Fellow Q&A: Nikhil Mulani

This is part of our fellow Q&A series to give prospective applicants and other interested audiences a glimpse at what it’s like to be a Horizon Fellow.

What path brought you to the Horizon Fellowship, and what made you want to apply?

I was working in product management for AI-related products, data infrastructure, and machine-learning systems across a bunch of different types of tech companies. I had really enjoyed the technical-learning aspect of that, but I got to a point where I felt like I had tapped out on the learning aspect of the work. That prompted me to take a step back and ask, “What do I really want out of the work I’m doing?”

When I took that step back, I thought a lot about this ongoing, parallel interest I’d always had in policy and public affairs, and how that overlapped with machine learning and AI. That prompted me to start exploring the area more. I took an online course and then eventually switched from my product-management role to independent research in the AI policy area.

I think I then came across a speaker series that Horizon was doing with people working in government and think tanks. I thought, “Okay, that sounds really interesting. Let me check that out.” As I listened to those speakers, I realized that I really wanted to explore this more. It felt like I would learn a lot by putting these ideas in the AI policy space into practice. And, if I wanted to continue in research, I could bring those lessons back to my research. That’s what prompted me to apply to the Horizon Fellowship.

Once you entered the fellowship, what were the biggest lessons you took away? 

What I ended up learning was that, although it can depend a bit on your role, most people in the executive branch have too much to do. As soon as you enter, there is a lot that you, as one person, can get involved with and have an impact on.

I was working on the national policy team at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Our function was to serve as an interface between CISA and the other federal agencies through the interagency process. Everybody on my team already had way too much to do, and I was the incoming AI expert, so I had my pick of this very long list of AI-related things that nobody else had time to work on.

I realized that, if you’re thoughtful about how you use your time in an executive-branch role and prioritize things that other people don’t have the time or expertise to work on but that could be very impactful, you can contribute a lot.

Being in the role also taught me a lot about how the machinery of the federal government works: how a policy goes from a line in an executive order to an implemented structure that sticks around in government, and all the opportunities there are to shape it along the way. Navigating that process a number of times inside government has proven really valuable in my work since then, as I work to inform policy from the outside.

From your time as a fellow at CISA, can you tell me briefly about a project, contribution, or moment from your placement that you’re especially proud of?

One of the projects I most enjoyed working on involved creating a public-private advisory board between the Department of Homeland Security and industry to focus on AI security issues across the AI supply chain. It was called the AI Safety and Security Board.

The idea was to bring together industry leaders from different supply-chain segments, such as chipmakers, model developers, compute providers, and critical-infrastructure sectors, as well as representatives from across the federal government and local governments. This forum would allow the group to raise important questions about supply-chain security that would benefit from having all of those people in the same room to coordinate. For example: How do we properly secure energy utilities against AI-enabled cyberattacks? How do we make sure our datasets aren’t poisoned by adversaries?

It was really satisfying to go from a very abstract idea to seeing the structure fully implemented, holding meetings, gathering input on these issues, and turning that input into concrete policy proposals that were being implemented.

After your fellowship, you founded your own project. Can you tell us more about what you’re working on now and how, if at all, the fellowship experience helped shape the path you took afterward?

The fellowship experience highly informed what I did afterward. It was actually that specific project, working on the AI Safety and Security Board and diving deeply into AI supply-chain security issues, that made me realize there was a gap between what was important and interesting to people in government and industry and where much of the attention in the research and think-tank community was focused.

I thought there was an opportunity to dig more deeply into these issues and write some of the proposals and research reports that I wished I had when I was in government. That led me to found Augur, a research organization focused on the AI supply chain.

We do in-depth research to understand how the supply chain is changing over time and what types of new risks and threats are emerging. We also advise key government stakeholders and other organizations on how to get ahead of supply-chain risks and position themselves to ensure democratic leadership across the supply chain in the future.

You’ve already touched on this a bit, but, looking back, what would you say is the most important thing you took away from the Horizon Fellowship?

I think it’s the value of really paying careful attention to what’s going on around you.

During the fellowship, I found that valuable because paying closer attention to the details of AI-related projects that everybody else was too overloaded to work on created opportunities to have an impact and shape those details.

Likewise, now that I’m an alum of the fellowship, I can take what I learned about the process inside government and use it to infer details about what’s going on and where there are opportunities to shape the policy process from the outside. That’s super valuable.

If you’re intentional about paying attention to what’s going on around you during the fellowship, that can be an incredibly valuable asset both during and after the fellowship.

Do you have any advice for people applying to this year’s iteration of the Horizon Fellowship?

If you’re thinking about applying, you should probably just apply. If you’re considering it, you probably have some interest in policy, AI, or a combination of both. Right now, there is a lot of need for people who know about AI and policy to contribute, whether that’s inside government, in Congress, or at think tanks. “Don’t hesitate to apply” would be my first piece of advice.

If you do end up doing the fellowship, don’t be afraid to explore a wide variety of options in your placement search, whether that’s different government offices, think tanks, or congressional offices. When I was navigating that process, I wasn’t aware ahead of time of all the interesting opportunities available. Taking the time to explore all of them can be really worthwhile.

Imagine that someone has applied for the fellowship and is lucky enough to be accepted. You’ve already advised them to pay attention to what’s happening around them in their office. Attention is itself a limited resource. Are there topics or sources you would tell people to pay particularly close attention to?

Something I found to be true both when I was working inside government and after the fellowship is that you can differentiate yourself by paying attention to and consuming information that others aren’t as deeply immersed in, or don’t have the background to get deeply into.

I would think a lot about where you have both more interest and a little more expertise than the people around you. Then identify sources or projects happening around you to pay extra attention to.

For example, Import AI and Stratechery are great newsletters with a lot of relevant news about actors across the supply chain and what’s happening at the labs. A lot of more generalist policy staff in government wouldn’t be reading those. By consuming sources like that, you can connect the dots between things happening in Silicon Valley and how government should prepare for them.

The key is to differentiate where you’re getting information from relative to those around you, because that’s what allows you to contribute uniquely.

Because I’m more focused on the role of economic power and economic security across the supply chain, I’ve found it valuable to pay more attention to business-news sources such as Reuters and the Financial Times, or economics-focused podcasts and blogs like Cheeky Pint and Peter Harrell’s Substack. You can track what’s happening in business and markets that will eventually affect the positioning of governments if they aren’t proactive about getting ahead of it.

You have extensive private-sector experience: you’ve worked at various companies and then founded your own organization. What would you say are the main differences between that experience and your time in government?

One of the biggest differences, and one I really enjoyed when I was in government, was how mission-driven everybody I worked with was. I worked with some great people and had collaborative teams at some of the companies where I worked before government. But there’s a different feeling to the work when everybody around you shares a mission, whether that’s oriented toward national security or another part of public service. That can be gratifying in a way that simply going to your day job at any old company isn’t. It’s something that’s hard to put a number on but is really valuable.

I also think policy work is surprisingly entrepreneurial. If you’ve been working in really large organizations, it can be appealing to have opportunities to shape what’s happening around you in ways that you might not at a large company.

One downside of the resource constraints in government is that you’ll be overworked. The upside is that, if you want to, you can shape how you spend your time and attention to a large degree.

The last thing I would say is that it can be a little frustrating how bureaucratic government is. I think that’s part of the tradeoff of working in a body that is accountable to so many different constituencies. But the mission orientation and the opportunities to have an impact definitely make it worth it.