Launching Astra: How Deep Learning helped us launch our Financial Intelligence startup

Two years ago when I was living in New York City, my friend Sam came through town and was looking for a place to crash. We met at my apartment, took in the night skyline, and toasted to the opportunity to catch up. I had just spent the past few days deep in spreadsheets modeling the intricacies of my company's finances, and he was in the midst of modeling the impact of whether he should take a new job in a new city -- with all the different fixed costs, variable costs, cost of living, and other options. We ended up having an impassioned conversation deep into the night about the shortfalls of the financial services and tools available to us. We both had steady jobs, and might actually be making progress towards paying off our debt.