About Me

Systems thinker. Tool collector. Hands-on learner. Monterey Bay-based.

I've always needed to understand how things work. Not metaphorically, but literally. When I was a kid, my room was nicknamed Circuit City—stacked with tape decks, CD players, old receivers, anything I could get my hands on. I wasn't fixing or flipping. I was connecting. Learning how the parts made the whole.

That instinct shaped everything that followed. When I encounter a new system, I disappear for a while—research until I'm blue in the face, push every side of the box to understand every possible angle. Only then do I start building.

I've worked inside sales teams, tech companies, venture firms, and operating roles. Each was a new machine to understand: How does it run? Where does it break? How can it work better? Get in the seat, learn the system, go deep—rebuild it, optimize it, then onto the next one.

  • IGN & Oracle: Cold calls and quotas during the 2008 crash
  • Santa Clara MBA: Pausing to retool
  • Driscoll's: Learning P&Ls and grower economics
  • Alexander Group: GTM strategy and frameworks
  • Lyft: Scaling B2B from 1% to 25% of revenue
  • Lightspeed: Building the systems behind the portfolios

Over time, I started noticing a pattern: I wasn't just building skills—I was collecting operating systems. Figuring out how they ticked. Developing a mental toolkit to improve them.

The Move

In early 2024, we made two big decisions. First, my wife and I decided to move our family closer to where she grew up—Scotts Valley and the Monterey Bay area. It was a huge change, but we wanted our kids to grow up connected to the mountains, beach, and community here. Over time, we've continued to feel it was one of the best decisions we've made. We love raising our family here.

The second decision was scratching an entrepreneurial itch I'd had for years. If you never try, you'll never know. So I stepped away from corporate roles to explore small business ownership full time.

I went deep into ETA, then franchising. Analyzed deals, built models, talked to owners, and tested what it would really feel like to run something end-to-end. I learned a ton about the models, the systems underneath them, and myself.

Ultimately, it just wasn't right—but the exploration was worth it. The learning was something I'll take with me. One big change worked beautifully. The other taught me what I needed to know.

What Drives Me

I fall asleep to How It's Made. Not out of boredom—out of peace. There's something deeply comforting about watching a process unfold. Car shows, engine rebuilds, CNC machines, YouTube rabbit holes—I get joy from seeing the right tool do the right job.

That mindset—curious, hands-on, build-it-to-learn-it—has shaped every step of my career.

Now

I'm building skills and systems again. Using Raspberry Pis to explore AI workflows. Writing more. Trying to share what I learn. Creating signals for the kind of people I'd like to work with, learn from, or help.

Today, I'm trying to lean into my instinct. Woodworking. Raspberry Pi projects. Photography workflows. I don't have a singular craft or master plan. Just a deep need to learn, build, and figure things out.

This site is a kind of public workshop. A place to share what I'm tinkering with—when it's helpful to do so.

AI isn't just a technology problem. It's a systems problem. And that's what I love.

→ try → learn → build → reflect → repeat

If something here resonates, feel free to reach out. I'm always up for trading notes.