Anvita Jain

An open letter from Meta employees to Mark Zuckerberg and Meta's leadership. Very well articulated, I couldn't have done it myself better! I left Meta end of 2023 because of many things similar to what's mentioned in the letter, so I can definitely relate.

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I was thinking about this famous proverb, or saying: “The messenger is as important as the message.” I think that these days, or as Havel suggested, in post-totalitarian system, this proverb doesn't seem correct any more. People started giving more importance to the messengers, and decides about the message based on the “merit” of the messengers—no matter if the message is a stinking shit. For example, if the messenger is their superior then the message must be valuable, important, and worth propagating; if the message is from some celebrity, especially techno-celebrity, then the message is important and valuable; if the messenger is famous, rich, and has worldly success, then the message must be valuable and important etc. Let’s look at it in another perspective; take messengers in the religious context. I’ll use Islam (as that is the religion I know a good deal about, comparatively) to explain this. To us, Muslims, Prophet Muhammad(s.a.w.) is very important, and we also love him and consider him very important, indeed; but, we don’t heed his message—we pretend to heed, but we don't, like... it’s not as important. And this is not a new phenomenon, there are many fabricated Ahadith (sayings) in the name of prophet Muhammad(s.a.w.), just because whoever fabricated those knew that people will take it in the name of the messenger. BTW, this is not something peculiar to Islam only, but any religion, I would argue. In the case of religion, we love the messengers, hold them dear and in reverence; but, we don’t even try to live their message, let alone live their message.

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🚀 Curious about how we scale Disney+ Hotstar's infrastructure to handle millions of concurrent users? In my latest blog, I dive into the journey of optimizing core infrastructure components, tackling challenges head-on, and redefining our approach to scalability and reliability. This journey has been truly transformative! 📈 Not only did this transformation improve performance, but it also set the stage for future growth. Check it out and explore the insights that shaped our success! A special thanks to Harsh Mittal Karthik Vijayaraju and Anil Kumar A. for your invaluable contributions, guidance, and support in writing this tech blog. Disney+ Hotstar #infrastructure #engineering #devops #scaling #cloud

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Work tidbits - Living on the edge! Over a year back, I received my patent in the Knowledge Annotation space after 5 years of wait - it triggered me to join this new team.  The space was/still is AI Accelerators, within Cloud Compute. My team specifically was the ‘last mile’, productionize and land the AI accelerators for the top cloud customers.  The work would have been fine in the last 2+ decades of my career - but these times were different. Everyone and everything was in the AI/ML race. Before we(or others) could plan a new stack - something better was out there - sometimes open sourced! Before anyone could make the perf/$ cheaper - There was an update on new numbers available. There were negotiations on software lifecycles, in favor of velocity.   Customers were eager more than any other time. They were feeling the same stress - best LLM, best Stable diffusion, best MLPerf, best ML stack, best chips, best networking, best price! We did very well overall and that part will continue - despite living on the edge. Recently things shifted and I have gotten time to breathe(joined a sister team), also write my thoughts/tidbits - 1.) A friend, a mentor once said - Go far, not fast! Life is not a race and you have a long way to go! I do.  2.) Build resilience. You will see a lot of ups and downs. You don’t always have time to feel sorry for the down, or cheer for the ups! Keep your emotions in the middle spectrum.  3.) Find the true allies, and keep them close. They will tell you when you are wrong, or not - but most importantly they will stick with you, for long. I just ran into my peer from 9 years ago, 2 companies back in the hallway today!  4.) Recognize that some folks are indeed for the fast, maybe also far.. but mostly fast. Let them be! Take 2 steps back. Build resilience.  5.) Invest in your team - My reports, people are/were the team's biggest strength, and the primary reason to keep us going. We certainly don’t end here. The jobs will always be demanding, and that is by design. But the 'how' is on you..   My Amazon manager (now a VP@Microsoft) wrote me a handwritten note that said - Shivani, slow down and take the time to smell the flowers - I have been practicing something like this lately..  I am taking my learnings and my tribe along - and certainly aiming to go far.  Please take care of yourself, no matter what stage! ##resilience #livingontheedge #farnotfast #machinelearning #google #cloud

