blame Slack, the root of the problem is human communication – communication volume…
“Are Your Lights On” is a humorous exploration into the heart of Problem Solving. The book is fun, light-hearted, and profound, all at the same time. Allegory # The book’s namesake allegory goes thus: There is a tunnel through a mountain, leading to beautiful Switzerland. As the engineer building the tunnel, you put a sign at the start that says WARNING: TUNNEL AHEAD PLEASE TURN…
The York Minster Cathedral took 242 years to build Photo by MatzeTrier CC BY-SA 3.0 Building great products takes enormous hard work over a long time. When we’re deep in the execution tunnel, blocking and tackling the problems that come our way, we can lose sight of the greater goal. Whenever that happens, motivation sinks, and both the volume out of output and the quality of work suffer. We…
The Problem # The Ever Given ran aground March 23rd, 2021, at 05:40 GMT and blocked the Suez canal. via NYTimes The ship was stuck like a giant windsail in the middle of a sandstorm with 46 mph winds. Ships operating in constricted waterways like the Suez are subject to the Bank effect : the ship’s stern tends to stick closer to the bank. Between being pushed by the wind and due to the bank…
I love codenames and coda . Decided to implement codenames using coda: https://coda.io/@rushabhdoshi/codanames
Key Ideas # Change is hard. To execute change, leaders have to act differently and motivate their teams to act differently. This book details a framework to effect change. Elephants and Riders # Based on Jonathan Haidt’s work, the authors describe how each person has an emotional Elephant side and a rational Rider side. What motivates one does not help with the other. To effect change, you…
Key Ideas # The authors present a systems thinking approach to dealing with Stress. Stressors create stress which accumulates until the Stress Cycle is completed. If left to continuously grow over time, stress results in Burnout - defined by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a decreased sense of accomplishment. Approaches to completing the stress cycle : Physical activity of 20-60m per…
I cannot believe we are in February already. 2020 was a clusterf*** of a year – COVID, forced isolation, millions sick, hundreds of thousands dead, a nerve-wracking election, and the aftermath that would not end. January felt like a continuation of December'20 to some extent. But thankfully, things are looking a little better. Vaccines are out, we have a government made of adults, and things…
Key Ideas # Habit forming products can be created using the Hooked model: Trigger, Action, Variable Rewards, and Investment. Details # Habits # Habits are defined as automatic behaviors triggered by situational cues. Habits give us the ability to focus our attention on other things by storing automatic responses. Our brain takes a shortcut and stops actively deliberating over what to do next. The…
Key Ideas # Generating insights is key to accelerate research and learning. To generate insights, Ahrens recommends using the Zettelkasten method to create a Second Brain that helps see relationships between concepts, discover open holes, and validate or invalidate understanding. Read by taking notes and noting concepts in your own words. This process helps deepen our understanding. Details # How…
Key Insights # The Pirate Stack, or where a Growth team works (with lots of concrete ideas about what to do in each phase.) Acquisition Activation Retention Revenue Avoid Growth stalls Don’t get complacent due to overconfidence in market positioning. Don’t lose focus on core products or services. Innovate. Grow or Die Double down on ideas that are working. Run a disciplined team and…
Welcome to your first team meeting as the new PM. You’re busy trying to learn what the team does and who everyone is. The team is discussing an important decision they need to make. What should you do? Do nothing . You don’t have all the context, how could you contribute? Jump in with your ideas . You’re a person of action and this is why they hired you. Offer to take notes . Ask…
We are in planning season at Digit. Like a number of other technology companies, we use OKRs. I was puzzled by the wide range of OKR effectiveness at different companies. My study of the nuances of different approaches led to the conclusions outlined in this note. OKRs are incredibly useful but it takes a long time for OKR usage to become effective. Shortcut your company’s learning process…
Non-COVID news: I’ve joined Digit as Chief Product Officer . We are living through unprecedented times. Humanity is collectively battling an enemy that we cannot see, one that doesn’t recognize national boundaries, and kills without remorse. The economic impact is horrendous. Nearly 6 million people have filed unemployment claims in the US in the last week alone [ source ] — a number…
