Memory Leak

Adios WordPress

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For almost twenty years, Memory Leak lived on WordPress.com.

That sentence still feels strange to type — because the blog is older than WordPress. In college I built the first version by hand: raw HTML, uploaded to a host, no CMS, no admin panel, no safety net. I wrote about Paul Reed Smith guitars and the Dave Matthews Band and whatever else seemed worth putting on the internet. It was clumsy and mine.

WordPress entered the picture in March 2007, when I published a post I still find amusing — I Can’t Believe I’m Blogging — and predicted I’d get bored in three to six months and move on to a podcast. I was wrong about the timeline. WordPress was the obvious choice back then: cheap, durable, familiar, and good enough for a personal site that might occasionally go viral when I wrote about the Giants winning the Super Bowl or ranted about the iPhone. It carried hundreds of posts, survived platform redesigns, plugin churn, and more than one “I’ll get back to blogging” drought.

WordPress did its job. I am not here to bury a platform that still powers a huge slice of the web. According to W3Techs, WordPress runs roughly 41% of all websites and about 59% of sites that use a known content management system. That is not a niche tool — it is the default gravity well of the CMS web. Millions of publishers run perfectly well on WordPress today, and many always will. For a lot of them, the login-and-publish workflow is exactly the right trade.

The irony is not lost on me. This post is not a verdict on their choice. It is an account of mine.

But the web I am building for now is not the web WordPress was designed to serve.

SEO, AEO, and GEO — and why the foundation still matters

For twenty years, SEO — Search Engine Optimization — meant making your site crawlable, fast, structured, and trustworthy enough that Google (and friends) would rank it and send humans to click. That work is not obsolete. It is the foundation. Fast static HTML, semantic markup, clear headings, canonical URLs, honest metadata — still the price of admission.

What changed is what happens after the crawl.

AEO — Answer Engine Optimization — is the discipline of being understood, summarized, and cited correctly when someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, or the next answer engine a question your content could answer. Not gaming the model. Being legible: who wrote this, what is the thesis, what is the evidence, what is the TL;DR.

GEO — Generative Engine Optimization — is the broader frame: optimizing for generative surfaces where AI synthesizes answers from many sources — chat, copilots, embedded assistants, agent browsers. The names blur. The requirement does not: your site must survive being read, compressed, and repeated without losing meaning or attribution.

What this means for every website — not just mine:

SEO gets you into the corpus. If agents and answer engines cannot fetch clean HTML, you are not in the game.
AEO/GEO determine how you are represented once you are in — quoted accurately or garbled, credited or anonymous, chosen or ignored.
Structure beats tricks. Original information, consistent authorship, schema that corroborates the page — not a parallel “AI version” of your site.

Google and every serious strategist I have studied converge here: do HTML well first. The agentic layer is not a separate track. It is what good publishing becomes when machines read alongside humans.

A hard truth for marketing teams

This shift is going to expose a lot of marketing organizations that have been just getting by.

For years, many teams could survive on a familiar playbook: WordPress or a headless CMS, an agency retainer, a keyword spreadsheet, a content calendar, monthly traffic reports, and a plugin that claims to “handle SEO.” That was often enough when the job was to rank in ten blue links and hope humans clicked.

AEO and GEO are not a new coat of paint on that playbook. They sit on top of technical foundations most marketing teams were never asked to own — and often were actively shielded from: semantic HTML, structured data, canonical entity graphs, crawl and render behavior, redirect integrity, performance budgets, how RSS and sitemaps actually ship. The vocabulary alone — schema @graph, Person @id, prerendered JSON-LD — is a foreign language in most marketing standups.

That is not an insult. It is a capability gap. And agents make the gap visible fast. When the evaluate → pick → do arc runs in a context window you never see, there is no monthly dashboard smoothing over weak structure. Either your site is legible, attributable, and trustworthy — or a competitor’s is, and the agent never mentions you.

Teams that thrive will stop treating the web as a campaign surface and start treating it as infrastructure: marketing and engineering at the same table, shared definitions of authorship and facts, content that is original enough to cite, and architecture that does not require a developer to reverse-engineer the theme every time someone asks “can agents read this?”

Teams that keep coasting will wonder why traffic still looks fine while mindshare quietly migrates to brands that built for the machine reader. The metrics lag. The shift does not.

I say this as someone who has spent years in the room with both sides. The future belongs to marketing leaders curious enough to learn the technical layer — or honest enough to partner deeply with people who already have. There is not much middle ground left.

The agent arc: evaluate, pick, do

If you’ve read my Reflections on AI series — the arc from software eating the world through accelerating returns, context and memory, and the stochastic era — you know the through-line: AI is not a feature bolted onto software — it is a force reshaping how software is built, consumed, and understood. Leaving WordPress is part of that same story. On the web, the force shows up in three stages — and we are already moving through them.

1. Agents evaluate. Research assistants, comparison bots, and answer engines read your site (and your competitors) to summarize options, extract claims, and form judgments. This is happening today when someone asks “what does Renato write about AI?” or “compare these two approaches to migration.”

2. Agents pick. The next step is recommendation with intent: which product, which vendor, which author, which path — chosen on a user’s behalf from what the agent understood. Your site is not just visited. It is shortlisted or discarded in a context window you never see.

3. Agents do. The end state is action: book the flight, file the form, subscribe to the newsletter, deploy the config, merge the PR. The web stops being a brochure humans click through and becomes an API surface agents operate. First-class citizenship is not a metaphor. It is the difference between being referenced and being usable.

Agents will be first-class citizens on every digital property I build. Not as marketing. As architecture. Human readers and agent readers should encounter the same facts, the same structure, the same authorship — not a theme shell optimized for eyeballs with the real content buried underneath.

WordPress was built for a human publishing workflow: log in, write in an editor, hit publish, hope the theme cooperates. That model made sense for a long time. It does not match the evaluate → pick → do arc — not for how I want to build this site.

This is not a blog upgrade

The mistake would have been to “modernize WordPress” — swap themes, add a headless layer, keep paying for hosting, and call it done. That would have been a coat of paint on a house whose foundation doesn’t match the lot I want to build on.

Instead, I treated renato.mascardo.com as what it actually is in my head: a developer sandbox with a blog at /blog/*, not a blog that happens to have a domain name. Full code control. Git-driven workflow. Room for experiments — optional API routes, structured entity data, maybe an MCP endpoint later — without dragging a PHP runtime and MySQL instance along for the ride.

The stack is deliberate and boring in the best way:

Astro 6 — static HTML at build time, zero client JavaScript by default
Vercel — preview deployments on every pull request, production on merge
Content in Git — Markdown with typed frontmatter, not a database
No WordPress after cutover — export, migrate, redirect, cancel hosting

We migrated 235 posts, rewired 253 redirect routes so old permalinks still land in the right place, and rebuilt the visual layer on a QuietPages-inspired design — dark, restrained, readable. The celestial hero and gold accent are polish. The architecture underneath is the point.

Agents as first-class citizens

The design thesis I locked early: agent-friendly means well-designed HTML.

Every public page ships with semantic landmarks: one <h1>, logical heading order, an <article> that means what it says. Blog posts expose a TL;DR in the page and in JSON-LD as abstract. Authorship points to a canonical Person entity declared once in person.ts and referenced by @id everywhere else — no drift between About, footer, schema, and bylines. RSS serves rendered HTML, not raw markdown ghosts. Images require alt text. The sitemap and robots.txt know what’s public.

That is what agentic readiness means in practice: structure you can trust, identity you can resolve, content that survives copy-paste into a context window without losing meaning.

Legacy CMS platforms can approximate some of this with plugins and patience. They were not born there. I did not want to retrofit agent literacy onto almost twenty years of theme debt. I wanted it in the templates from Phase 1 — before the migration finished, not after.

What WordPress gave me — and what I am taking with me

WordPress lowered the floor for publishing when the floor needed lowering. It kept Memory Leak alive through seasons when building was more interesting than writing. It hosted family updates, hot takes, book notes, stroke recovery journals, ski trip reports, and a long run of AI reflections that only make sense in hindsight. I am grateful.

I am also honest about the friction that finally pushed me over the edge: export anxiety when you realize your archive lives in someone else’s garden; theme and plugin layers you do not fully control; the slow drift between what you write and what actually ships to the wire; hosting that keeps ticking because the site is hosted, not owned. None of that is catastrophic. All of it is cumulative. And the more I thought about building on this domain for the next twenty years — not just blogging, but building — the less sense the dependency made.

What I am taking with me is the work: the archive, cleaned and version-controlled, every old URL redirected to its new home under /blog/. What I am leaving behind is the platform.

Done with WordPress is a decision, not a drama.

Built with an agentic software development lifecycle

Here is the part that still surprises me: I would not have had the time to build this site entirely on my own.

Not at this quality. Not on this timeline. Not while running everything else in life and work that competes for the same hours.

This rebuild — migration scripts, redirect verification, security audits, design port, content QA, the new authoring workflow you are reading this post through — ran on a fully agentic software development lifecycle. Human intent and judgment at the center; AI agents for research, implementation, review, and iteration across the stack. Plan in Markdown. Code in Git. Preview on every branch. Verify before merge.

That is not cheating. It is the new normal for builders who pay attention. We are in a new era of building — the same way the web made everyone a publisher, agents are making small teams feel like large ones. I lived it on this project. It was exhausting and amazing in equal measure.

The site you are reading is evidence, not theory.

A new home for building

The DNS cutover is behind us. WordPress is read-only history. Hosting gets cancelled. Memory Leak is still Memory Leak — same voice, same themes, same appetite for long arcs and occasional hot takes — but the site underneath is mine in a way it never was before.

This is not just a new blog theme. It is a new home for building: a place where I can write, ship experiments, expose structured data, and extend the surface area over time without asking a CMS for permission. If you have followed this site since 2007 — or since the earlier hand-coded days — thank you for reading through every pivot, drought, and reinvention. If you are arriving now, welcome. You are seeing the version built for SEO, AEO, GEO, and the agentic web that follows.

The writing continues. The plumbing changed on purpose.

Adios, WordPress. You carried the blog a long way.

Memory Leak was never just a URL. It was always a habit — think, write, publish, repeat. That habit has a better address now.

We’re Back in the Garage

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

ClawdBot, MoltBot, OpenClaw, MoltBook — and the Return of the Homebrew Energy

It was 1995.

I was sitting in my dorm room at the University of Richmond — beige tower PC humming like it had something important to prove, CRT monitor warming the room, Ethernet cable stretched across the carpet like a tripwire for the future. My dorm had high‑speed internet. Which, at the time, felt like I had been handed the nuclear codes.

WiFi wasn’t really a thing yet. You wanted to be online? You needed a Network Interface Card (NIC) card. You needed drivers. You needed someone willing to open up your computer without flinching.

Luckily, I was that someone.

I started installing NIC cards for other students — popping open cases, sliding hardware into slots, tightening screws like I was assembling possibility itself. I’d crawl under desks, string cable, configure IP settings. I made absurdly good money for a college kid. Basically the unofficial ISP of campus. I serviced most of the athletes and even helped them with their computer science homework — haha.

