Vikram Singh

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On April 22, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Darktrace: Cybersecurity of the Future? :

Absolutely love this question because I thought of this for quite a while when I was writing this post the best answer I could only come up with was fairly ironic. A malware could potentially penetrate the system by mimicking “normal” behavior. Funny thing though is that when it starts its actual attack, it would immediately be quarantined. So even though the system can be penetrated, it can never be attacked. It was a pretty fun thought experiment to come up with this

On April 22, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Darktrace: Cybersecurity of the Future? :

I would assume their goal with the IPO is to generate more funds and increase valuation. it could also be to reward their investors. Another obvious one I can think of is scaling like you mentioned

On April 22, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Darktrace: Cybersecurity of the Future? :

I think currently these offerings are available only to companies as they need a large dataset of logs to determine normal behavior. But taking from an earlier comment, it could be possible to design systems like this for most average internet users. But in this case users should be willing to let their data and behavior train the system for others. It does have some issues too where bad actors could set up server farms and train the system to “normalize” any behavior as any large enough group of computers could define the limits of what is normal.

On April 22, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Darktrace: Cybersecurity of the Future? :

The cost depends on the depth and breadth of a particular usecase but it can ideally completely replace an anti-virus software.

On April 22, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Darktrace: Cybersecurity of the Future? :

The solution is not completely turnkey as it has to be modified for each company’s systems. But as far as the bespoke element is concerned, the solution would unique to each client as it only learns from their system. This also addresses the problem of using one clients data to train another’s model as the system trains on what is normal for each client uniquely.

On April 22, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Tempus AI: Data-Driven Precision Medicine :

Great Post Marcos! The work that Tempus is doing sounds really exciting. I see you’ve mentioned some of the privacy concerns related to insurance companies and individual data. But I’d also love to hear what you think about tempus selling the anonymous aggregate data as this could help insurance companies decide base premiums for large demographic groups.

On April 22, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Legacy Furniture Bohemoth IKEA, All In On AI :

Great article Cristina! Like you mentioned, IKEA has leveraged the image recognition angle in AI. what do you think about their potential to build recommendation engines for furniture? having analyzed enough interior design images and items from its catalogue do you think they could recommend an entire room’s layout for customers based on budget, availability etc?

On April 22, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Stylumia: Bringing Science to the Art of Fashion :

Thanks for this Surabhi! having spent some time working in the crossroads of fashion and AI myself, this post is and Stylumia go to show the extent to which AI is moving beyond classical “analytical” tasks and taking over what we humans consider “creative” ones. As far as AI is concerned these are simpler ones who’s results are trackable. as we move to more complex ones, some of which exist for other usecases, the possibilities seem limitless.

On March 24, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on How Instagram Keeps Users Scrolling For More :

Julia, this is amazing. As the Instagram algorithm designing the feed and the explore page gets more complex it becomes harder to understand how to get the page to cater to you. The fact that chronology has been eliminated from the feed is a particularly disturbing bit.
Post The Social Dilemma the understanding of the internet has changed and now people realize more acutely what internet companies are geared towards.
The fact that Instagram now lets accounts market products within their posts just like tagging people is another disturbing element. this let’s accounts market to users by targeting them. This is one of the most disturbing parts of it.

On March 24, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Disney Magic with Big Data :

Love this viewpoint of Disney Almas. It is especially relevant because pre Disney+, not too many consumers would have looked at Disney as a company particularly interested in collecting data or manipulating it. It was just not a part of their image.

But seeing this blog, one gets to take a deeper look at a company most of us grew up with and understand the relevance of data in why they are successful. The entertainment industry has always been an early adopter of new technologies and Disney just goes to reinforce that point.

Some of the things you mentioned about analyzing facial reaction are terrifying because employees at the company would definitely have ways to gain access to these images/videos which is a huge threat to their clients privacy.

On March 23, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Duolingo: Language Learning through Deep Learning :

Hey Cristina, Amazing post! For the brief period that I used Duolingo, it was actually very strange how they could predict my schedule and the level at which I progressed to make me repeat parts I was struggling with and move faster past phrases I understood quickly. It makes sense that they use pattern recognizing deep learning algorithms.

Also, considering Google’s stake in the company, do you think that they might be using speech data from Duolingo for better training their AI to understand languages in various foreign accents?