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From Astrologer's Whispers to Real Connections: Reclaiming Belonging in a Lonely Age Have you ever consulted an astrologer, their predictions swirling in your head, only to feel empty when your day takes a different turn? The emptiness might not be about the details themselves, but about seeking outside approval for your happiness. This same feeling can creep in even when you achieve success. Remember climbing the career ladder, landing that dream apartment, only to find yourself lost in a quiet emptiness? In India's bustling cities, it's a familiar, painful emotion. We're surrounded by people, yet there's a little loneliness at the edges of our lives. Thinking back to Mrs. Deshmukh, your friendly neighbour with the legendary Til Gur Barfi's, who brought the whole neighbourhood together with tea and friendly chats. Those evenings of shared stories and laughter, a web woven by simple human connection, feel like a distant memory in our super-connected yet broken world. We chase success with thumbs glued to screens, building online bridges that leave us feeling more alone than ever. The pressure to create a perfect online self-drowns out the whispers of our own desires. But here's the real deal, that shiny designation and fancy car can't fill the hole left by genuine connection. There's hope, though! We can rewrite this story. Let's ditch the small talk and chase deeper connections. Share your fears and worries, break free from feeling isolated in this sea of ambition. Remember the warmth of family gatherings, the joy of shared childhood games? Revive those small traditions. Pick up the phone for a real heart-to-heart conversation rather than What's Apping. Every act of connection, no matter how ordinary, how small, builds a more satisfying life. Imagine hearing back from an old friend, reliving an old laugh, and being surrounded by people who truly see us, where we belong. Isn't that what life is all about? Together, one conversation, one meal, and one act of kindness at a time, we can tear down the walls of loneliness. We can rewrite the narrative of modern society, where connection becomes the foundation of a life well lived. It's not too late, or is it? #HumanConnections #BelongingMatters #OvercomeLoneliness #RealConversations #MeaningfulRelationships #CommunityOverConnectivity #AuthenticLiving #SocialWellbeing #RedefiningSuccess #TraditionsRewoven #FightIsolation #VulnerableAndReal #KindnessRevolution #SmallActsBigImpact #ReconnectingHumanity #IndianSociety #UrbanLoneliness #DigitalDetox #QualityOverQuantity #ConnectionCures Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

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Can AI Understand the "Yeah, Right" Moments? Last week, while scrolling through some headlines about AI advancements, I started thinking about something that feels almost too human to replicate—sarcasm. Not the obvious kind that’s dripping with irony, but those subtle, everyday comments we all make that are more tone than content. Sarcasm, humor, and tone are deeply embedded in how we connect. And yet, AI? It still struggles with this kind of nuance. Picture this: You’re hit with a CAPTCHA that says, "Oh, perfect! Another Monday. Just what I needed!" and asks you to choose whether the statement is sarcastic or genuine. Easy for us, right? We know when someone’s rolling their eyes, even if we can't see them. But for AI? It’s not so simple. Let’s push it further: Imagine a coworker says, "Sure, let's have that critical meeting at 4:59 on a Friday." We immediately understand the frustration hiding behind those words, but can an AI catch that? Does it get the unspoken "this is a terrible idea" that’s baked into the comment? The answer is: not yet. Or what about this classic line? "Oh, great, another email asking for feedback. Just what I needed to make my day even better." Humans can pick up the sarcasm in a heartbeat—we’ve all been there. But AI would still be taking that at face value, thinking you really want to fill out that survey. As AI continues to advance, the question is: Can it ever truly get us in the way another human does? Detecting sarcasm isn’t just about parsing words, it’s about understanding the situation, the mood, the context—and sometimes even shared history. That level of emotional intelligence has been a uniquely human domain. The future of AI will depend on closing this gap. Right now, AI can analyze millions of data points and predict behaviors, but it can’t quite lean back in its chair, smirk, and say, "Oh, sure, another meeting. Just what I needed!" But what happens when it can? When machines develop the ability to sense not just the words but the meaning behind them? That’s when the real transformation happens. So, will AI ever fully detect sarcasm? I think it’s not a matter of if, but when. We’re already seeing AI models inch closer to understanding context and tone, but detecting the "Yeah, right" moments will require leaps in emotional intelligence. And when that day comes, maybe we’ll finally get AI that not only performs tasks but understands the intent behind them. Now, that will be interesting. Until then, I guess we’ll just keep waiting for AI to learn when we’re rolling our eyes.

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I am excited to share the latest blog, co-authored by myself, Junhwi Kim and Vyas Sekar, detailing how we managed to successfully localized and improved LLM by combining Fine-Tuning and RAG. https://lnkd.in/gKDkgGPq

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<rant subject = #streaming and #queues> Streams have stronger ordering guarantees than message queues. Generally this means that all messages within a partition are read in the same order. This is highly useful when you need an ordered record of events that happened. As a consequence, streaming systems don't have individual message acknowledgement as it would violate ordering guarantees. Message queues have per-message acknowledgement, which means they have less strict ordering guarantees. One hybrid approach which is quite cool is "key-based subscriptions" in Apache Pulsar and also Confluent's Parallel Consumer for #apachekafka which guarantee order for all messages with the same key while allowing you to individually acknowledge messages. The tradeoff with individual message ack's is persistence (disk or memory)—you need to keep track of which messages have been acknowledged and which ones are still inflight. Pulsar uses BookKeeper to persist "subscriptions." Parallel Consumer stores them in the user-defined metadata in the consumer offset topic. There's an in-flight KIP for "Queues on Kafka" (KIP-932) but if I were the Grumpy Maintainer of Kafka, I would say that it's unnecessary given that it's already possible to implement queue semantics on top of Kafka in the client side (see: Parallel Consumer). Why add additional code bloat on the broker side when the features are already accessible? </rant>