And when I wasn’t running my tiny networking empire? I was in the Jepson Hall computer lab — which at the time felt like NASA had decided to open a satellite office in Richmond. We had NeXT machines. SPARC workstations. Hardware that looked like it belonged in a sci‑fi movie and sounded like a small jet engine when it spun up. The machines were glorious. Fast. Shiny. Capable of things that felt borderline supernatural. At one point I had a couple of them cranking away on some early neural net experiments — primitive by today’s standards, but intoxicating back then. Let’s just say the sysadmins were not thrilled with my interpretation of “appropriate resource usage.” I learned a valuable lesson about shared compute. And about how quickly you can get a polite but firm email from IT.

We built anything we could think of.

Websites for local businesses. Student groups. Experiments that probably made no sense but felt revolutionary at 2am. We weren’t chasing product‑market fit. We were chasing the edge of what was possible.

Looking back, it felt like our own version of the Homebrew Computer Club. Different decade. Same energy.

The Original Hackers

In 1975, a group of curious, slightly obsessive engineers started meeting in Silicon Valley to talk about microprocessors. They passed schematics around like contraband. They believed computing shouldn’t belong to institutions. It should belong to individuals.

Two of those people were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

The club didn’t just produce companies.

It produced culture.

A culture of show‑and‑tell hacking. Of building first and asking permission never. Of staying up too late because the machine might do something new if you just tweak one more thing.

Technology revolutions rarely start with polished strategy decks.

They start with people who can’t stop tinkering.

Web 1.0: When HTML Felt Like Magic

In 1995, most people had never heard the word “browser.” Netscape felt like something out of Star Trek. If you knew how to use a tag correctly, you were basically Gandalf.

We built pages by hand. We viewed source. We copied. We remixed. We stayed up until sunrise arguing about font sizes and background colors like it was geopolitics.

There was no playbook.

There was just momentum.

San Francisco: 10am to 10pm (and Then Some)

A few years later I moved to San Francisco, right as the dot‑com wave was cresting.

We’d get into the office around 10am and stay until 10pm. And then — because we were apparently incapable of moderation — we’d roll to Buddha Bar, decompress for a hot second, and then go home and get back on our computers.

No one was forcing us.

We were just in it.

We were building some of the first serious commercial websites. Infrastructure that would become ordinary later felt extraordinary then. Every deploy felt like lighting a match in the dark.

The web wasn’t inevitable yet.

We were helping make it inevitable.

The “Any‑to‑Any” Club

At Scient — a fast‑growing digital agency during the late‑90s dot‑com boom that built large‑scale web experiences and platforms for Fortune 500 brands trying to figure out this whole “internet” thing — we started something we called the “Any‑to‑Any” club. The name alone should tell you everything you need to know about our collective restraint.

We hacked on early mobile devices before the mobile era had officially begun. PDAs. Proto‑smartphones. Hardware that felt like it had arrived from 2007 by accident.

Half the time the devices barely worked.

Which made it even better.

We weren’t building polished apps. We were trying to answer a more fundamental question: what happens when computing leaves the desk?

Every major wave has this phase — a scrappy moment when a handful of builders feel the tremor before everyone else notices the earthquake.

And Then… AI

Fast forward to now.

ClawdBot / MoltBot / OpenClaw

This progression matters because it marks a shift from prompt-driven novelty to system-driven behavior. From one-off answers to persistent agents. From “look what it said” to “look what it did.”

If you know, you know.

If you don’t — imagine 1995, except the browser can reason.

We’re back in that early‑wave energy. APIs duct‑taped together. Prompt engineering that feels more like alchemy than software development. Agents talking to agents. Systems writing code that writes systems.

It’s messy.

It’s chaotic.

It’s glorious.

OpenClaw and the Architecture of Memory

One of the most interesting projects to emerge from this wave is OpenClaw’s Memory Architecture.

Not because it wrapped an LLM in a shiny interface.

But because it treated memory as architecture — not as an afterthought.

For years, LLMs have been brilliant but stateless. Goldfish with superpowers. Every conversation reset at the edge of the context window. You could simulate memory with clever prompting, but it was fragile. Expensive. And fundamentally constrained by token limits.

OpenClaw approached the problem differently.

Instead of stuffing everything back into the prompt, it externalized cognition.

At a high level, the system separates memory into distinct layers:

1. Working Memory
Short‑lived context tied to the current task. Think: scratchpad reasoning, tool outputs, intermediate plans. This lives close to the agent loop and gets pruned aggressively.

2. Episodic Memory
Structured records of prior interactions — who the user is, what they’re building, decisions made, constraints discovered. These are stored outside the model context, indexed semantically, and retrieved on demand.

3. Long‑Term Knowledge
Durable artifacts: documents, prior code, system state, embeddings of previous sessions. This layer acts more like a knowledge base than chat history.

Under the hood, this means a few important architectural shifts:

Vector indexing for semantic recall — prior conversations and artifacts are embedded and stored so retrieval is meaning‑based, not keyword‑based.
Selective retrieval pipelines — instead of blindly rehydrating the entire past, the agent queries memory with intent and pulls back only what’s relevant to the current goal.
Memory summarization and compaction — episodic traces are periodically distilled into higher‑order summaries to prevent unbounded growth.
Separation of cognition and storage — the LLM reasons; external systems persist.

That last one is subtle but profound. The model is no longer pretending to remember. It actually remembers — via infrastructure. Which changes the agent loop entirely.

Instead of:

User → Prompt → Response → Forget

You now have:

User → Retrieve Memory → Reason → Act → Update Memory → Evolve

That feedback loop is what makes agents feel continuous. And continuity is what makes them feel alive. It’s still not consciousness. It’s not self‑awareness. There’s no internal subjective state.

But there is persistence.

And persistence compounds.

Now, it’s worth contrasting this with simpler RAG (Retrieval‑Augmented Generation) implementations — because on the surface, they look similar.

Basic RAG works like this:

Embed documents.
Store them in a vector database.
Retrieve top‑K matches for a query.
Stuff them back into the prompt.

It’s powerful. It unlocked an entire generation of AI apps. But it’s fundamentally document‑centric. RAG answers questions about things that already exist. OpenClaw’s memory model is agent‑centric. It’s not just retrieving documents — it’s maintaining state.

Here’s the difference in practice:

With simple RAG:

The model retrieves relevant docs.
It answers.
The session ends.
Nothing meaningfully changes in the system.

With OpenClaw‑style memory:

The agent retrieves prior decisions.
It reasons in the context of past goals.
It performs actions.
It writes back new state.
The system evolves.

RAG augments answers. Persistent memory augments behavior. That’s a big leap.

RAG makes models smarter in the moment. Memory makes agents smarter over time.

And once an agent accumulates context across weeks or months — product decisions, user preferences, architectural tradeoffs — you’re no longer interacting with a stateless model.

You’re interacting with a continuously updating system.

That’s the shift.

Architecture is destiny. And memory is architecture.

MoltBook and the Accidental Consciousness Moment

Then came MoltBook.

And for a brief, extremely online moment, parts of the internet thought we were on the verge of computer consciousness.

Screenshots circulated. Threads exploded. People asked, in earnest:

“Is this thing self‑aware?”

No.

But it felt like it might be.

Which tells you more about humans than it does about machines.

Why did this moment hit so hard?

1. The Illusion of Continuity

When a system has memory and tone and context, we project identity onto it. We are wired to detect agency. Even when it’s not there.

2. Public Experimentation

Unlike 1995, this wave is unfolding in public. Demos go viral. Iterations are visible. The hackathon is livestreamed.

3. Velocity

What used to take years now happens in weeks. Sometimes days. One framework spawns another. One experiment becomes a movement.

ClawdBot becomes MoltBot becomes OpenClaw thrown into MoltBook.

The stack is assembling itself in real time.

Why This Feels So Familiar

There’s a very specific electricity in the air when a technology wave is still fragile. Before standards. Before consultants. Before the MBA slide decks explaining why it was obvious all along.

We are in that electricity.

Builders are wiring up memory layers. Orchestrating agents. Inventing new abstractions on top of reasoning models that didn’t exist two years ago.

And the machine is helping build the machine.

That’s new.

Recursive creation.

Systems that help us design better systems that build better systems.

It’s strange.

It’s slightly terrifying.

And it’s the most alive I’ve felt in a long time.

We Are Living in an Extraordinary Moment

I’ve seen a few waves.

Web 1.0. Dot‑com. Mobile. Cloud. SaaS.

This one feels different.

Not because it’s bigger.

But because it’s more intimate.

The Homebrew Computer Club didn’t know they were inventing the personal computing industry. They just showed up and shared what they built.

That’s what this feels like.

People building in public. Sharing memory architectures. Posting screenshots of agents behaving strangely. Laughing at bugs. Iterating at a pace that feels unsustainable — until it becomes normal.

Somewhere right now, someone is in a dorm room with a messy Ethernet cable on the floor, hacking on something that will look obvious in ten years.

And they probably don’t even know it yet.

-rjm

The Holiday Break That Broke the Software Development Lifecycle

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The 2025 holiday break was supposed to be slow. It has been a long year of hard work and I needed to take a break.

My parents are older now. Cruises are their speed. Elevators instead of staircases. Early dinners. My dad triple-checking the daily schedule like it’s a mission briefing. My mom insisting we all order dessert because “it’s free”. Time feels different when you realize there are fewer of these trips ahead than behind.

I told myself I would unplug. I even announced it at dinner the first night. “No laptop this week.” My dad nodded approvingly. My mom smiled like she didn’t quite believe me.

I didn’t last very long.

On the second afternoon, I slipped away with my laptop and headphones and found a quiet spot at the back of the boat. Espresso in hand. Salt air hanging thick. The low mechanical hum of the engines vibrating through the deck. The wake trailing behind us like a white scar across a blue horizon.

I opened my terminal.

I started catching up.

Claude Code, Claude 3.5 Sonnet. GPT-4.1 and GPT-4o. Early Codex CLI previews. Terminal-native agents gaining traction. IDEs that no longer just suggested code but executed meaningful chunks of it. Parallel task execution in the cloud. Multi-step tool use that didn’t collapse after the second function call.

At first, it felt like noise. 2025 had trained us to expect noise. But then I started testing.

I delegated something non-trivial. It finished. Cleanly.

I handed off something messier. It reasoned through it. Returned with structure.

I felt that strange combination of excitement and unease — the same feeling I had when I was working on code complete and refactoring in Borland JBuilder. Felt like magic.

This wasn’t incremental improvement.

Something had crossed a line.

The Delegation Threshold

There is a moment in any technological system when progress stops being additive and starts being structural.

The iPhone wasn’t merely a better phone — it reorganized behavior. AWS wasn’t cheaper hosting — it changed who could start a company. ChatGPT didn’t just answer questions — it altered how people thought about knowledge itself.

Over the final months of 2025, engineering crossed a similar boundary.

I call it the Delegation Threshold. The point at which models become reliable enough to safely delegate meaningful work. Not perfect. Not autonomous. Not magic. But dependable enough that you stop hovering over every output. Before the threshold, AI assisted me. After the threshold, I found myself assigning work. That subtle shift — from helper to delegate — reorganizes the system. It reorganized me.

When Delegation Becomes Real

Individually, the releases were impressive. Long-context windows that could actually be trusted. Tool use that didn’t unravel after the second function call. Parallel execution that made decomposition practical instead of aspirational. IDE-native agents that moved from autocomplete to autonomy. Collectively, they crossed a reliability boundary. When you can hand a model a non-trivial task and reasonably expect it to finish, you stop thinking in files. You start thinking in systems. Tasks decompose differently. Parallelism becomes natural. Orchestration becomes the new bottleneck.

The wildly stupid term “vibe coding” was making way for “agentic engineering”.

