The person behind the experiment.
My name is Darin Dishneau. I live in the Greater Seattle area with my family. I became intrigued with Artificial Intelligence during COVID when I was introduced to ChatGPT 3. While it was still frustrating back then to try to generate code with ChatGPT 3, I instantly saw the potential. I quickly researched how I could dive in and learn as much as I could about Artificial Intelligence. I researched several Artificial Intelligence certificate programs, but I knew I wanted to get my Master's degree. After talking with several colleges, I decided to pursue my Master's at the University of Texas in January 2024. The University of Texas is a highly regarded program and allows me the flexibility to take one class a semester.
I have spent over 20 years building software and leading engineering teams, including 13 years as a front-line engineering manager. I'm drawn to front-line management because it keeps me close to the work and gives me the ability to guide impact at the team level where it matters most.
My career has spanned mobile, cloud infrastructure, AR/VR wearables, IoT, and AI, always at scale. At AWS I led the team behind Pulsar, a health-checking service monitoring over a million EC2, S3, and DynamoDB instances globally. At Meta I built the connectivity platform for Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and the Reality Labs consent platform shipped across ten countries. At Amazon I put Alexa inside the mobile shopping app, increasing voice-enabled shopping revenue by 800%, and built the first internal Alexa Mobile SDK adopted by teams across Amazon Music, Prime Video, and Audible. At Nordstrom I led 20+ engineers to take the flagship iOS app from a 3.0 to a 4.8-star App Store rating. At Microsoft I helped build the first version of Cortana for Windows Phone and hold 6 patents in mobile computing.
Across all of these roles, what I've enjoyed most is the people side: recruiting strong engineers, mentoring them into leaders, and building teams that ship work they're proud of.
Before I ever wrote a line of code, I served in the United States Army as an Infantryman from 1990 to 1992. I was proud to serve with the 2nd Infantry Division, 1st Cavalry Division, and the 82nd Airborne Division, deploying to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, as well as to South Korea, South America, and other undisclosed locations. The Army taught me discipline, leadership under pressure, and how to take care of the people to my left and right. Those lessons still shape the way I lead engineering teams today.
I received my B.S. in Computer Science from Western Washington University in 1997. More recently, I enrolled in the Master's in Artificial Intelligence program at the University of Texas at Austin. I'm taking the slow and methodical path, one class per semester, and I'm thoroughly enjoying every minute of it. I call it the “slow boat,” and while it will take me close to five years to complete, the tradeoff is worth it. Work and being a dad come first.
So far I have completed coursework in:
My AI studies and long-standing curiosity about the markets are what led me to build this project. You can read more about that on the About TheStockExperiment page.
Disclaimer: TheStockExperiment is a personal research project and should not be considered financial advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.