July 22, 2025

Alfred Spector - Episode 72

42 minutes

In this episode of ACM ByteCast, Rashmi Mohan hosts ACM Fellow and 2016 ACM Software System Award recipient Alfred Spector, Professor of Practice in the MIT EECS Department. He was previously CTO of Two Sigma Investments, and before that Vice President of Research and Special Initiatives at Google. Alfred played a key role in developing the Andrew File System (AFS), a breakthrough in distributed computing that later became a commercial venture. He is also known for coining the term “CS + X.” He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Hertz Foundation, and National Academy of Engineering, and recipient of the IEEE Kanai Award for Distributed Computing.

Alfred recounts how he initially pursued programming out of personal enjoyment in college. He talks about developing AFS at Carnegie Mellon University, the challenges of turning academic research into commercial products, and the transition from academia to entrepreneurship, sharing some of the lessons learned along the way. Alfred touches on his time at IBM, which acquired his startup Transarc, and the differences between startups and large corporations. He also talks about some of his most notable work as a technical leader at Google, such as Google Translate. Finally, he offers a unique perspective on the rapid evolution of AI and advocates for a more multidisciplinary approach for developing responsible technology.

“Google’s hybrid approach to research” paper

“More Than Just Algorithms” (ACM Queue article)

...more