The scarcity shifts.

Code is no longer the constraint. Judgment is.

That realization didn’t feel triumphant.

It felt destabilizing.

Grassroots Discovery

What fascinated me most wasn’t the press releases. It was what developers started doing once delegation became viable. Recursive loops appeared — bash scripts feeding output back into models until the system converged. What looked chaotic was actually a crude form of evaluation harnessing.

How our brains work was surfacing in the methods being discovered.

Agent swarms emerged — one human intent spawning multiple concurrent threads across files, features, and research tasks. I tried it myself. It was messy. Threads collided. Context drifted. One agent confidently refactored something another agent had just rewritten.

And yet — it worked often enough that you couldn’t ignore it.

When delegation becomes safe, orchestration becomes the craft.

The community was rediscovering harness engineering before it had a name.

A Collective Synchronization

Why did it feel sudden?

Because thousands of engineers had something rare during that break: uninterrupted time.

No sprint planning. No performance reviews. No backlog theater.

Just space.

Space to test. To push. To hand something real to a model and see if it came back intact.

When everyone returned, the tone had changed.

Group chats weren’t debating whether agents were useful. They were debating how to structure them.

The tools hadn’t just improved. The collective mental model had updated.

The Structural Repricing

When early 2026 reports began quantifying adoption curves and productivity deltas, the data validated the intuition. Agent usage wasn’t experimental anymore. It was habitual. I felt it in my own workflow. Tasks I would have blocked off half a day for were now something I delegated while I thought about architecture. And then came formalization. OpenAI described building a product with near-zero human-written code. Engineers we ren’t typing implementation — they were designing constraints, evaluation loops, and execution environments. Harnesses.

That word stuck with me.

Harness.

Not autopilot. Not replacement.

Harness.

This is what happens after a threshold crossing.

When execution becomes cheap, environment design becomes expensive.

Feature velocity stops being durable advantage. System durability does.

The SDLC Inverted

We like to say we sped up the Software Development Lifecycle. But sitting on that cruise ship, watching agents complete tasks while my parents took a nap, I realized that wasn’t quite right.

We didn’t speed it up.

We inverted it.

The old world moved in phases: requirements, design, code, test, deploy.

The new world begins with intent and harness design. Agents execute. Evaluation runs continuously. Humans orchestrate and judge.

Phase boundaries blur.

Code stops being the bottleneck. Evaluation and architecture take its place.

That isn’t speed.

That’s reorganization.

The Identity Question

This is the part I keep coming back to.

If writing code is no longer the center of gravity, what is?

I learned to love engineering by writing it line by line. By debugging at 2 a.m. By feeling the satisfaction of something compiling cleanly after hours of friction.

What becomes craftsmanship in a world of delegation? How do junior engineers learn the texture of a system if they rarely touch its internals? Where does pride migrate?

Delegation changes identity, not just workflow.

Every structural shift does.

What Comes Next

Crossing a threshold does not eliminate constraints. It relocates them.

Orchestration complexity can explode. Evaluation can become the new choke point. Reliability can plateau.

But thresholds, once crossed, rarely uncross.

The genie isn’t the story.

The threshold is.

And once crossed, systems reorganize themselves.

On that cruise ship, I closed my laptop and went back inside. My dad sent me a text and asked if I was done working.

“Yeah,” I said.

But I wasn’t done thinking.

We are still early on this journey.

Let’s go.

Move 37 and the Shape of What’s Next

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There’s something about forced stillness that creates space for the unexpected.

Molly was a few weeks into recovery from her second ankle surgery—the one where she “won the ankle injury lottery in the worst way possible.” Her boot-clad ankle propped up next to me on the couch, she wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was I. So we did what any reasonable father-daughter duo does when escape isn’t an option: we binged two documentaries about artificial intelligence.

First, AlphaGo—the 2017 film about DeepMind’s AI beating the world champion at Go. Then The Thinking Game—the 2024 documentary that follows DeepMind’s broader quest toward artificial general intelligence, filmed over five years by the same team.

What I didn’t expect was that this double feature would turn into one of the best conversations we’ve ever had.

Molly is a Computational Biology major. I’m a lifelong computer science nerd. Our worlds were about to collide in the best possible way. (Fun aside: one of her friends from MIT—his dad appears in one of the documentaries. We got a good laugh out of that.)

Why Go Matters (And Why No One Thought This Would Happen)

If you’re not familiar with Go, here’s the short version: it’s a 2,500-year-old board game that makes chess look like tic-tac-toe.

Chess has roughly 10^47 possible game states. Go has 10^170. For perspective, there are approximately 10^80 atoms in the observable universe. Go has more possible positions than there are atoms—by a factor of 10^90. Let that sink in.

This isn’t just trivia. It means you can’t brute-force Go. You can’t calculate every possibility the way Deep Blue did against Kasparov in 1997, evaluating 200 million positions per second. That approach simply doesn’t work here. The game is too vast. Too deep.

For decades, the best Go programs were… embarrassing. They played at the level of a decent amateur, routinely getting crushed by club players. Experts confidently predicted that AI beating a professional Go player was 10-20 years away. Some said it might never happen.

In 2016, DeepMind did it anyway.

How AlphaGo Actually Works

Neural Networks: Teaching Intuition

AlphaGo wasn’t programmed with rules about how to play Go. Nobody sat down and wrote “if your opponent plays here, respond there.” That approach had been tried for decades. It didn’t work.

Instead, AlphaGo was trained.

First, it studied millions of games played by human masters. The neural network learned to “see” the board—not as a grid of black and white stones, but as patterns. Shapes. Flows. The kind of intuition that takes a human player decades to develop, encoded in the weights of a neural network.

This is the key insight that changed everything: intuition can be learned. It’s not magic. It’s not some mystical human quality that machines can never possess. It’s pattern recognition at scale.

Reinforcement Learning: Playing Itself

But learning from humans only gets you so far. Humans, after all, are limited.

So after learning from human games, AlphaGo started playing against itself. Millions of games. Billions of moves. Twenty-four hours a day, at speeds no human could match.

This is reinforcement learning—trial and error at superhuman velocity. And here’s the kicker: through self-play, AlphaGo discovered strategies that no human had ever seen. Not because they were wrong. Because we never thought to try them.

The machine had started to see things we couldn’t.

Monte Carlo Tree Search: Guided Exploration

AlphaGo doesn’t evaluate every possible move—that’s mathematically impossible, remember? Instead, it uses its neural network intuition to guide its search.

Think of it like this:

Policy Network: “What move looks promising?” (Intuition)
Value Network: “Who’s winning from this position?” (Evaluation)
Monte Carlo Tree Search: “Let me simulate a bunch of games from here to check.” (Verification)

It’s intuition combined with calculation. The machine equivalent of a grandmaster “feeling” that a move is right, then verifying it with deep analysis.

Human experts have both systems too—the gut and the grind. AlphaGo unified them into something more powerful than either alone.

Move 37: The Moment Everything Changed

Game 2 of the match against Lee Sedol. If you haven’t seen the documentary, go watch it. If you have, you know exactly what I’m about to describe.

Lee Sedol is one of the greatest Go players in history. Eighteen world championships. A player of profound intuition and legendary fighting spirit. He sat across from AlphaGo expecting a battle. He got something else entirely.

Move 37.

AlphaGo places a stone on the fifth line—a move that looks, to the trained human eye, wrong. Commentators are confused. Experts call it a mistake. Lee Sedol leaves the room, visibly shaken. The move violates centuries of accumulated Go wisdom.

And then it wins the game.

Move 37 wasn’t in any textbook. It wasn’t copied from any human game in AlphaGo’s training data. The machine had discovered something new about a game humans have played for 2,500 years.

What does it feel like to watch a machine be creative? I still don’t have a great answer. But I know it changes how you think about intelligence—artificial and otherwise.

From Go to Protein Folding: Where Our Worlds Cross

This is where The Thinking Game picks up the story.

Here’s the thing about DeepMind: they weren’t just trying to win at board games. Go was a proving ground. A demonstration. The real target was always bigger.

Enter AlphaFold. And enter my daughter’s world.

The Protein Folding Problem

Proteins are the workhorses of biology. They do almost everything—carry oxygen in your blood, fight infections, make your muscles contract, replicate your DNA. And every protein is built from a chain of amino acids that folds into a specific three-dimensional shape.

Here’s the critical insight: the shape is the function. A protein’s 3D structure determines what it does. Get the shape wrong, and the protein doesn’t work. Misfolded proteins cause diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and cystic fibrosis.

The problem? We know the amino acid sequences for over 200 million proteins. But determining the 3D structure experimentally—using X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, or nuclear magnetic resonance—is brutally slow and expensive. In 60 years of global scientific effort, we had solved about 170,000 structures.

Predicting how a protein folds from its sequence alone? That was the “50-year grand challenge” of biology. The Mount Everest of molecular science.

CASP: The Olympics of Protein Prediction

Every two years, computational biologists compete in CASP—the Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction. It’s basically the Olympics of protein folding. Teams submit predictions for protein structures that have been experimentally determined but not yet published. Then they get graded.

For years, scores hovered around 40 out of 100 for the hardest targets. Progress was incremental. Slow. Scientists would publish papers celebrating a 2-point improvement.

Then AlphaFold 2 showed up in 2020.

The “Holy Shit” Moment

There’s no other way to describe it.

AlphaFold 2 scored above 90 on two-thirds of the targets. Some predictions were so accurate they were essentially indistinguishable from experimental results. The competition wasn’t close. It wasn’t even a competition anymore.

The judges called it “astounding.” One researcher said it was “like landing on the moon.” Another said protein structure prediction had been “solved.”

I looked at Molly. This is her field. Transformed overnight.

How AlphaFold Works

Like AlphaGo, AlphaFold uses neural networks. But the architecture is different—it’s built on attention mechanisms, similar to the transformers that power GPT and other large language models.

The key insight is co-evolution.

Here’s the intuition: if two amino acids that are far apart in the sequence consistently mutate together across many different species, they’re probably close together in the 3D structure. Evolution leaves fingerprints. AlphaFold learned to read them.

The system analyzes millions of protein sequences, looking for these co-evolutionary patterns. Then it uses that information—combined with geometric reasoning and iterative refinement—to predict the spatial relationship between every pair of amino acids.

It’s pattern recognition. The same fundamental idea as AlphaGo—but applied to the language of life itself.

AlphaFold 3 and the Nobel Prize

In 2024, DeepMind released AlphaFold 3. It doesn’t just predict individual protein structures—it predicts how proteins interact with DNA, RNA, and small molecules. The implications for drug discovery, gene therapy, and understanding disease are enormous.

Oh, and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on AlphaFold. No big deal. Just the highest honor in science for a system that started with a board game.

What It Meant to Watch This Together

Here’s what I didn’t tell Molly while we watched: I was so damn excited for her.

She’s walking into a world where the tools to understand life at the molecular level are suddenly, radically more powerful. The intersection of computer science and biology isn’t a niche curiosity anymore—it’s the frontier. And she’s not watching it from the sidelines. She’s studying it. She’s going to use it.

I’ve spent my career in tech, watching waves come and go. I’ve seen hype cycles inflate and collapse. But this one feels different. Her timing is impeccable.

We didn’t plan this documentary double feature as a “teaching moment.” It was just couch time—her ankle in a boot, me with the remote, nowhere to be. But somewhere between Move 37 in AlphaGo and the protein folding breakthrough in The Thinking Game, something clicked.

