Daniel Varoli

Daniel Varoli

Machine Learning Engineer

Daniel’s journey began at the age of 16, when he realized Physics was much more than memorizing long equations. He went on to study Physics and Mathematics for his undergraduate degree. During that time he also worked as a research assistant in a Biophysics lab. He then pursued a M. Sc. in Bio-mechanical engineering, and as part of his thesis built a program to assist in detection and classification of immune cells. He was part way into his Ph.D. in bio-medical engineering, when he realized this was not his passion and made a transition into AI. He has since worked at a distributor-focused startup as a data scientist, before joining Zapata. He is a huge fan of generative models, especially anything that involves surreal artworks.

Question & Answer

Why have you chosen a career in quantum?

It’s a field with a lot of new and un-answered questions, which makes it very exciting and I am very curious to see what new things can come out of the intersection of quantum computing and AI!

What’s your superpower?

I am able to say “Hey Siri” to someone else’s iPhone and it will think that I am the actual owner of the iPhone.

If you could meet anyone, who would it be and why?

I’d be very interested to meet someone who was involved with highly classified documents during the Cold War, from both the US side and the Soviet side and hear their un-redacted stories about events that transpired.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

You won’t know whether something was the right decision or not until you make that decision. I am sure there are exceptions, but in general this has helped with avoiding analysis paralysis in a lot of situations.

What are people often surprised to know about you?

People often surprised how I could be so clueless about famous actors / pop-stars and celebrities in general. In fact I know for sure if there was a famous celebrity next to me (other than a handful of people) I would have no idea.