Tabrez Syed

I build software and I write. I’m on my fifth startup, working in AI.

The writing goes in two directions. Most of it is about AI, which I try to understand by holding it against the waves I’ve already watched arrive: distributed computing at Tivoli, then Java, then the web, then mobile. History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. The rest is about meditation, which I’ve been doing for twenty-five years. I’m writing a book on that one, Wobbling Well. The two subjects turn out to be less separate than they look.

Why it’s called Mandalivia

In 1988, when I was eight, I imagined an island that rose out of the Indian Ocean, unclaimed by any nation and missing from every map. I named it Mandalivia. Its economy ran on chocolate coins, and its parliament spent its time arguing for longer recess.

The island stayed in my head until the internet gave it somewhere to live. This site is where it landed: a place to keep the work and think out loud.

Where the work lives

• Writing — essays, letters, and the digital gardens
• Atelier — the software and tools I build
• Talks — presentations and workshops

I publish the AI writing at BoxCars, and the writing on attention and non-duality at Zenist.

Some of the AI writing has also appeared in Towards AI, The AI Journal, Design Bootcamp, Artificial Intelligence in Plain English, and Open Data Science. Before AI, I spent eleven years at Spiceworks, then built companies of my own in real estate, personal finance, and data. I’m a named inventor on US Patent 9,483,791.