The Principal
Ariffin Yahaya, Ph.D.
Former Chief Architect at Yahoo & Senior Distinguished Architect at Autodesk. Ph.D. in Computer Science & Economics.
Ariffin Yahaya has spent 15+ years at the intersection of technology and investment. As Chief Architect at Yahoo, he served as the technical gatekeeper for 30+ acquisition targets totaling $2B+ in deal value, creating evaluation frameworks that prevented $50M+ in write-downs.
His systems have served 100M+ daily users and supported $3B+ in revenue. At Autodesk, he led product data strategy for a $3B product portfolio. At a Malaysian commercial bank, he architected a regulatory pivot that launched the country's first US stock trading platform in 8 months. At a Sequoia-backed regional telco, he re-architected the platform to accelerate market expansion by 75%.
Ariffin holds a Computer Science Ph.D. from UC Irvine with a dissertation combining Computer Science with Economics — research that shapes his approach to technology as an economic asset, not just an engineering artifact.
Key Metrics
Education
Ph.D., Computer Science with Economics
UC Irvine
M.Sc., Computer Science
UC Irvine
B.Sc., Computer Science
Cal State Northridge
Board & Advisory
Chair, Innovation & Technology Committee
Etiqa Insurance ($15B+ AUM)
Former Board Member
OneMarket
Advisor
PNB/MIDF ($70B+ sovereign wealth fund)
Why "The Economics of Technology"
Most technology advisors are engineers who learned some business. Ariffin's doctoral research combined Computer Science with Economic Theory — studying how to allocate resources efficiently using market mechanisms.
That foundation shapes everything: technology decisions are investment decisions, architecture is capital allocation, and technical debt is financial debt that compounds.