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Thanks again for having me at #SUGJaipur. The recording of my talk: "XM Cloud Components - what's new?!" is up on their #youtube and available here: https://lnkd.in/dkVbARfP

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Re-posting one of my less popular / unorthodox views. Weekly 1:1s are hacks to get around the lack of proper team communication setups, and they weaken individual resilience. Adhoc 1:1s are fine for providing spot feedback, but they should be rare. Career growth 1:1s are great, but they should happen once in 3-6 months. Project check-ins / questions should be discussed in 5-10 minutes on slack. A design whiteboarding meeting between two engineers is fantastic, but it's not a 1:1. Weekly 30 minute 1:1s are unhealthy and an unnecessary time-sink, stop using them to communicate with your reports. https://lnkd.in/ehr_e2Xv

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Infrastructure scaling at beast scale is a different ball game altogether. Learn from this insightful series penned by Ajay Choudhary on how we rewrote the playbook and how we stumbled upon hard limits of various infrastructure layers - overcoming them one by one. Don't miss this one!

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https://lnkd.in/gcJsEKrG Q. What happens when #neural #networks are applied to fields like #Physics? A. In short, a Nobel Prize. More broadly, neural networks, built on the laureates' foundational work, have wide-ranging applications across science, technology, and various industries. They excel at tasks like pattern recognition, classification, and data generation. #Physics #AI #HVSays

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Work with people who can help you grow. It is much less about what work you do, but rather who you work with. Your achievements & accomplishments would be in proportion to your peers, bosses and subordinates. The only skill is in knowing who they are. And then walking away from those who aren't. I wish I knew this in my 20s, and I did like to share this wisdom. But nobody asks me only! #growth #careeradvice #freeadvice #careerprogression #peoplefirst

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𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝗶𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮 — 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀. 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝘁? Meet Pooja, a Product Lead who moved to the U.S. in 2008 for her master’s. After graduation, she landed her first job in Boston, but her initial employer didn’t file for her green card. She later switched to a Fortune 500 company, which filed her EB2 in 2012. Now, over a decade later, Pooja is still navigating the H1-B renewal cycle. Meanwhile, junior colleagues who arrived years after her are securing green cards through EB-1. Feeling stuck, she’s considering EB-1 herself but isn’t sure if the process is worth it. What Pooja doesn’t realize: ➡️ Her profile may already be EB1-worthy. ➡️ She likely meets the Critical Role and Salary criteria. ➡️ Her contributions, speaking engagements, and professional growth over the years all count. With a few targeted efforts, she could have an EB1-ready profile within a year, port her 2012 priority date, and get her green card in 12-18 months. Now, Pooja has two choices: Option 1: Take control with EB-1. Option 2: Hope the EB2 backlog advances and gamble on the wait. If you were Pooja, what would you choose? PS: If Option 1 feels like your path, consider joining our EB1 Slack Community(link in comments)! Every month, we help at-least five people accelerate their EB1 journey with the right strategies and tools.

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Great example on how user behavior is very different in real world !. Advance features do not guarantee user satisfaction in fact works opposite in many cases. I firmly believe that user perspective should be at the centre of feature enhancements.

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The fast way to impress your boss, or get fired fast: use these words in your emails or meetings :-) : h/t T.K. Rengarajan https://lnkd.in/gJWMSG6Z

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Book 118 of 2024. Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King. An outstanding book providing an overview of the native population of North America and how the colonial governments took the land and treated the native population. A must read.

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#PeopleAsset #Work_Relationships #InvestingInPeople Investing in people is like investing in your most valuable asset—only instead of numbers, it’s about building real connections. Too often, I see people reaching out only in a crisis, like the saying, "Sanakata bandaaga Venkata Ramana"—we remember God in tough times, trusting He’ll forgive ( He's God so he will) but with people, it’s different. You can’t just show up when things go south! Real relationships need regular care, even beyond work. Here’s the strategy: invest your time consistently—whether it’s casual chats over coffee or being there during tough moments. Like diversifying financial investments, nurturing relationships across different people is essential. Friendships and professional connections don’t magically appear when you need them; they grow with care, just like your savings. When you invest in people over time, the returns are priceless—emotional support, career growth, and meaningful friendships. It’s not about waiting for a crisis to reach out. Build strong, lasting connections, so when you need them, they’ll be there, solid and unwavering ( remember the diversified portfolio one asset will surely outperform)

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