The Trigger # As of March 2nd, 2020, the coronavirus outbreak has officially hit the tech sector. The virus, SARS-CoV-19, causes the disease, COVID-19. There are several different strains of the virus at this point, as it mutates at an average of about two mutations per month, resulting in several different strains in different places. [ source ]. There is a rash of cases in the Seattle area, with…
– Generated using repper.app I received positive feedback and encouragement for my previous 4 Interesting Reads post. Here is the next one, in the same vein. Feedback is always welcome, please reach out. Making Uncommon Knowledge Common by Kevin Kwok # https://kwokchain.com/2019/04/09/making-uncommon-knowledge-common/ Rich Barton has founded three companies valued at over a billion dollars:…
Life is full of complex decisions: capital purchases, such as a car or a house, planning a vacation, choosing a new job, picking a product strategy, prioritizing roadmaps, hiring someone. Complex decisions have several shared traits: the list of options is often extensive, evaluation criteria are ill-defined, the outcomes are hard to predict, input data is unavailable or incomplete. Humans…
A different post this week. Instead of the usual dose of problems and frameworks, here are four articles I came across in the past few weeks, along with summaries of why they’re worth reading. How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen # https://hbr.org/2010/07/how-will-you-measure-your-life Prof. Christensen passed away last week. He was a giant in the business world, with his…
Thanks to Ben Liebald, Lily Zhang, and Maher Saba for ideas and feedback. “Our customers love our product and are hungry for more. We have a solid strategy. But we seem to be moving very slowly. Our team is great, but we can’t seem to execute.” If this struck a chord, I have good news. First, you’re not alone. Most leaders I talk to ask for “execution” help.…
Buddha’s Office is the latest book by my friend, Dan Zigmond, who is a buddhist monk with a day job. I’ve worked with him at two companies (a rare pleasure): he’s a computer scientist turned data scientist turned leader. I have always admired his calm demeanor, his gentle but insightful arguments, and wondered how he manages to stay calm through intense situations. In this book,…
The final note in the series brings theory and practice together into two ideas: first, in order to improve at anything, you need fast feedback loops. Second, coaches are a great way to create these feedback loops in complex environments. I believe coaching is an essential part of management and part of a manager’s job. I also suggest two approaches to getting coaching when your manager is unable…
This is the second of three notes on Feedback. The first one covered pragmatic tips on delivering constructive feedback; this note goes into the theory behind achieving peak performance. How do we become experts? How can we learn new skills in depth? What is the process, what are the steps, and who do we need? Deliberate Practice is one way to learn and grow: have clear goals, focus, get feedback,…
Everyone screws up, everyone makes mistakes. When we err, hopefully, someone pulls us aside and tells us about our blunder. Feedback, when delivered on time and in a constructive manner, is critical to learning and growth. Three things that have made my feedback stick: 1 provide it as quickly as possible, 2. be firm and kind, and 3. suggest how you would have acted in that situation. 1. Timing Is…
(Photo by Matteo Di Iorio on Unsplash ) Managers work through meetings. In this short post, I posit three dimensions along which we can improve meetings and present tips that have had the most impact on my meetings along these dimensions. Growing up as an engineer, I equated meetings with wasting time. Naturally, when I become a manager, I tried to reduce or eliminate meetings, which did not work…
One of my favorite internal posts at Facebook outlined a framework on making sticky decisions. This post is a rewrite of that original “Durable Decisions” post by Ficus Kirkpatrick , in turn based on ideas and input from Nikhil Chandhok . The credit for the idea and framework go to them; this post is written by me since I have more cycles to write. Your team needs to decide whether to…
A Most Useful Management Framework # Management books are full of different leadership and management frameworks and advice. A lot of these use contrived examples and war stories that are hard to replicate. Over the course of a decade of managing engineering teams, I have found Situational Leadership to be the one framework that applies to a broad range of scenarios, is practical enough to be…