How Tech Acceleration Forced a Rethink of My Personal Infrastructure
I wasn't trying to build a 'Personal OS.' I just didn't want to keep paying for a website nobody visited. But one cost optimization led to another.
Personal
Projects, hobbies, and how I think
Beyond the Chat Window: Building AI Into Your Operating System
A few months ago, I was the skeptic rolling my eyes at AI demos. But something shifted when I started using it for my own problems.
I Moved My Website Off Wix—Here's How
I got a $348 renewal notice for a website that maybe 10 people visited last year. So I rebuilt it myself and now pay $0 a year.
Building My Golf Tee Time Bot: A Technical Journey
I wanted automated alerts when tee times opened up at my golf course. I didn't know how to build it—but I figured it was possible.
Raspberry Pi: Why I'm Hooked
I talk about the Raspberry Pi quite a bit. For anyone who's ever thought 'I kind of want to build stuff, but I'm not technical'—these little machines might be your new favorite tool.
Using the Google Places API to Build Smarter Lead Lists
Why scroll Google Maps manually when you can script it? How I automated lead generation for local service businesses.
The Difference Between Being Critical and Being Constructive
I've always had a low tolerance for people who are just critical. The best question I ever heard in a meeting changed how I think about feedback.
Wires and Pistons: My Origin Story in Systems Thinking
Before I was optimizing workflows or building self-hosted systems, I was a kid obsessed with audio equipment. How my early obsessions shaped how I think about systems today.
Photography and the Complex System Behind It
I thought buying a camera was the hard part. Then I discovered photography isn't a camera problem—it's a systems problem.
Work
Lessons and experiences from my professional roles
Turning Board Meetings into Strategic Intelligence
Picture this: You're in a Monday sector meeting with some of the smartest investors in the valley. Each gives 10-minute preambles before getting to their question. Here's how I fixed that.
Portfolio Monitoring at Scale
Kevin was drowning. 150-200 investments, manual tracking, board decks flooding in every month formatted differently. Here's how we built a scalable monitoring system.
Mental Models and the VC Brain
Working in venture changed how my brain works. Not because of what they were investing in, but because of how they think.
Building the Data Foundation at a Top-Tier VC Firm
Every team had become their own mini-intelligence operation. Marketing, IR, Talent, BD, Finance—each tracking their own version of reality. None of it connected.
You Can't Fix What You Don't Understand
I burned $100K on a quoting tool that never launched. It became a punchline. Here's what that mistake taught me about systems thinking.
When Good Data Goes Bad
Quarterly business reviews had turned into disasters. Here's how I built a reporting system that transformed chaos into strategic conversations.
Surviving a Consulting Interview
There's a kind of interview that isn't really about the job. It's about whether you can hold the room when everyone's watching.
Solving a $100M Healthcare Fraud Problem
Unpaid bills. Months of mounting charges with no payment in sight. Here's how I built a systematic fraud detection system that recovered hundreds of millions in uncollectable bills.
Inside the Enterprise Sales Machine
I thought enterprise sales was about selling. I learned it was about building a personal marketing organization at scale.
The Human Data Pipeline
I thought being an analyst meant creating dashboards. I discovered I was actually becoming a human data pipeline in a family-owned berry empire held together by Excel macros.
Fixing Communication Chaos at a Hyper-Growth Startup
Your engineering team—the people building your actual product—are spending their days on customer support calls. Here's how I fixed it.
The Art of Bringing Order to Chaos
I thought consulting was about having the answers. What I discovered was the opposite: consulting is about being a professional question-asker who helps organizations understand themselves.