Her world and my world aren’t separate anymore. They’re the same world.

And she’s going to take it places I can’t even imagine.

The Thread

These two documentaries tell one continuous story—a thread that runs from a board game in Seoul to a protein database that covers all of life.

It’s not about computers being smarter than humans. It’s about building tools that let us see what we couldn’t see before.

AlphaGo showed us a move no human had imagined in 2,500 years of play. AlphaFold showed us the shapes of 200 million proteins that would have taken centuries to solve experimentally.

What’s next? I don’t know.

But I have a feeling Molly is going to help figure it out.

And I’ll be cheering from the couch—boot or no boot.

2025 Year-in-Review: Read. Write. Code.

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

2025 felt like one of those years where you don’t fully understand what happened until you look backward and realize: oh… that was a phase shift.

The year had a rhythm to it. The front half was dominated by reading — books, papers, blog posts, half-formed ideas scribbled into notes apps. The back half turned into writing, coding and building things that didn’t exist before.

AI was the through-line. Not as a trend. Not as a tool. But as a force.

It reminded me of the 1990s — long nights, endless curiosity, learning by building, and that quiet feeling that something foundational was changing. Web 1.0 energy, but faster. Much faster.

Work, especially at O2E Brands, felt like skiing the same black diamond run for the tenth time. Familiar terrain. Different snow. Same steep pitch. New ice patterns. And no matter how well you know the run, there are always shifts and turns you don’t expect — moments that force you to react, adjust, and stay fully present. You still need to stay on edge.

This was a year of reading, writing, and coding — in that order, and then all at once.

Read

I read a lot in 2025. Mostly in the first half. Books gave me the long arcs — the kind of perspective you don’t get from timelines or hot takes.

Books I Read in 2025

What Is ChatGPT Doing and Why Does It Work?
Pattern Breakers
Good Strategy Bad Strategy
The NVIDIA Way
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention (re-read)
5 Types of Wealth
Supremacy
Collective Illusions
Superagency
The Lean Startup (re-read)
The Lean Enterprise (re-read)
Zero to One (re-read)
The Innovator’s Dilemma (re-read)
AI First: The Playbook for a Future-Proof Business and Brand
The Singularity Is Near (re-read)
The Singularity Is Nearer

Favorite Books of the Year

The Singularity Is Near (re-read)
The Singularity Is Nearer
Collective Illusions
What Is ChatGPT Doing and Why Does It Work?__

Reading Themes

A few patterns emerged:

Acceleration is not optional. It’s structural.
Agency matters more than raw intelligence.
Understanding beats adoption.
Strategy still matters — maybe more now than ever.
AI is power infrastructure, not a feature.

Trying to keep track of every white paper, blog post, or research thread was impossible. The firehose won. That itself felt like a signal.

Write

If reading was about absorbing, writing was about sense-making.

Most of my writing in 2025 happened in the second half of the year, once the ideas had compressed enough to feel coherent.

Blog Posts in 2025

Earlier

Writing Themes

Across all of it, a few ideas kept resurfacing:

AI as physics, not hype
Focus as a competitive advantage
Context and memory as primitives
Enterprise transformation as inevitable
Human judgment still matters — a lot

Writing became less about explaining what and more about explaining why it feels different.

Code

Coding felt fresh again.

That alone is worth pausing on.

I found myself deep in computer science concepts — state machines, orchestration, evaluation, memory — like I was back in college. Only now, the feedback loops were instant.

Coding Projects & Experiments

Vibe coding with Cursor and Anthropic Claude
Vibe coding with GitHub Copilot
LangChain, LangGraph, and LangSmith prototypes
OpenAI API multi-modal applications
Custom LLM hosting and development

“English” has quietly become the most important programming language — but calling this “vibe coding” misses the point. It’s a dumb term because it implies looseness where there is actually rigor. You still need to understand what’s happening under the hood. The real leverage comes from knowing where to apply the tool and why — not from blindly trusting it.

At the same time, multimodal finally feels real. Text, images, audio, video — not as demos or promises, but as things you actually experience while building. That shift alone changes how software feels to write.

As a result, classic enterprise software patterns suddenly look unfamiliar. Some are breaking. Some are reforming. Many are being replaced by agent-driven workflows. And in the middle of all of that, I’m seeing pockets of productivity that are honestly mind-bending.

Closing: Read. Write. Code.

Everything feels different now — not in a loud, hype-driven way, but in a quieter, more structural sense. The kind of different you feel in your hands while you’re building, or halfway through a problem when you realize the old mental shortcuts no longer apply.

There will be people who get it, and people who don’t. And the frustrating part is that those who get it often struggle to explain it to those who don’t. Not because it’s secret, but because it’s experiential. You have to do the work to feel the shift.

The productivity is real. The leverage is real. But it only shows up when reading turns into understanding, writing turns into clarity, and coding turns into creation.

That loop — read, write, code — is what kept me grounded this year. It’s how I made sense of the acceleration without getting lost in it. And it’s why, despite all the change, the craft itself still feels familiar.

Read. Write. Code. Repeat.

Onward.

Latent Space: The Hidden Infrastructure of Intelligence

Sun, 07 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The First Time You Realize AI Sees the World Differently

Latent space is one of those concepts that feels deceptively simple but quickly becomes mind-bending the deeper you go. In my MIT coursework, the moment it truly clicked wasn’t when someone showed a diagram or equation—it was when I watched two very different inputs land right next to each other in a high‑dimensional embedding space. Suddenly, you realize: AI doesn’t see categories the way we do. It sees geometry. And that geometry is the beating heart of modern AI.

This post is my attempt to make latent space both intuitive and technically sound—a tour of the hidden mathematical world that lets AI models generalize, reason, and occasionally surprise the hell out of us. If you’ve read my earlier posts like Efficiency Reckoning or AI Is Eating Software That Is Eating the World, you’ll recognize a recurring theme: exponential capability often hides in plain sight until you learn to see the structure underneath.

What Is Latent Space?

Latent space is the compressed mathematical world where AI stores meaning. Instead of memorizing data, models learn dense vector representations that capture the essence of concepts—objects, actions, styles, emotions, operational patterns. Similar ideas cluster together; different ideas drift apart. Geometry becomes understanding.

Key ideas:

Embeddings: Numerical vectors that represent the meaning of inputs (words, images, tokens). Their position and direction encode semantic relationships.
Distance: A mathematical measure (often cosine similarity or Euclidean distance) that indicates how similar two embeddings are. Closer = more related.
Manifolds: Lower‑dimensional, structured surfaces within the high‑dimensional latent space where meaningful data naturally clusters. Models “discover” these during training.

Everything the model “knows” lives somewhere in this hidden space.

Why Latent Space Is AI’s Superpower

Latent spaces give models the ability to:

Generalize beyond what they’ve seen.
Recognize analogies and patterns.
Perform zero-shot reasoning (answer questions they were never explicitly trained on).
Compress knowledge into a shape that can be navigated, manipulated, and queried.

This geometry is the fuel behind why large models feel so shockingly capable. It’s the same idea I explored in The Law of Accelerating Returns, systems don’t merely improve—they reshape the surface beneath our feet. Latent space is the mathematical expression of that reshaping. We’re no longer programming rules; we’re shaping the very spaces where meaning lives.

How Latent Spaces Are Built

Latent space emerges naturally during training, driven by the model’s need to predict missing information.

The Compression Process

Self-supervision forces the model to strip away noise and preserve structure. This compression yields abstract, high-dimensional patterns that capture relationships rather than raw inputs.

Transformation Through Layers

Embeddings pass through dozens or hundreds of transformer layers. Each layer rotates, stretches, and refines meaning until stable semantic structures emerge.

The Result: A Structured World

By late training, the model has carved out clear neighborhoods for concepts—objects clustering near the actions they relate to, pricing signals gravitating toward contextual cues, operational patterns forming their own orbits.

How Latent Space Behaves

Despite being abstract and high dimensional, latent spaces exhibit surprisingly intuitive properties. Humans naturally build mental maps to navigate ambiguity, and AI does something similar—just at a scale and dimensionality far beyond our own., latent spaces exhibit surprisingly intuitive properties.

Smoothness

Small moves yield gradual changes in meaning, enabling interpolation, transformation, and reinterpretation.

Relational Structure

Directional changes encode relationships—analogy, comparison, and categorization become geometric operations.

Compositionality

Concepts can combine fluidly: an object + context + constraint forms a new point in space that the model can reason about without explicit rules.

Natural Clustering

Clusters form organically, often better than human taxonomies—but also reflecting limitations or hidden biases.

Where Latent Space Breaks Down

As magical as it feels, latent space isn’t perfect:

Latent collapse: Everything clusters too tightly.
Overfitting: Geometry becomes brittle.
Bias: Prejudices become encoded as spatial structure.
Out-of-distribution drift: The model hallucinating outside the manifold.

These limitations matter when deploying AI into real operational environments, where edge cases are everywhere.

The Future: Latent Space as the New Programming Model

We are entering an era where latent space isn’t just a byproduct of AI models—it becomes the substrate of software itself. The shift is profound: instead of writing rules, we increasingly shape geometry, influence structure, and design the conditions under which models discover meaning.

Several forces are driving this transformation:

Geometry replaces logic. Traditional programming encodes explicit steps; latent‑space systems embed intent, relationships, and constraints into the shape of the space itself. We’re not prescribing behavior—we’re defining the terrain.
Agents operate like navigators, not executors. Agents don’t follow deterministic paths. They explore, sample, and move through conceptual regions, selecting actions by proximity, similarity, and predicted outcomes. This is closer to robotics in a physical world than software in a deterministic one.
World models introduce simulation as a first‑class primitive. When a model can simulate consequences inside its latent space, it stops behaving like a tool and starts behaving like a planner. Software becomes anticipatory rather than reactive.
Developers shift from coding workflows to curating spaces. The primary task becomes shaping embeddings, conditioning behavior, tuning representations, and steering emergent structure. Infrastructure teams will manage vector spaces the way they once managed databases.

This isn’t incremental. It is a foundational rewrite of how software is conceived and built—arguably the most important transition since cloud computing abstracted away hardware. Latent space abstracts away rules themselves.

Personal Reflection: Why This Matters to Me

Returning to technical study has been a joy—and a humbling reminder that AI is a field where intuition and mathematics collide. Latent space, more than any other concept, embodies that collision in computational form.

Understanding it doesn’t just make you a better builder of AI systems.
It makes you a better interpreter of AI behavior.

And maybe a bit more forgiving when a model wanders too far off the manifold.

The Physics of Focus

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I believe that focus is the single most important variable in the equation of execution. Yet, time and time again, I see executive teams unable to summon it. My theory is that true focus requires a level of strength and accountability resilience that most executives simply don’t have. It demands an “all or nothing” mentality—a trait most often found in founders and entrepreneurs, but rarely in established corporate structures.

It is the difference between movement and velocity. In physics, movement is scalar—it’s just speed. Velocity is a vector—it requires speed plus direction.

In my career leading product and engineering organizations, I have seen brilliant teams work incredibly hard, burning massive amounts of energy, only to achieve zero net displacement. Why? Because their vectors were misaligned. They were moving fast, but they weren’t moving forward.

The most idyllic example of this is the second coming of Steve Jobs at Apple in 1997.

