About Dan Dascalescu

About Dan Dascalescu

AI engineer, startup founder, public speaker

Bio

Dan Dascalescu is a serial entrepreneur and software engineer who lived in Silicon Valley for 15 years and is now traveling as a digital nomad building AI-enabled solutions for individuals and small businesses.

Dan has co-founded Blueseed (the visa-free startup ship for entrepreneurs), two web startups (in EdTech and FinTech), and the Quantified Self Forum (the largest online community for self-trackers). Dan has worked at Google, Yahoo! and other companies. He is a supporter of open source software, transhumanism (enhancing the human condition with the use of technology), seasteading (exploring the possibilities of ocean-based micro-nations), and individual rights.

Career

A software developer by training, Dan worked as a Developer Advocate and Partner Engineer at Google, helping top partners (Uber, Lyft, Yelp, Slack, CNN etc) integrate with the latest Google APIs. He is currently a developer advocate at AI startup Weaviate.

Before Weaviate, Dan built CryptoClimate, a news aggregator for the cryptocurrency space.

Earlier, Dan helped clients build web app prototypes using the [[../essays/Why Meteor|Meteor]] JavaScript platform. He co-founded StockBase (a startup aggregating financial news for value investors), led localization efforts at Yahoo! and managed Yahoo!‘s internal wiki. He has also been contributing to a number of open source projects via GitHub, worked in satellite communications in Belgium, and co-authored and translated several books on computer networks and software development.

In 2011, Dan co-founded Blueseed, the first attempt at a startup community at sea. Blueseed would convert a cruise ship into a live/work/play space designed to encourage innovation and creativity (nicknamed by the press ”the Googleplex of the Sea”), and would station it 12 nautical miles from the coast of Silicon Valley, in international waters outside the jurisdiction of the United States. Foreign entrepreneurs would be able to legally work on the ship without the need for a US work visa, and to travel to the mainland via ferry using easy-to-obtain business/tourist visas. Dan presented the project at the Bitcoin 2013 conference, and led the efforts for raising the first startup investments directly in Bitcoin, several years before ICOs. Dan was also an ambassador for seasteading, the movement to enable ocean communities - floating cities that will allow the next generation of pioneers to peacefully test new ideas for government. The most successful can then inspire change in governments around the world.

Prior to Blueseed, Dan founded the Quantified Self Forum, a community for those passionate about self-tracking and related technologies, and spoke at the QS2011 and QS2013 conferences.

Dan studied Computer Science in Romania and scored 2nd place nationwide at the Olympiad in Informatics. He has also taken classes in nanotechnology and molecular biology, and is passionate about emergent technologies, critical thinking, transhumanism, psychology, and business development.

Dan was featured in numerous articles in the Romanian, American and international press and was named #1 Romanian entrepreneur to watch in 2013 by WallStreet.ro. He has spoken at MIT, Stanford, on BBC Radio, at many startup events, and most recently at Google’s 2018 Chrome Developer Summit.

Interests

AI, slow travel, entrepreneurship, fitness (acro yoga, Krav Maga, rock climbing, swimming), behavioral economics, social psychology, longevity and transhumanism, critical thinking, self-improvement and the Quantified Self movement, emerging technologies, public speaking, philosophy (ethics, [[/essays#Religion|atheism]]), open source, digital rights, knowledge management, film, literature (especially non-fiction and science-fiction), [[/toastmasters|Toastmasters]], [[/howtos/catalyst|web development]], [[/reviews|market research]], [[/humor|humor]], [[/essays|writing]], [[/essays/how_to_debate_religious_believers|debate]], thought experiments, [[/reviews/fitness/p90x_faq|fitness]], swimming and water sports, rock climbing, photography. Occasionally: [[/reviews/outdoors|camping]], [[/reviews/fitness/shoes|hiking]], skiing, sky diving, ziplining, spelunking and bubble soccer.

Portfolio

Miscellaneous

Contact

I’m available for consulting on any topic covered on my wiki or on the sites listed above. Shoot me an email at dgotcha[email protected].