DavID L. Sifry

Product, Design, and Engineering Consulting for a variety of businesses.

ADL’s Center for Technology and Society (CTS) leads the global fight against online hate and harassment. Select results and achievements include: Envisioned and built the Online Hate Index (OHI), a set of machine learning-based classifiers that identify antisemitism and other forms of hate speech utilizing labelers from affected communities. This resulted in far higher accuracy than any other classifiers in the market, with Macro F1 scores above 0.85 and real-world performance 4-5 times more accurate than classifiers used by major social media platforms. Envisioned and built ADL’s Social Pattern Library socialpatterns.adl.org - a research-driven collection of design patterns and principles for mitigating the presence and spread of online hate and harassment in social platforms. Led design advocacy and engagement with YouTube and Twitter that resulted in double-digit reductions in the amount of hate and harassment across the platforms. Engaged with Zoom’s product team to implement the Security Shield icon for Zoom hosts which reduced Zoombombing and improved millions of people’s experiences during the pandemic. Testified before the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Oct 28, 2021 on Social Media Platforms and the Amplification of Domestic Extremism & Other Harmful Content. Provided extensive authorship and advice on AB587, the social media platform transparency bill, and testified before the California Senate Judiciary committee on Nov 9, 2021. The bill is now law in California. Implemented an impact-based measurement approach, and incorporated quarterly and yearly OKRs resulting in consistent overachievement of personal, team, and organizational goal metrics, and more than doubled the team’s size and budget as a result.

Responsible for leading Engineering, Product, and Design of Reddit's Revenue Generating Products.

Led the development of a number of Lyft's strategic projects, including Transit, the first major new feature in Lyft since its rollout of shared rides. I led the user research, concept, R&D, and prototyping of the service which resulted in a platform for new ride types including trains, buses, ferries, scooters and bikes.

Interana makes behavioral analytics tools for curious people, providing real-time ad-hoc analytics on enormous data sets for companies like Tinder, Reddit, Asana, and Microsoft Bing. Reduced release cycle time by 40% and increased QA coverage by 60%, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of new revenue, fewer bugs, and happier customers. 

Founder and leader of the first blog search engine along with accompanying publisher tools including an advertising network. Starting as a science project in my basement running on two second-hand servers and my DSL line, built, funded, and grew Technorati to a 80+ person business with over $1M/month in revenue.  Brought on a crack executive leadership team and hired world-class engineers and marketers, and enabled the company to compete and succeed against the titans in the technology sector. Recruited new CEO in 2007, and as board member, helped set Technorati's vision, mission, and business goals, and provided support, advice, and action to help Technorati's continued success in the marketplace. Worked with the board and leadership team to complete the company's sale to Synacor in 2016.

Envisioned and prototyped the product, a totally customizable set of personalized travel guides, available for over 20,000 worldwide destinations, in both printed and electronic form. Recruited and built the team, and raised funding. Sold the company in 2012 to Look, Buy Fly Travel.

Sputnik provides cloud-managed guest Wi-Fi solutions used in thousands of hotspots across the globe. Responsible for the technical vision, architecture, and implementation of Sputnik's wifi router and control products, resulting in numerous industry awards.

Linuxcare provided an array of technical information and support services to enhance and simplify the use of Linux and other Open Source software, including a news and information portal, Linuxcare University, Technical Support, and Product Certification for Dell, IBM, Compaq, Oracle, Sun, and other Linux providers across all major distributions. Responsible for the vision, technical architecture, and engineering implementation of Linuxcare's core businesses. Defined and built its core lines of business, closed major deals and partnerships, and grew from 3 people to over 480 people in a period of 18 months.

Designed and built GUI tools to help factory managers in control rooms at steel mills, nuclear power plants, and hydroelectric power stations get the most up-to-date, real-time information on the current status of their factories. As the first non-Japanese person in 17 years to work in the Kobe factory of 4,800 people, provided cultural exchange with Japanese engineers and managers, and mentored new recruits.