On March 2, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Zeel: Massage on Demand :

Great article Max. One thing that comes to mind after looking at Zeel’s business model and the current economic climate is how well they would do during the pandemic as social distancing norms would, in my mind have hit them fairly hard. How do you think their performance was considering all the the factors you mentioned under scalability and sustainability with COVID added on top?

Amazing post Omar. I think this matching algorithm that, as you clearly mentioned, preys on men could finally also be their downfall. Loneliness is a great driver for their business. But the 80% of their users not getting matches could also be driven off their platform to something else that comes along that is slightly less discriminatory. Assuming that these are where most of their paying users come from, this could potentially prove to be a serious problem. Especially when coupled with the branding issues that they are having and the now prevalent ads on the platform.

On March 2, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Clubhouse – The Audio-Only Platform :

Thanks for this article Pranav. Especially since I actually joined clubhouse today. It was interesting to go through some of the conversations but like Kyle stated above, I seriously doubt the ability of influencers to monetize their work on clubhouse as there is little evidence to prove their work without the recordings and this will make contractual disputes very hard to settle. Also, i am not sure about the stickiness of the concept. Maybe a lot of people are there due to the novelty and exclusivity. Daily returning users might be a better way to capture their performance in my opinion.

On March 2, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Bumble: Monetizing Empowerment :

Hey Jibran,

Love this question. I thought about the same for quite a while when I was researching Bumble. The best answer I came up with is using the network effects to create higher frictions to multi homing. As more users buy these add-ons, the would get more invested in one platform. Bumble has an edge here due to the advanced filtering. If the users see the same faces on all platforms, it makes sense for them to use the platform where they can exercise maximum control over who they see.

On March 2, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Bumble: Monetizing Empowerment :

Hey Pranav,

Great question. In my opinion bumble creates value through its brand identity as a feminist organization and its added services. It utilizes the premium buy-ins as a way to capture the value that it creates.

On February 11, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Your Instacart shopper has started shopping! :

I love what InstaCart did for grocery shopping. There are similar services across the world and they have all seen significant growth during the pandemic. Like John mentioned above, the gig economy also concerns me as it is non static demand which leaves the shoppers at vulnerable to customer demand variance. The service they provide though does sound like a godsend to working mothers. But as someone that likes to cook, I would personally prefer to pick my own groceries. But, InstaCart users are not particularly finicky and a lot of what they buy would be packaged products for which it makes great sense due to standardization.
Their model like other convenience based models that acquired customers during the pandemic will end up sticking as it is human nature to not want to let go of conveniences that one is used to.

On February 10, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Drizly: Drinking the Pandemic to the Top :

I agree strongly with Karl’s comment. And would like to add that now that Drizly has Uber backing it, it can expand aggressively to other areas around the US and they world. One problem they might face is varying regulations as they approach new geographies. As for diminishing demand post pandemic, Drizly sells a product that is addictive by its very nature. And convenience is something that people do not want to let go of once they get used to it. They just redefined the paradigm on alcohol consumption. Their access to a wider array of stores also gives them an edge as if you are looking for something particular, it’s probably better to shop for it on Drizly as your local liquor store might not have it. This is similar to amazon being the best place to shop for something like books as they would have access to a much wider collection than a physical store.

On February 10, 2021, Vikram Singh commented on Drizly: Drinking the Pandemic to the Top :

I agree strongly with Karl’s comment. And would like to add that now that Drizly has Uber backing it, it can expand aggressively to other areas around the US and they world. One problem they might face is varying regulations as they approach new geographies. As for diminishing demand post pandemic, Drizly sells a product that is addictive by its very nature. And convenience is something that people do not want to let go of once they get used to it. They just redefined the paradigm on alcohol consumption. Their access to a wider array of stores also gives them an edge as if you are looking for something particular, it’s probably better to shop for it on Drizly as your local liquor store might not have it. This is similar to amazon being the best place to shop for something like books as they would have access to a much wider collection than a physical store.

Would it be fair to say that the automation McDonald’s was bringing in to deal with demands for a better minimum wage helped it deal with the pandemic better? Also, the “Accelerating the Arches” strategy though profitable for McDonald’s will cause more automation, leading to loss of jobs in the future. This could lead to McDonald’s have a public perception issue in the future which might in turn end up negatively impacting their profits.