Joe Haddad

Hi, I'm Joe. My work is zero-to-one: I join startups when there's a problem and not much else, and I figure things out. Gaya was the first of several; it has since made millions and turned a profit, and a year after leaving, I'm somehow still the top contributor to its main AI repo.

I got into AI by accident. In 2020, before the hype, I found Magenta, Google's attempt to teach neural networks to write music. I'd played in bands and produced music my whole life, so I had opinions. The generated music was terrible. I was hooked anyway, and I never really left.

These days I run Clavis Labs, an AI consultancy for businesses that want fewer spreadsheets and better decisions. I advise HAQQ on AI and product. And I'm quietly building something new with friends. I work from Beirut, or from wherever I happen to be. This page was written in Antalya, my favorite city in the world.

Off the clock, I run and swim to offset the sitting, and I watch more MMA than I train. Being Lebanese came with three languages; I'm working on Turkish and Russian. My dad taught me chess as a kid, and I picked it back up as an adult. Eight years of serious play later I'm at 1800 FIDE rapid, and lately I've been trying to figure out why language models are still so bad at the game.

If you want to argue about openings, or you're building something, say hi.