About
I grew up in San Francisco but have spent most of my life in France and Switzerland. I love working on interdisciplinary problems. Most of my work takes place at the intersection of theory and implementation. I care about understanding why something works, not just that it does.
I compulsively obsess over the long arc of the future. A hundred years from now, I see humanity among the stars having explored beyond Earth and thriving across the solar system. I believe aligned AI will be the key driver of breakthroughs in biology, medicine, materials science, and robotics, and that energy abundance, unlocked by nuclear fusion and solar power in space, will be the foundation for all of it.
What I think about
Artificial intelligence
The economic impact of self-improving and intelligent systems is hard to overstate. At some threshold, capability compounds faster than we can track. I care most about what happens after the LLM scaling era: genuinely autonomous systems, internal representations, and making sure that transition happens in the open and in a politically neutral way. I am particularly interested in latent world models.
Humanoid robotics
Humanoids and robotics will solve labor shortages, lead planetary expeditions, and drive the next industrial revolution. I'm currently leading software development for the ETH Robotics Club's humanoid robot in Zurich.
Brain-computer interfaces
The most inherently interdisciplinary field I know. Augmenting cognition and building a safe interface with superintelligent systems is crucial for a smooth transition to AGI. A genuine game-changer for people with disabilities and potentially for all of us. Intro reading.
Decentralized systems
I have experience in smart contracts and high-performance orderbook infrastructure. I believe a decentralized financial system native to the internet is the future of money, and it's encouraging to see traditional finance finally catching up. Anyone should have access to a safe and efficient financial system.
Work and research
Microsoft Research, Researcher
2026 to present
Researching visual-tactile JEPA models and hierarchical planning for contact-rich dexterous robotic manipulation. Exploring contact events as subgoal-conditioning signals under Prof. Marc Pollefeys in the Robot Learning group at the Spatial AI Lab.
World and video-action models for humanoid control
2026 to present
Training a world and video-action model with NVIDIA Cosmos 2.5 and an inverse dynamics model, alongside a Cosmos 3 model that jointly predicts video and actions in the SONIC action space. Working toward real-time deployment with NVIDIA's SONIC controller on the Unitree G1, using human ego-view priors.
ETH Robotics Club, Project Lead
2024 to present
Leading AI and software development for Switzerland's first humanoid robot at ETHZ. Working on Unitree G1s for testing and integration. Full-stack deployment of VLA models (Nvidia GR00T), whole body controllers (SONIC), teleoperation and data collection pipelines, and industrial automation pilots.
EPFL Machine Learning and Optimization Lab, Research
2022
Research on semantic uncertainty to improve LLM decoding for reasoning tasks under Prof. Martin Jäggi. [paper]
DeFi, smart contracts and infrastructure
2023 to 2024
Built and contributed to multiple high-performance onchain financial protocols on Ethereum, Sui and Solana, including DeepBook, Gelato and Suilend.
Founderful, Student VC Partner
2023
Sourced and led a pre-seed deal for Stacksync (YC F23) at Switzerland's largest pre-seed fund, targeting EPFL and ETH Zurich.
Honey Labs, Co-founder
2020 to 2022
Built one of the first and largest cross-chain money markets on Solana and Ethereum. Seed-funded, acquired 2023.
University of Bern, Astrophysics
2019
Placed 2nd in the Swiss National Science and Youth Competition. Published on gravitational lensing and dark matter distribution in the Milky Way.
Writing
Reading list
- How to do great work, Paul Graham
- The decade ahead, Leopold Aschenbrenner
- The ethos of the divine age, Pirate Wires
- Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster
- Machines of loving grace, Dario Amodei
- Hackers and painters, Paul Graham
Culture
I like swimming and the gym. Kitesurfing and old sports cars. Here are some artists I enjoy listening to :
- Black Sabbath
- Led Zeppelin
- The Doors
- The Beatles
- The Rolling Stones
- Jimi Hendrix
- AC/DC
Contact
Academic: dfoodeei@ethz.ch
Everything else: darius.foodei@gmail.com