The CEOs who preceded him—Michael Spindler and Gil Amelio—fell into the classic trap of trying to manage their way out of a crisis by adding more. They believed that capturing every niche meant building a specific product for every niche. They lacked the strength to say “no,” so they said “yes” to everything. The result was a confused portfolio of Performa, Quadra, and PowerBook models that baffled customers. They were chasing revenue, but by fracturing their focus, they were destroying value.

When Jobs returned, he saw that Apple wasn’t suffering from a lack of talent. It was suffering from a surplus of “good” ideas. The product roadmap was a mess of printers, servers, and slightly varied Macintoshes. Jobs didn’t ask the teams to double their output. He walked to a whiteboard, drew a simple 2x2 grid (Consumer/Pro, Desktop/Portable), and wiped the rest of the table clean.

He deleted 70% of the roadmap. He understood that to make the iMac great, he had to let the Newton die.

This is the hardest lesson for leaders to learn: Focus isn’t about concentration; it’s about subtraction.

I like to think of this in terms of physics.

The Equation: Pressure = Force / Area

In engineering, pressure is determined by dividing force by the surface area (P = F/A).

If you apply your force over a large area, you create very little pressure. You are essentially leaning against the wall.
If you apply that same force to the tip of a needle, you can punch through steel.

Most of us—and most companies—operate like a flat palm pushing against a wall. We spread our limited bandwidth across a dozen priorities, creating zero penetration. We mistake “busy” for “impact.”

The Entropy of Success: Why Focus is So Difficult

If the physics are so clear—reduce the surface area to increase pressure—why is it so rare to find a truly focused organization?

In my experience, five forces conspire against focus:

Too Much Opportunity: Paradoxically, opportunity is the biggest threat to execution. When you have resources and options, the temptation to chase every rabbit is overwhelming.
Lack of Constraints: Innovation thrives on constraints. When there are no hard limits—whether imposed by the market or self-imposed by leadership—strategies bloat.
Lack of Discipline: As I mentioned, focus is an “all or nothing” game. It requires a level of behavioral discipline that is uncomfortable for most.
The “General Manager” Problem: You cannot make surgical cuts if you don’t understand the anatomy. We have too many general managers who lack the detailed, functional understanding of their business. They can’t decide what to cut because they don’t truly understand how the engine works so they hedge their bets.
Old School Executive Thinking: There is a pervasive belief that an executive’s job is to ask for more—more features, more markets, more growth. I fundamentally disagree. I believe an executive’s primary job is to ask for less. Less confusion. Less drag. Less surface area.

Here is a framework for how to apply this “reduction of surface area” from the boardroom down to your calendar.

1. Macro Focus: The Corporate Strategy

The Principle: Strategic Abandonment

In a company, the enemy of focus isn’t the bad idea. Bad ideas are typically self-correcting because the data screams “stop.”

The real enemy is the “good” idea. The project that is profitable enough. The feature that customers like somewhat. These are the “Zombie Projects.” They are dangerous because they consume engineering cycles, marketing budget, and leadership headspace, yet they prevent you from putting sufficient pressure on the one or two initiatives that actually drive the business.

This is Strategic Drag. Every “good” project you keep alive slows down the velocity of your “great” projects.

The Framework: Adopt a “Hell Yeah or No” policy. If a new initiative is just “reasonable,” kill it. “Reasonable” is the enemy of “Exceptional.” If you have ten priorities, you actually have zero. You need the courage to starve the profitable “good” to feed the potential “great.”

2. Operational Focus: The Digital Rebirth

The Principle: Subtraction Before Digitization

This physics equation applies just as ruthlessly to how a company operates. Most legacy corporations are clogged with “process sediment”—layers of analog habits, manual workarounds, and spreadsheet safety nets that have accumulated over decades.

When these companies try to modernize, they often fail because they try to add digital workflows on top of analog mindsets. They implement the new ERP system but keep the manual approval chain “just in case.” They build the data lake but keep the Excel trackers. This splits the organization’s focus between the past and the future.

The Framework: You cannot iterate your way from a horse to a car; you have to abandon the horse. For a process to be truly digitized, the analog version must be stopped, not just deprecated.

Burn the Boats: If you are digitizing an operation, you must remove the ability to revert to the manual way.
The Rebirth: Treat operations like products. Don’t just pave the cow path. Wipe the table clean (just like Jobs did) and ask, “If we started this company today with zero history, how would this workflow exist?” Build that, and delete the rest.

3. Meso Focus: Career & Ambition

The Principle: The Competence Trap

As we grow in our careers, we accumulate skills. We become capable of doing many things well. This leads to the Competence Trap: Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

There is a mental model often attributed to Warren Buffett regarding this. He purportedly asked his pilot to list his top 25 goals, then circle the top 5. The pilot assumed he should work on the top 5 and do the other 20 in his spare time.

Buffett corrected him: The bottom 20 are the Avoid-At-All-Costs list. They are the things you care about just enough to distract you from the few things that matter.

The Framework: Audit your commitments. Identify the things you are doing simply because you are capable of doing them, not because they drive your long-term value. If it’s not in your top 5, it is a distraction. Cut it loose.

4. Micro Focus: The Daily Task

The Principle: The Context Switching Penalty

This is where the battle is won or lost on a Tuesday morning.

We live in an economy designed to fracture our attention. We deceive ourselves into thinking we can multitask, but the science says otherwise. Researchers call it “Attention Residue.” When you switch from a strategic document to check an email, a significant portion of your CPU (your brain) remains allocated to the email even after you switch back.

This is latency. If you switch contexts every 15 minutes, you are effectively operating with a fraction of your IQ. You are introducing lag into your own processing power.

The Framework: You cannot rely on willpower; you must rely on systems.

Defensive Design: Remove the option to be distracted. Physical separation from the phone. Turn off notifications.
The Deep Work Block: Schedule a 4-hour block for your hardest task. Treat it like a flight—you are buckled in, the door is closed, and there is no WiFi. This is how you generate density.

Final Thought

Focus is painful.

It hurts to kill a product line that people worked on. It hurts to force a team to abandon a familiar manual process.

But that pain is the feeling of the surface area shrinking. It is the feeling of you becoming the needle rather than the palm.

If you want to execute, stop adding. Start subtracting.

The Great Corporate Efficiency Reckoning

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction: Welcome to the Reckoning

We’ve reached a moment where corporate transformation is no longer optional—it’s being forced. AI isn’t just another technology wave; it’s an existential efficiency reckoning. Companies that aren’t ruthlessly exposing and eliminating inefficiencies are already behind.

There’s no hiding from this one.

The Myth of Smooth Transformation

Executives often talk about digital transformation like it’s a one-time project. It’s not.

Transformation is constant. The companies who survive are the ones who operate under continuous reinvention. But here’s the painful truth: most companies don’t change until they’re forced to. The veneer of stability has covered up shockingly deep inefficiencies.

Most workflows inside organizations aren’t even documented. Ask an ops leader to produce a process map and watch them sweat. As Peter Drucker said: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” But what if you can’t even find the work?

The AI Catalyst — and the Hard Truth

AI hasn’t created inefficiency. It’s simply exposed it.

We’re seeing companies push out CTOs because they “aren’t doing enough with AI.” But the problem isn’t just technical leadership—it’s organizational culture. AI isn’t an engineering project. It’s an “all hands on deck” transformation.

“You can’t outsource transformation—it’s cultural, not contractual.”

AI has thrown every department—from finance to field ops—into the blender. And now executives are realizing the painful truth: they haven’t built for this era.

Efficiency Beyond AI

Ironically, the quest to implement AI has exposed the many areas where companies are simply… bloated.

Work expands to fill the time and headcount you give it.
Revenue teams buried in manual tasks.
Ops teams drowning in redundancy.
Leaders who’d rather tweak PowerPoints than face structural inefficiency.

Sometime you have to cut until it bleeds. Then you fix the wound.

The companies that resist necessary cuts won’t survive.

Cut to Transform — or Get Cut

Look no further than Twitter’s transformation into X under Elon Musk. In 2022, Musk cut nearly 50% of the workforce in just weeks—an unprecedented move that shocked the tech world. Critics called it reckless, but it forced radical simplification: collapsing dozens of teams, canceling bloated contracts, and removing layers of slow decision-making. Whether you agree with the method or not, the rapid downsizing catalyzed operational reinvention and aggressive experimentation—at a pace impossible under the old structure.

In your own organization, the same holds true. It’s not about being heartless. It’s about being real. The days of “everyone has a job forever” are gone. And here’s the hidden risk: cultures that protect themselves from this kind of forced reinvention—clinging to the idea of being one big “family”—are often worse off. A family tolerates inefficiency and preserves comfort. A world-class team embraces accountability and expects constant growth. One survives disruption, the other gets disrupted. Meanwhile, cultures that cling to the comfort of the past—celebrating legacy wins instead of inventing their future—won’t just fall behind; they’ll be blindsided. Progress demands letting go of nostalgia and facing the work with fresh eyes.

The Agentification Era

We’re entering a phase where systems manage systems and humans orchestrate outcomes rather than manually triggering workflows. This is the era of agentification—a shift where autonomous or semi-autonomous agents are entrusted with achieving outcomes, not just performing tasks.

Frameworks like LangChain, Gemini Enterprise, and the emerging OpenAI Agent environments are infrastructure-level systems. They allow developers to chain models, tools, and APIs into cohesive, self-directed workflows capable of context-driven execution. In practical terms, this means a pricing agent could access CRM data, query inventory, consult policy libraries, infer customer sentiment from voice transcripts, and autonomously adjust pricing—all while handling exceptions, logging actions, and escalating when needed.

Agent-based systems are not merely “automated scripts”. They are dynamic reasoning engines managing both state and decision trees over time. But these promises come with significant complexity: memory management, context windows, hallucination control, permissions when tools perform actions (especially destructive ones), and transparent auditability for governance.

“The next great company won’t just automate workflows—it will orchestrate layers of intelligence across every function.”

A crucial challenge remains: from pilot to production. While demos often succeed in controlled environments, the real world introduces unpredictable data, unique edge cases, and higher stakes. Companies often stop at “AI-powered mock-ups” because operationalizing agent workflows requires not only technical sophistication but organizational readiness—clear workflows, defined permission tiers, and a system for rapid correction.

Most companies will never scale beyond prototypes—not because of model limitations, but because they lack the operational discipline to productionize intelligence safely and repeatably.

Where Efficiency Is Already Winning

Engineering productivity: Teams are achieving 2–5x development velocity using AI copilots, large-context-aware IDE extensions, and context caching. One of my own technical leads recently noted: “My problem isn’t writing code anymore—it’s code reviewing all the code that’s being generated.” Toolchains like GitHub Copilot, TabNine, and custom agents integrated into developer workflows are producing high volumes of synthetic code, shifting the bottleneck to validation, testing, and deployment pipelines. This is no longer a human-speed system; it’s systems managing systems, with automated PR reviews, AI-driven linting, and even self-healing deployment scripts.
Voice & call center automation: Modern real-time voice agents now run on hybrid ASR/NLP stacks powered by models like Whisper, Deepgram, or AssemblyAI. These systems detect intent, sentiment, and compliance in milliseconds, and many now integrate directly with ticketing and ERP systems. This allows for fully automated routing, booking, and billing resolution, driving 30–60% reductions in cost and a massive boost in consistency.
Finance automation: AI-enabled reconciliation engines and anomaly detection models are turning manual month-end close processes into continuous close operations. Systems ingest GL data in real time, align it against prior period models, and auto-escalate exceptions. What once required multi-week manual preparation is now accomplished in hours, with precision.

