Raffi Krikorian
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Raffi Krikorian ( hy, Րաֆֆի Գրիգորեան; born 1978) is an
Armenian-American Armenian Americans ( hy, ամերիկահայեր, ''amerikahayer'') are citizens or residents of the United States who have total or partial Armenian ancestry. They form the second largest community of the Armenian diaspora after Armenians in ...
technology executive, and the CTO of the
Emerson Collective Emerson Collective is a for-profit corporation focused on education, immigration reform, the environment, media and journalism, and health. Founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, this limited liability company (LLC) uses philanthropy, impact investing, ...
. He was the CTO of the
Democratic National Committee The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office, as well a ...
, Head of
Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...
's Advanced Technologies Center, and the former VP of Platform Engineering at
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
where he was in charge of infrastructure for all of Twitter up to August 2014. He is credited with leading the charge to improve the reliability of Twitter as well as the move from
Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sa ...
to the
JVM A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes ...
. He currently also serves on the board of directors of the
Tumo Center for Creative Technologies The TUMO Center for Creative Technologies ( hy, Թումո ստեղծարար տեխնոլոգիաների կենտրոն) is a free education program for teenagers aged 12–18 specializing in technology and design, with education being provided ...
in
Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Y ...
,
Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
.


Biography


Early life

Krikorian attended
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...
and was a student of
Neil Gershenfeld Neil Adam Gershenfeld (born December 1, 1959) is an American professor at MIT and the director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, a sister lab to the MIT Media Lab. His research studies are predominantly focused in interdisciplinary studies in ...
's. His work involved creating a new type of network for everyday devices called " Internet-0" (an analogue to the
Internet of Things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...
). Along with Gershenfeld, he also taught a class entitled "How To Make (Almost) Anything". He also worked on an interactive location service for software agents called Wherehoo. He was also "an unapologetic
TiVo TiVo ( ) is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi (previously by TiVo Corporation and TiVo Inc.) and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose fea ...
fanatic", and wrote "TiVo Hacks" (
O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of an ...
2003). Krikorian also was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Communication at
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...
's
Interactive Telecommunications Program The New York University Tisch School of the Arts (commonly referred to as Tisch) is the performing, cinematic and media arts school of New York University. Founded on August 17, 1965, Tisch is a training ground for artists, scholars of the a ...
. There, he developed two classes entitled "Every Bit You Make" and "Physical Computing without Computers". In 2007, Krikorian was partner at Synthesis Studios where he worked on OneHop, a project that uses Bluetooth technology and SMS to alert mobile-phone owners when they come into proximity with other Bluetooth-device owners they’ve met before.


WattzOn

Along with
Saul Griffith Saul Griffith (born 1974) is an Australian-American inventor and renewable electricity advocate. He is the founder or co-founder of multiple companies, including Otherlab (where he is currently CEO), Makani Power, and Instructables. Education ...
, Krikorian created
Wattzon WattzOn provides utility bill data to energy and credit markets. They offer three products. Link Energy transfers data from utilities to a consumer app. Link Prime transfers utility bill payment history to credit bureaus. Snap is a machine learning ...
and debuted it at PopTech in 2008. Their goal was to allows users to calculate their total energy footprint by estimating their direct and indirect power consumption. It's notable, because unlike most carbon calculators it measures energy consumption, and not the by-products (CO2, or CO2 equivalent emissions) and because it aggregates information into a holistic view of energy consumption allowing users to see the energy used in their driving compared to their eating, for example. Wattzon was named
Business Week ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...
's Best Idea of 2008.


Twitter

Krikorian joined Twitter in 2009 as an engineer on the API team, working on its geospatial APIs. At this time, he created a Tweet "map of metadata". He is also credited with the integration of Twitter into
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
's
iOS 5 iOS 5 is the fifth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 4. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 6, 2011, and was released on October 12, 2011. ...
. Krikorian also made Twitter data available for research universities. After the
2010 FIFA World Cup , image = 2010 FIFA World Cup.svg , size = 200px , caption = ''Ke Nako. (Tswana and Sotho for "It's time") Celebrate Africa's Humanity'It's time. Celebrate Africa's Humanity'' (English)''Dis tyd. Vier Afrika se mensd ...
, which he notes he "still asPTSD from", during which Twitter repeatedly had issues, Krikorian lead the charge to strengthen the service. To do this, Twitter moved to the JVM as well as moved from a monolithic codebase to a more
Service-oriented architecture In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. By consequence, it is also applied in the field of software design where services are provide ...
. Twitter has also scaled out their global server infrastructure as well as implemented
SPDY SPDY (pronounced "speedy") is an obsolete open-specification communication protocol developed for transporting web content. SPDY became the basis for HTTP/2 specification. However, HTTP/2 diverged from SPDY and eventually HTTP/2 subsumed all us ...
. And, Twitter did a lot of work on their storage systems, their observability and statistics systems, and their data analytics products. Twitter made it through the
2014 FIFA World Cup The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014, after the country was awarded the hosting ri ...
with no site wide incidents. Krikorian has also been part of scaling the engineering culture at Twitter as well as helping open Twitter's Seattle office. He has spoken about #branchingout, "Twitter University", as well as "Hack Week". He noted that Hack Week serves " sa release valve in a lot of ways." In 2014, Krikorian remarked that "Twitter ngineeringis entering a 'maturation phase'" and that Twitter can confidently say, "We know how to do this". To do that, Twitter spends a lot of time in capacity planning and breaking services down into tiers to handle “burst capacity”. He said his goal is that Twitter engineers should focus on the end-user experience, and not have to worry about the infrastructure layer.


Uber

Krikorian joined
Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...
in 2015 in the research department to work on "massive scale data and software platforms”. He has since become the Engineering Director in charge of the Advanced Technologies Center and self-driving. Starting on Wednesday, September 14, 2016, Uber deployed the self-driving cars onto the roads of
Pittsburgh, PA Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsyl ...
. Krikorian has called Pittsburgh the “double-black diamond of driving” and also commented that if “...Uber can master autonomous driving in Pittsburgh … it can make it almost anywhere."


Democratic National Committee

Krikorian was the Chief Technology Officer of the
Democratic National Committee The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office, as well a ...
from 2017 to March 2019. He claims he joined because "the world is broken". He split his time between Silicon Valley and Washington, DC. His focus was to update the Democratic Party's crumbling infrastructure. He also worked on security, nudging voters to vote as well as the "cultural" elements of bringing engineering to the political world.


Emerson Collective

Krikorian is now the Managing Director of Engineering at the Emerson Collective.


Armenia

Krikorian is active in the Armenian community. He serves on the board of the
Tumo Center for Creative Technologies The TUMO Center for Creative Technologies ( hy, Թումո ստեղծարար տեխնոլոգիաների կենտրոն) is a free education program for teenagers aged 12–18 specializing in technology and design, with education being provided ...
in
Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Y ...
,
Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
where he taught classes and given public lectures. In 2015, at the
University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
, he gave a public lecture entitled "Why Not Armenia?". On 25 April 2015, he hosted an engineering summit at the Tumo center along with
Alexis Ohanian Alexis Kerry Ohanian ( hy, Ալեքսիս Քերի Օհանյան; born April 24, 1983) is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is best known as the co-founder and executive chairman of the social media site Reddit along with Stev ...
. Krikorian tweeted after the summit on the importance of running the event on April 25.


Bibliography

* ''TiVo Hacks'' (
O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of an ...
, 2003)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Krikorian, Raffi Living people Year of birth missing (living people)