I refuse to be labeled by a single profession, so I’ll explain what I do day-to-day:
- Day → I’m a Senior Product Manager II at Instacart, where I lead product management for our Agentic AI CRM products.
- Night → I’m an author, where I write books on various topics.
When I’m not doing either of those, you’ll find me reading books, weightlifting, or exploring coffee shops with my beautiful wife Amy.
I have extensive experience in on-demand marketplaces, logistics, fulfillment operations and fintech. I am head over heels in love with mathematics, business, and technology — so I’m using what I know to make an impact in the world.
My deepest inspiration stems from observing nature and it’s been a guiding force in building products, writing, or when I’m placing equity trades. I have spent 6 years building AI/ML products and over 11 years in product management growing companies and acquiring customers.
I’m powered by a relentless drive that is unique to being a child of Afghan refugees. Having grown up in poverty until I was 15 when I began working to contribute to our household income, I’ve always charted my own path. My skills are all self-taught and I’ve been fortunate to find mentors worth emulating. Anything I do is with grit and tenacity, backed by a strong pursuit of virtue.
Markov models & Bayesian probabilities changed my life.
- Benjamin Franklin
- Ghost-hunting shows
- Popcorn (Act II Xtreme Butter)
- Incline bench presses
- Eureka! moments
Current
Senior Product Manager II, Instacart
I lead lifecycle growth for our tenured user base. I lead product management for the creation of an Agentic AI CRM program, using cutting edge tech like LLMs and various models. A patent pending for our 0 → 1 initiative.
Author
I’m a published author who writes across a wide range of topics.
In progress:
- The Grimoire of Wealth → A set of business case studies from the Gilded Age highlighting the chaos of the times & surfacing valuable business lessons.
Published books:
- Archimedes’ Lever → A practical guide to navigating organizational politics, incentives, and power dynamics through strategic decision-making, situational awareness, and leverage.
- Manifest → This book explores the vast terrain of mathematics, starting with the history of mathematics, extending to complex problems in theoretical physics, and surveying the most important unsolved problems & conjectures. Click here to purchase.
Prior
Product Consultant
I consult tech startups and executives on product management, assisting with roadmap creation, prioritization, and product strategy.
Current clients:
- PeakSpan Capital → As a member of PeakSpan Capital’s network of expert advisors, I offer product consultation to their portfolio companies.
Past clients:
- Step → I consulted on growth & onboarding of their customers, revamped P2P payments & built a mobile check deposit solution.
- Jyve → I provided product management services to build an in-store shopper app for Meijer’s supermarkets.
- Tapcheck → I provided consultation on new business verticals the company wanted to pursue.
- Squire → I instrumented the company’s onboarding system, including providing them with guidance on how to optimize their conversion funnel.
- Eaze → I instrumented the company’s onboarding system and assisted with their automated document collection capabilities.
- Instabug → I implemented a product management framework for the team to use, including roadmaps, prioritization techniques, and software for project tracking.
- Caliza → Assisted the team with roadmap development & prioritization efforts.
Head of Product, Packsmith
I led product management for the entire platform, including the mobile app, logistics solution, and 3PL.
Product Lead, Found
I led our taxes, bookkeeping, & subscriptions product for self-managed businesses.
Senior Product Manager, Uber
Led two machine learning products for the UberEats app: home feed ranking (personalization) & search relevance. Also devised & built two newly-spawn products: an in-house personalization-as-a-service so our team can build & train ML models on behalf of other teams, and a solution to display restaurants located in areas where couriers will be in the near future during supply-constrained periods.
Senior Product Manager, Postmates
Managed the courier fleet within the three-sided market place. This involved fleet supply, growth, signups, mobile app for deliveries and routing/dispatching logic. Postmates has since been acquired by UberEats.
Product Manager, Intuit
Launched the Quickbooks Self-Employed product in 7 different countries, contoured to the localized sole proprietary laws. I also successfully pitched & launched the development of a Quickbooks acquisition ecosystem that would get small businesses & independent contractors on the full suite of Quickbooks products to cross-sell. I also product managed the Intuit Workforce product, an applicant tracking system (ATS) designed for on-demand companies that need to onboard large volume of self-employed contractors in a short time frame.
Competitive Intelligence Lead, Lyft
I built and led an internal competitive intelligence team at Lyft. As an in-house consultant on all-things Uber, I provided pricing insights that determined our daily incentive pricing strategies. I also pitched pursuing the following at Lyft: vehicle leasing program, grocery delivery services & marijuana delivery services.
Want some more details? Check out my LinkedIn.
Endless curiosity
Aside from my employment above, I’ve always worked on bringing my ideas to life. Each of the initiatives below have been sunset, but I’m proud to say I still tinker with new ideas.
- AfghanDAO — a Web3 DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) dedicated to crowdsourcing & preserving Afghanistan’s culture & history by storing it on the blockchain.
- Junto Trading — a short-term trading firm that specializes in equity trading and trading education. I worked on building quantitative models and deploying algorithmic trading strategies.
- Tarjoma — a crowdsourcing site for Afghans to contribute & vote on new words where there is no Dari analog (aimed to advance the language forward).
- Noah — an Amazon Alexa skill for natural disaster preparedness.
- Intuition Ingenuity — a residential spatial intelligence system that sought to manage all incoming and outgoing personal data related to domestic facilities management.
- Dodofare — an on-demand grocery delivery startup aimed at giving back to local charities.
I've done a number of lectures and panel discussions on technology and the on-demand economy. Check out what I've done in the past and my upcoming talks.
December 5, 2017 | San Francisco, CA
I was a part of a fireside chat with Postmates' Head of Influencer & Marketing Strategy, Ben Trinh, at the Mobile Innovation Summit in San Francisco. We discussed the importance of Influencer Marketing in the sharing economy and how alternative income continues to change the employment landscape.
March 20, 2017 | San Francisco, CA
I was a panel speaker at the British Consulate General in San Francisco speaking on the on-demand economy and the future of work for the self-employed. The event is hosted by the British American Project and will host notable members including US and UK Ambassadors.
March 2, 2017 | Cairo, Egypt
I spoke at the American University in Cairo and their Venture Lab to a number of their startups. The topic of discussion is two-fold: I discussed the validation of product-market fit for the "Uber for X" framework and my colleague Ezra Kebrab focused on the future of FinTech and payments.
March 1, 2017 | Cairo, Egypt
The InstaBug team in Cairo invited me to speak at their all-hands meeting. The main discussion was around notable differences between the Egyptian and US technology sectors and the differing atmospheres in startup funding.
May 13, 2016 | Menlo Park, CA, US
BootUp Ventures in Menlo Park, CA invited me to speak with a group of 6 startups from Palestine participating in the Palestinian House in Silicon Valley Program. While there, I gave a 3-hour talk and one-on-one mentorship for each startup on how to perfect B2B marketing, outreach, and product-market fit.
July-August, 2013 | Kathmandu, Nepal
Kathmandu University and Tribhuvan University invited me to give a series of 32 lectures collectively on both campuses to their students regarding the future of technology in the field of management. The goal was to teach the students how to do active outreach, remain technologically savvy, and find work outside Nepal in order to return and strengthen their home country's economy.