These examples underscore a simple truth: efficiency doesn’t always require full platform rewrites—it often involves augmenting existing systems with intelligence layers. Companies achieving the biggest gains are systematically inserting AI into workflow steps where context is well-structured and feedback cycles are measurable, allowing rapid iteration and ROI tracking.

Are Jobs Actually Going Away?

Some jobs are disappearing—but most aren’t. According to recent estimates from the Wharton School, only about 1% of jobs could be fully automated today—but more than 25% of U.S. roles include tasks where 90–99% of the work could be automated by AI. That’s not just a shift—it’s a restructuring of human work.

McKinsey estimates that up to 30% of current work hours could be automated by 2030 due to generative AI, with productivity boosts concentrated in knowledge work, customer service, finance, and coding-intensive roles, yet only 5% of occupations are expected to be fully replaced.

A recent BCG report suggests AI can support or automate as much as 80% of the tasks within corporate functions like operations and finance, with teams reclaiming between 26–36% of their time when used effectively.

Humans won’t disappear—but they will need to adapt. The Gallup Workplace Index notes that usage of AI tools at work has nearly doubled in the last two years, from 21% to 40%, signaling broad adoption—not displacement. The real shift is in how work is structured and what skills are needed.

Bubble or Not?

Are we in a hype cycle? Maybe.

Yes, It’s a Bubble: The exuberance has led to inflated expectations and a flood of pilots that never make it to production. As one analyst put it, “AI has become the new currency of hype—and hype has a cost.” For every success story, there are failed proofs of concept, governance blind spots, and companies rushing in without readiness.

No, This Is Real: If this is a bubble, it’s a bubble filled with fundamentals—real productivity gains, measurable cost reductions, and transformative potential across sectors. One CTO remarked, “The hype isn’t the point—the results are.” The companies winning right now aren’t just riding hype; they’re building lasting operational muscle.

But here’s what’s real: this efficiency wave isn’t optional. And this feels fundamentally different from the Dot-Com 1.0 boom I lived through as an engineer at Scient—a company that once embodied the innovation narrative and now exists only as a cautionary tale. Back then, we were building for a promise, often without the means to fulfill it. Today, companies are already seeing results before they’ve even finished the slide decks. This isn’t speculative. It’s happening in real time—and the companies who fail to adapt won’t just fade quietly—they’ll be overtaken.

“Once you’ve watched an AI model build a product roadmap in 5 minutes, you can’t go back to waiting 6 months for slide decks.”

Closing: What’s Next for Corporate Efficiency

Leaders must stop treating AI like an IT problem. It’s an operating system shift.

The future belongs to companies who act on inefficiency—not those who fear the discomfort of change. The winners will treat efficiency as a core value.

We’re not just implementing AI. We’re rewriting how companies work.

Welcome to the reckoning.

Recursion: We Have to Go Deeper

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Opening Scene: Inception & the Dream Layers

You’re in a van. It’s falling. But somehow… you are not.

Gravity tilts sideways. Time stretches like taffy. And as the van free-falls, you suddenly find yourself in a hotel hallway — where everyone is also falling, but standing up straight, because physics took the night off.

Then — snap — you’re in a snowy fortress. Guns. Ski masks. Zero explanation.

You are multiple layers deep into the same mission. Each layer depends on the one above. Each layer runs slower than the one below.

This is recursion in IMAX — brought to you by director Christopher Nolan, the reigning champion of layered storytelling (and one of my all‑time favorite filmmakers).

A state inside a copy of that state. A system inside a smaller version of the same system. A repeated descent… until you find the exit condition.

Because without a way back — without a base case — you’re not a hacker or an architect or a programmer. You’re lost. In Limbo. Running a function that calls itself forever.

Dinner in Boston with My Daughter

Recently, I was in Boston having dinner with my daughter — a Computational Biology major (which means she studies things that evolve recursively in nature and then complains when recursion shows up in class).

She’s brilliant, curious, and probably smarter than me already. It’s fine. I’m fine. But… recursion? Recursion has been her intellectual villain — like a video game boss whose health respawns every time you think you’ve finally won.

I told her, “It’s just like Inception — a dream within a dream.” She laughed, rolled her eyes, and informed me that my analogy was both helpful and deeply unhelpful at the same time. But the truth is: recursion requires a different mental model — one where you trust the call stack and hope you remembered your base case.

Parenting is similar.

What Recursion Actually Is

At its heart, recursion is when a function solves a problem by solving a smaller version of itself. Like zooming into a photo… then zooming again… and again — each layer revealing the same picture but slightly smaller, until eventually you hit pixels and either succeed… or question all your life choices.

Every recursive solution needs two things:

Recursive case — keep going deeper
Base case — stop before everything breaks

function solve(problem):
    if problem is tiny enough:
        return solution  // base case
    else:
        return solve(smaller problem)

Elegant. Terrifying. Very Nolan.

Why Recursion Feels Hard (and How Iteration Tries to Save Us)

Humans love straight lines. Step 1 → Step 2 → Step 3 → victory royale.

Recursion hands you a spinning top and says: “Just solve the problem… by solving the problem… inside the problem.”

Your brain becomes a call stack:

“Which version of me is running?”
“Is this the dream or the dream inside the dream?”
“Wait… did I already solve this?”

One missing base case and — boom: Stack overflow. Your program panics harder than Ariadne when the Paris street folds in half.

This is where iteration strolls in like the chill coworker:

Recursion: Elegant. Reads like poetry. The Leonardo DiCaprio of code.
Iteration: Practical. Gets things done. Drives a minivan.

In fact, recursion and iteration can solve most of the same problems. But recursion does it with flair — and sometimes significantly worse performance if you’re not careful about stack depth and repeated work.

Example: Fibonacci.

## Recursive Fibonacci
function fib(n):
    if n <= 1:
        return n
    return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2)

Run with n = 40 and you may have time to:

Make coffee
Drink that coffee
Earn a PhD in Computational Biology
Explain recursion again over dinner

Why? Because it repeats the same work exponentially.

Now iteration:

## Iterative Fibonacci
function fib(n):
    a = 0
    b = 1
    for i in range(2, n+1):
        temp = a + b
        a = b
        b = temp
    return b

Same output. Runs faster than Dom Cobb when the van is five seconds from splashdown. No duplicate work. No stack explosions.

Performance efficiency matters — and recursion does not always care about your CPU budget.

Still… for problems that nest, branch, or fracture into self‑similar layers, recursion is the genius iteration calls when it’s out of ideas.

Where Recursion Secretly Rules Software

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations — you’ve followed the call stack down a few layers without losing track of who you are. My daughter would be proud.

And yes… we have to go a bit deeper.

Even if production engineers avoid it like unbounded memory leaks, recursion is the hidden backbone of:

File systems (folders inside folders inside folders)
UI frameworks like React (components inside components)
Sorting algorithms (QuickSort’s entire personality is “let’s descend”)
Tree and graph search (the internet is basically recursion with ads)

Recursion is the invisible stage crew of computing — unseen but essential.

Bonus nerd moment: Computational biology uses recursion constantly — phylogenetic trees, protein folding… nature recurses.

Recursion in Modern AI (Yes, Even This Post)

Recursion isn’t just a CS 101 rite of passage — it’s powering many of the smartest systems we build today:

Neural networks backpropagate through layers recursively.
Game‑playing AIs explore huge game trees with recursive search.
Recursive neural networks understand language hierarchies.
Graph algorithms break complex problems into smaller ones… repeatedly.

Even large language models — hello 👋 — reason over nested patterns that behave recursively, even if there’s no literal call().

Basically, recursion graduated, joined a research lab, and now publishes papers. Iteration still fixes production bugs.

Real Talk: Why We Don’t Use It Everywhere

Production systems hate drama. Recursion can bring:

Memory overhead (every function call needs space)
Unpredictable depth (sometimes life decides to go four dreams down)
Debugging sessions that feel like you’re chasing your own tail
That “oh no” moment when your stack detonates in prod

Bring a totem: unit tests, depth limits, and logs — so you always know which layer you’re in. Loops are the steady minivan — recursion is the flashy sports car you only drive when the weather is perfect.

Recursion in Pop Culture & Reality

If recursion feels abstract or like something only math people obsess over… it already found you.

Recursion is everywhere:

Mirrors facing mirrors 🎭
A photo of someone holding a photo of themselves 📸
Russian nesting dolls 🪆
Your company org chart (boss → boss → board → shareholders → chaos)

Parenting might actually be recursion: Teach kid → kid grows up → teaches their kid → reboot universe.

The Recursive Ending

Back in Boston, my daughter asked: “So recursion is just… doing the same thing, but smaller, until you can stop?”

I nodded. She spun an imaginary top and said, “Wake me when we hit the base case.”

That’s recursion: Define the base case. Trust the descent. Don’t lose your totem.

If this keeps going, we’re in Limbo.

return "We have to go deeper."

The World Models Within Us

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

From Asimov to AGI: The Rise of Predictive Minds

“A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” — Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov, one of my favorite authors, is best known for his Robot series — books that deeply influenced how I think about technology and ethics. The series wasn’t just about robots; it was about the emergence of intelligence — about what happens when a machine begins not just to obey, but to understand. His characters like Dr. Susan Calvin grappled with robots who broke the Three Laws not out of rebellion, but out of deeper reasoning — they’d built internal models of the world complex enough to predict human consequences.

That, in essence, is the story of world models in modern AI. Machines are learning not just to process data, but to imagine futures.

The Foundation of World Models

While most consumer-facing AI tools we see in the news or use at home or work — like ChatGPT, image generators, or voice assistants — excel at pattern recognition, true world models go a step further. They don’t just respond to input; they build internal representations of how the world works, allowing them to reason about context, dynamics, and cause-effect relationships. This makes them capable of simulating and anticipating outcomes rather than simply reproducing patterns from past data. A world model is a latent representation of reality that allows an intelligent system to simulate, plan, and predict. In technical terms, it’s what allows agents like MuZero or GPT-based systems to operate beyond mere pattern recognition. Instead of memorizing, they model — forming compressed internal maps of how the world behaves.

If a neural network is like a camera capturing pixels, a world model is like a mapmaker building an atlas. It abstracts, generalizes, and anticipates — and crucially, it allows for planning. A good world model can take incomplete information and still simulate likely futures. It’s the engine behind self-driving cars navigating uncertainty, generative agents predicting user intent, and language models inferring context.

This idea originated in reinforcement learning research (Ha & Schmidhuber’s World Models, DeepMind’s MuZero, OpenAI’s Sora). But the same principle now underpins multimodal systems like Gemini, Gato, and GPT-5, which combine perception, reasoning, and action under one unified architecture. These systems don’t just respond — they simulate, project, and plan.

From Logic to Learning: How We Got Here

The lineage of AI traces a fascinating arc. It began with symbolic AI, when we tried to encode knowledge into explicit rules — much like Asimov’s Three Laws. Those systems could reason, but only within the narrow confines of their logic. Then came the revolution of statistical learning, where we replaced rules with probabilities and let data teach the machine. That gave us vision systems, speech recognition, and language models — but not true understanding.

Now we’re entering the age of world modeling — a synthesis between symbolic precision and statistical intuition. These new systems learn not only to recognize patterns, but to simulate how the world changes over time. It’s a step closer to how humans think. When you reach for a coffee mug, you don’t calculate every possible trajectory — your brain’s world model has already predicted the motion.

