Ricardo Baeza-Yates Interview | From Chile

Immigrant Computer Scientists

Episode 35: Interview with Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Professor at Northeastern University (Silicon Valley). ACM Fellow and IEEE Fellow. Best-selling textbook author. Startup founder, Former Lead of Multiple Yahoo! Labs, and Faculty in Chile. Has lived and worked on 4 continents (S and N America, Europe, Asia). Grew up in Chile.

Kapitel

1. Ricardo Baeza-Yates Interview | From Chile (00:00:00)

2. Introduction and Biography (00:03:25)

3. Act 1 - A Very Difficult Early Childhood and Schooling in Santiago (Chile), 1960s and 70s (00:07:37)

4. "I got Tuberculosis... 6 months in bed and 2 years treatment" (00:08:42)

5. Act 2 - Unusual Experiences as a Child, 1960s and 1970s (00:12:44)

6. An unusual school curriculum (00:12:45)

7. Appearing on TV Quiz Show when he was 17 years (00:16:26)

8. Act 3 - First Experiences (Languages, Programming, Computers), 1960s and 1970s (00:21:37)

9. Act 4 - Doing Four Simultaneous Degrees in Universidad de Chile, 1979-1986 (00:26:38)

10. “I wanted to find my limits.”  (00:26:39)

11. Married and with a kid: During the 4 degrees (00:30:33)

12. Act 5 - Pinochet’s Dictatorship and its effect on life, 1960s, 70s, 80s (00:34:09)

13. When he almost became an army deserter (00:37:28)

14. Religion and Career. His Mother being treated as second-class citizen because she was separated but not divorced (00:40:41)

15. Politics interfering with the University (00:42:34)

16. Did life change after 1989 referendum (end of Pinochet) (00:45:58)

17. Did the dictatorship support computing and tech? (00:47:27)

18. Act 6 - Research Stories Galore! 1980s (00:52:47)

19. PhD in Waterloo: Writing papers outside his main research area (00:54:22)

20. Accidentally seeking a political asylum in Canada! The Story (00:55:51)

21. When Ethics forces you to create a fictional author! The story of  “Paul S. Amerins”.  (00:56:56)

22. Act 7 - Returning to Chile after Canada PhD, 1989 (01:00:02)

23. In the wrong country for startup ideas: Doing Chile Startup Ventures in e-commerce and search (01:01:40)

24. Act 8 - Moving from Academia to Yahoo (Spain) to become VP and manage multiple Yahoo labs, 2005 (01:05:23)

25. Act 9 - Retrospective and Perspective (01:09:51)

26. How do you stay happy outside of work? (01:09:52)

27. Spontaneous Idea to Write the book “Modern Information Retrieval”, which became a best-seller, late 1990s (01:14:05)

28. Handling Failures and Rejections: The Story of the Distributed Search Architecture in Yahoo! (01:15:56)

29. Handling Impostor Syndrome: The Story of Chess (01:18:34)

30. Thoughts on Diversity in CS/STEM: 50% of his PhD students have been women (01:23:14)

31. Alternate Realities: Had he been born in the US... (01:26:49)

32. Thank you and Ending (01:29:31)