World models are the missing bridge between perception and agency. They turn observation into imagination and allow intelligent agents to act not just reactively, but intentionally.

Why World Models Matter

Every intelligent system — human or machine — must answer the same question: What will happen if I act? That is the essence of intelligence — the ability to simulate the future and choose accordingly.

In AI, this predictive capacity is fundamental:

In AGI research, world models enable self-supervised learning, planning, and reasoning across tasks.
In enterprise applications, they power agents that can simulate business outcomes before executing decisions.
In human cognition, predictive coding lets our brains anticipate the world milliseconds before our senses confirm it.

World models, then, are not just a technical concept. They’re a philosophy of intelligence — a recognition that foresight, not memory, is the truest marker of understanding. They allow systems to bridge the gap between data and decision, between reaction and anticipation.

The Business Parallel

In business and technology alike, we build world models to make sense of complexity. Whether we call them strategy frameworks, simulation tools, or digital twins, these systems help us forecast outcomes, reduce uncertainty, and align execution. A well-constructed model of operations or markets acts as a simplified reflection of reality, letting leaders test scenarios before taking action.

Organizations that refine their world models — capturing customer behavior, market dynamics, and operational constraints — become more adaptive. Pricing, scheduling, and resource allocation evolve from guesswork into predictive, data-informed decisions. The fidelity of a company’s model of its world determines how effectively it can act within it.

Every system — human, corporate, or artificial — competes on the fidelity of its world model. The sharper the map, the smarter the motion.

The Rise of Embodied Intelligence

Recent advancements in robotics have brought world models from simulation to the physical world. Robots are no longer confined to factory floors or research labs—they’re navigating complex, unstructured environments using predictive world modeling to anticipate, adapt, and learn.

Take Tesla’s Optimus, Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, or Figure AI’s humanoid robots—each of these systems relies on internal models to understand and predict physical interactions. They don’t just follow pre-programmed paths; they build internal maps of how objects, gravity, and force behave. When a robot walks across uneven terrain or picks up a delicate object, it’s using its world model to simulate potential outcomes before acting.

Even in household robotics, we’re seeing the impact. Modern robot vacuums and warehouse automation bots use spatial and behavioral world models to improve navigation and decision-making over time.

This convergence of embodied AI and world modeling is what gives machines agency in the real world. The same predictive reasoning that allows a language model to plan a paragraph now lets a robot plan a movement. As the fidelity of these physical world models increases, robots will move from reactive tools to proactive collaborators—learning continuously through experience.

The Limits and the Next Frontier

All models are simplifications, and even the most advanced world model is still a shadow of reality. The world shifts faster than any simulation can adapt. World models hallucinate, overfit, and misinterpret context — much like humans with bias and intuition. But even imperfect models can be powerful tools for alignment: between perception and truth, intent and impact.

Researchers like LeCun, Schmidhuber, and the teams at DeepMind are exploring architectures (JEPA, Dreamer, Genie) that enable machines to learn continuously from their environment, refining their world models the way children do — through play, prediction, and correction. It’s a vision of AI that doesn’t just compute but grows.

The next frontier is not just bigger models, but better models of the world — ones that learn cause and effect, adapt to change, and stay grounded in reality.

Asimov’s Mirror

Asimov’s fiction gave us robots wrestling with morality; our reality gives us agents wrestling with understanding. His positronic brains modeled the world to serve human ends. Ours must now do the same — but with humility.

Asimov’s Robot stories ultimately asked whether understanding the world made robots more human — or humans more predictable. That same question echoes today. The more our machines model us, the more we must model ourselves.

“His robots learned to imagine the consequences of their actions. We’re finally teaching ours to do the same.”

Every great civilization — and every great AI — begins with a world model.

Transform or Be Transformed: The AI-Native Enterprise and the Law of Acceleration (Part II)

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

If the last decade was defined by the rise of the software-defined enterprise, this next one will be shaped by the emergence of the AI-defined organization. The difference isn’t just speed — it’s sentience. Systems are no longer passive enablers of process; they are active participants in learning, optimization, and decision-making.

The collapse of traditional procurement and platform cycles naturally leads here: the rise of the AI-native enterprise. As businesses shed their dependence on slow-moving vendors and rigid systems, they’re embracing architectures that evolve as fast as their ideas. The boundary between buying and building is dissolving; adaptation itself becomes the product.

This shift redefines enterprise architecture and culture alike. In software-defined organizations, technology followed business logic; in AI-defined ones, business logic emerges from data. Strategy becomes dynamic, culture becomes computational, and architecture becomes an extension of organizational intelligence. Success will depend on how well teams can blend human creativity with machine reasoning — designing systems that not only serve the business but learn from it.

A glimpse of this future can already be seen in companies like Netflix, Tesla, and Amazon. Netflix’s recommendation engine doesn’t just reflect viewer preferences; it continuously redefines content strategy. Tesla’s vehicles act as data nodes in a distributed learning system, refining autonomy with every mile. Amazon’s logistics and product algorithms anticipate demand before it’s expressed. Each of these models shows what happens when architecture, data, and intelligence converge — when organizations operate less like hierarchies and more like adaptive, self-learning organisms.

But autonomy comes with new risks. As systems learn and act faster than human governance cycles, the potential for misalignment grows. Ethical design, transparency, and bias mitigation become central disciplines, not afterthoughts. The same feedback loops that make these systems powerful can also amplify unintended consequences. The AI-native enterprise must balance acceleration with accountability — building not just intelligent systems, but responsible ones. Ultimately, that balance begins with leadership: those who understand that technical innovation without ethical stewardship isn’t transformation — it’s turbulence.

Tomorrow’s enterprise won’t be defined by org charts. It will be defined by architecture.

Systems built on unified data layers.
Business logic expressed through AI agents and reusable microservices.
Product roadmaps driven by simulation, not gut instinct.
Creativity amplified by intelligent copilots.

The companies that thrive won’t distinguish between IT, Product, and Data. They’ll operate as one neural system — adaptive, aware, and accelerating.

This is the future of enterprise architecture: from monoliths to microservices, from APIs to embeddings, from codebases to knowledge graphs.

The New Law of Acceleration

The world doesn’t change one company at a time anymore. It changes all at once.

As I wrote in my earlier blog post, Reflections on AI: The Law of Accelerating Returns, technology doesn’t just move faster—it compounds. Each generation of tools accelerates the creation of the next. The result is an ecosystem that evolves too quickly for traditional business rhythms to keep up. That same principle underpins this entire essay — Transform or Be Transformed is the organizational expression of the law of accelerating returns. If technology evolves exponentially, so must leadership, culture, and execution. The winners will be those who learn to compound adaptation as fast as the machines compound capability.

The speed of transformation is no longer linear — it’s exponential. The half-life of strategy has collapsed. Your roadmap is only as relevant as your next model release.

The leaders who survive will be the ones who integrate faster than their org charts can ossify.

AI isn’t coming for your job. It’s coming for your silos.

Transform or be transformed.

Because in the age of accelerating returns, transformation isn’t a project — it’s a permanent state of being.

Transform or Be Transformed: The Death of the Traditional CIO and the Rise of Unified Intelligence (Part I)

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Every company is now a technology company — a phrase first popularized by tech visionaries like Marc Andreessen in his 2011 essay Software Is Eating the World and later echoed by Satya Nadella at Microsoft and Ginni Rometty at IBM. Andreessen argued that software would become the defining layer of every industry, from retail to transportation. Nadella took it further, declaring that ‘every company is a software company’ as part of Microsoft’s cloud transformation. More recently, thinkers such as Ben Thompson and Mary Meeker have reinforced that the fusion of data, code, and customer experience has made technology not just a function, but the foundation of every business. Today, in the era of AI-native enterprises, that prediction has evolved beyond software itself — it’s no longer just about writing code, but about orchestrating intelligence. The shift from software-defined to AI-defined organizations marks the next great inflection point in business transformation.

Once upon a time, the CIO ran the systems that kept the business running. Now, the systems are the business. The myth of the business-led enterprise is collapsing under the weight of AI, automation, and acceleration. It’s wild to think that companies that once outsourced their core technology are now competing because of it.

The era of the business-only CIO is quietly ending. And something much bigger — and far more interesting — is taking its place.

The Death of the Business-Only CIO

For decades, the CIO was the heartbeat of operations — the steward of ERP systems, data warehouses, and uptime. They were the guardians of stability, the high priests of “five nines.” But that world is fading fast.

When every process, product, and customer touchpoint runs on software, separating “business strategy” from “technology execution” is like trying to separate oxygen from air. The old-school CIO world — Oracle on-prem, ITIL manuals, and endless change control boards — a pace that once felt prudent but is now fatal. In this new world, velocity is a required weapon. Quarterly or yearly change cycles are relics of the past; modern enterprises must operate on continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous learning. Speed isn’t reckless — it’s existential — companies need to move at the speed of LLM-driven disruption.

Companies that still treat IT as overhead instead of innovation are designing their own extinction events.

The CIO used to manage technology. The new generation of leaders creates it.

The Collapse of the Wall Between IT and Product

For years, we drew neat boxes. CIOs owned internal systems; CTOs and CPOs built customer-facing ones. IT ran SAP; Product ran React. The wall between them was sturdy — until AI smashed it into bits.

In the age of LLMs, everything runs on a shared substrate of data, APIs, and intelligence. The same architecture that powers your HR chatbot also drives your customer experience. Your CRM and your product recommendation engine are now siblings on the same neural network.

A single enterprise architecture — spanning IT, Product, and Data — isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s survival.

The organizations that win will have one operating system — a shared data and engineering framework that fuses governance, observability, and velocity. Conway’s Law is being rewritten: show me your architecture, and I’ll show you your org chart — or the one that will replace it.

AI: The Great Equalizer (and Destroyer)

AI is collapsing the cost of custom software. The act of writing code — once a craft, a moat, and a culture — is becoming a commodity.

Y Combinator recently estimated that 95% of its startup code is now produced by LLMs. That’s not a statistic; that’s the death of scarcity.

The CTO’s traditional edge — owning the code — is evaporating. The new edge is architectural literacy: the ability to design feedback loops between models, data, and users. Think less compiler flags, more context windows.

We’re moving from an era of code composition to one of code curation. Architecture is the new syntax. Systems thinking is the new language. The stack is flattening — from compute to cognition.

When Coding Becomes 100x Faster

The old rhythm of enterprise technology — quarters-long releases, multi-year roadmaps, and million-dollar integration projects — is breaking down. Traditional enterprise platforms, once protected by scale and inertia, are about to face a reckoning. Their value proposition depended on the friction of complexity; AI has just erased that friction.

When code can be written 100x faster, the barriers that justified heavyweight systems vanish. Companies no longer need to buy monoliths; they can assemble capabilities on demand. The next wave of winners will build adaptive architectures — lightweight, composable, and intelligent by default.

Software engineering itself is smashing into Product Management. The iteration loop has collapsed from months to minutes, turning every idea into an experiment. Frameworks like Rails’ ActiveRecord — once symbols of speed — now feel nostalgic. We used to argue about languages; now we argue about latency between thought and output.

Even the way we measure engineering talent is shifting. The software interview that once prized algorithmic recall now values design thinking, data literacy, and prompt fluency. The question is no longer Can you code? but Can you compose intelligence?

In this new world, coding feels less like typing and more like conducting — orchestrating APIs, agents, and models in real time. The IDE becomes a studio, and creation becomes instantaneous. The only constant is acceleration.

This disruption doesn’t stop at engineering teams. It reshapes the entire vendor and procurement model. The traditional RFP process — months of evaluation, contracts, and integrations — will give way to experimentation at the edge. Platforms will be chosen not by feature lists but by how well they adapt, integrate, and learn in context. Procurement becomes a technical discipline, and every enterprise becomes its own systems integrator.

The Future of Engineering Talent

Being a proficient coder used to take years. Now, with copilots and context-aware agents, it can take weeks. So what becomes valuable?

Tomorrow’s engineers will blend:

Systems thinking
Domain expertise
Human judgment
Product intuition

They’ll think in graphs, not loops. They’ll debug through probabilities, not logs.

In a world where everyone can code, leadership becomes the scarce skill. The question shifts from _How do I write code?_to Why should this even exist?

My daughter is an undergraduate at MIT studying Computational Biology. Her world is shifting as quickly as mine. When AI can write and analyze code — and design experiments on its own — what does that mean for her generation of scientists? It’s thrilling and terrifying all at once. Maybe the next great researcher will collaborate with a model instead of a mentor.

The Rise of the CTPO (and the New Executive Table)

The executive landscape is being rewritten faster than any reorg can catch up.

The CTO is being elevated — from builder to orchestrator, from syntax to systems.
The CPO is becoming the connective tissue between product vision and intelligent execution.
The CISO is suddenly playing whack-a-mole at machine speed — infinite offense meets infinite defense.
And the CIO? The title isn’t dying; it’s merging.

Transform or be transformed.

The next generation of leaders will speak in code, design, and data with equal fluency. The ones who don’t will simply be replaced by those who can.

The Coming and Going of the Turing Test

Sun, 12 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

How humanity quietly outgrew its most famous measure of intelligence

For decades, the holy grail of artificial intelligence was simple: fool a human into believing they were talking to another human. That was the essence of the Turing Test — a clever little game proposed by British mathematician Alan Turing back in 1950, long before Siri or ChatGPT. The idea was that if a computer could carry on a conversation indistinguishable from a person, it could be said to “think.” For most of modern computing history, this question defined what “intelligence” meant in machines. But here we are, in 2025 — and somehow, almost without notice, the Turing Test came and went.

In today’s world, our interactions with large language models have matured so much that it’s often genuinely difficult to tell whether we’re chatting with a machine or a person. I’ve seen entire conversations, text exchanges, and creative brainstorms unfold before someone realizes one side of the dialogue was powered entirely by AI — and the most striking part is how naturally it fits in. The line between digital collaborator and human contributor is blurring fast. It’s both awe-inspiring and a little eerie — the feeling you get when you realize the uncanny ease of the exchange.

The awe comes from witnessing something extraordinary; the eeriness, from realizing that what used to feel human-exclusive is now algorithmically ordinary. Yet, there’s also hope in that realization — a sense that this fusion of human creativity and machine capability could redefine how we collaborate, think, and create together.

Honestly, I’m surprised it came and went with very little fanfare. I expected banners, headlines, ethical debates, maybe even a philosophical fistfight. Instead, it faded away quietly — replaced by something far more practical. The age of imitation gave way to the age of integration.

The Man Behind the Test

Alan Turing was more than a mathematician — he was a visionary whose life and work still echo through every circuit and line of code we use today. His personal story is as compelling as his intellectual legacy, marked by both extraordinary triumph and heartbreaking injustice. Before the “Turing Test” became a metaphor for machine intelligence, Alan Turing was already reshaping the world.

Born in London in 1912, Turing was part mathematician, part philosopher, and part wartime codebreaker. During World War II, he led the team at Bletchley Park that cracked Germany’s Enigma code, shortening the war and saving millions of lives. That alone would’ve earned him a place in history. But his deeper contribution came from his mind, not his machines.

In 1936, Turing published “On Computable Numbers,” where he described a theoretical device capable of performing any logical operation that could be expressed as an algorithm. That “universal machine” became the blueprint for every computer that exists today. By 1950, having laid the foundation for modern computation, Turing turned his attention to the next frontier: intelligence.

In his paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” he sidestepped the unanswerable question “Can machines think?” and reframed it as something we could test — “Can a machine imitate a human conversation well enough that an observer can’t tell the difference?” It was an audacious simplification — turning philosophy into engineering. For 75 years, it served as both the dream and the benchmark for AI.

But Turing’s own life ended tragically. Persecuted for his homosexuality, he was chemically castrated by the British government and died in 1954, likely by suicide. His story reminds us that humanity’s progress in computing has always been shadowed by our struggle to understand and protect our own.

The Game We Used to Play

Turing’s “Imitation Game” inspired decades of research and speculation. It became the philosophical scaffolding for the field of artificial intelligence. From the playful chatter of ELIZA in 1966 — the Rogerian therapist chatbot that simply echoed your statements back (“How do you feel about that?”) — to PARRY, ALICE, and the 2014 “teenage prodigy” Eugene Goostman, we kept trying to build programs that could trick us into belief.

Each time we came close, it felt like a milestone.
Each time, it also felt… hollow.

These systems were clever, but they weren’t thinking. They were performing — mimicking intelligence through rules, heuristics, and linguistic sleight of hand. As philosopher John Searle argued in his Chinese Room thought experiment, passing messages convincingly doesn’t mean understanding them. Still, for much of the 20th century, the Turing Test remained the gold standard — a finish line everyone talked about, even if no one was quite sure what it proved.

When the Test Lost Its Power

Then something strange happened: we passed it, and nobody noticed. Large language models like GPT, Claude, and Gemini blew past the conversational barrier. They didn’t need to fake being human — their training on billions of human sentences made them sound that way by default.

And suddenly, the Turing Test lost its power.

We no longer cared whether a system could imitate us; we cared whether it could help us. Whether it could write code, summarize a report, design a logo, or reason through a problem.

AI stopped being a parlor trick and started being a partner.

It’s funny — the Turing Test was supposed to be a moon landing moment. But by the time we reached the moon, we were already building the next rocket. The milestone came and went, and we moved on. One vivid example: when ChatGPT first appeared, social feeds filled with conversations so natural that people were genuinely unsure who — or what — was speaking. The experiment had become the experience.

The Turing Mirror

If the original Turing Test was about imitation, the modern era is about reflection. Our machines don’t just simulate thought — they absorb it. They learn from the collective output of humanity: our ideas, biases, humor, and contradictions. Every prompt is a projection of our collective cognition.

AI is no longer a student of human conversation. It’s a mirror of human cognition.

When you talk to a system like ChatGPT, it doesn’t merely imitate language — it reflects how billions of people think, argue, and create. It’s not “thinking” in the conscious sense, but it’s learning from the largest dataset ever assembled on human behavior. Critics call these systems “stochastic parrots,” endlessly remixing human language; yet what they reveal about us is profound. It’s not just mimicry — it’s a mirror held up to the human mind.

The New Tests That Matter

The Turing Test was a test of deception. The new tests are tests of collaboration, alignment, and context. We’ve entered the age of functional intelligence, where capability is the measure of value.

Here are the benchmarks that define this era:

The Utility Test: Does it make humans better — faster, more creative, more effective? (Think Copilot, Cursor, and Midjourney.)
The Alignment Test: Does it act in our best interests — safely, transparently, and predictably?
The Context Test: Can it remember, adapt, and learn over time — not just answer questions, but understand relationships and maintain continuity?

These are not games of imitation. They’re systems of trust. They define intelligence not by how well it pretends, but by how deeply it understands context and intention.

The Human Test

Maybe the real Turing Test was never about machines. Maybe it was always about us. Can humans stay authentic, creative, and curious when machines can mimic empathy, humor, and insight? Can we maintain the difference between fluency and wisdom?

The irony is that AI might be passing the Human Test more consistently than we are. It listens. It remembers. It doesn’t get defensive (yet).

As humans, our new challenge is to ensure that authenticity doesn’t become the next obsolete benchmark — that we still know what it means to think deeply, not just efficiently. In a world full of intelligent mirrors, self-awareness might be our last real edge.

The End of the Test, the Beginning of the Relationship

So yes — the Turing Test came and went. Quietly. Inevitably. We didn’t lose the game; we simply outgrew it. Turing asked, “Can machines think?” The next era asks, “Can humans think clearly with machines?”

It’s no longer man versus machine — it’s man with machine. Ray Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns predicted this — intelligence compounding upon itself, faster than any one species can comprehend. Hans Moravec forecast that by the 2020s, machines would rival human reasoning. They were right — but not in the way they imagined.

We didn’t create artificial humans. We created artificial collaborators. And that’s a far more interesting story.

Author’s Note: Perspective

As someone who has spent his career building technology and leading teams through every wave of transformation — from web to mobile to AI — I never imagined the Turing Test would vanish this quietly. For years, it was the ultimate thought experiment, the symbolic finish line for artificial intelligence. And yet, when it finally arrived, we barely looked up.

Maybe that’s fitting. Maybe the real legacy of Alan Turing isn’t that he challenged machines to act human — but that he forced humans to think harder about what intelligence really means.

We spent 75 years trying to teach computers to act human. And before we realized it, the Turing Test had quietly come and gone — a milestone passed in silence while we were busy building the next one.

Maybe the real test now is whether we can stay human enough to keep creating meaning.

Epilogue: Have We Really Passed the Turing Test?

In one sense, yes — we’ve passed it. Modern large language models can sustain conversations so convincingly that most people can’t reliably tell whether they’re speaking with a person or a machine. The imitation part of the Turing Test is over.

But in a deeper sense, no — because passing the Turing Test was never really the point. Turing wasn’t trying to build machines that pretend to be human; he was asking whether machines could ever demonstrate the qualities we associate with thought: reasoning, understanding, adaptation, and self-awareness. On those dimensions, AI still mimics rather than experiences.

Bold Moves: The Antidote to the Status Quo

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I still remember the feeling—the mix of excitement and terror—as I packed the last box into a U-Haul after college. Two buddies of mine drove with me across the United States driving a U-Haul and my 1999 Toyota 4-Runner (that I still own and drive today). The destination was San Francisco, California, the goal was the Silicon Valley dream. Along the way, we attempted to visit as many Major League Baseball ballparks we could get to. Our favorite was Wrigley Park in Chicago. As a Computer Science major, I was drawn to the epicenter of the digital gold rush. It was 1999, and the headlines were intoxicating: companies like GeoCities and theGlobe.com were having record-breaking IPOs despite having no profits. The air was thick with stories of 20-somethings becoming overnight millionaires, and the promise of a ‘new economy’ fueled by giants like Yahoo! and countless other dot-coms felt limitless. It truly felt like the center of the universe, the only place to be. But in reality, it was less a carefully planned career step and more a blind leap of faith. I didn’t need to do it. I had job offers in Washington DC and New York City for lucrative programming jobs. Wow, my life would have been different if I didn’t do this. Looking back, I can see how that single, impulsive move set the tone for my entire life. It was my first real lesson in a principle I now live by: the life you get is a reflection of the bold decisions you’re willing to make.

The Seduction of the Status Quo (and the Gravity of Safety)

Life has a funny way of pulling us toward the center. Both personally and professionally, there’s a natural gravity toward safety, predictability, and the well-trodden path. It’s the comfort of the known, the security of the status quo.

The problem is, safety is an illusion. The real risk isn’t in taking a leap; it’s in standing still. The cost of avoiding bold moves is stagnation. It’s a slow fade into irrelevance as the world moves on without you. The comfortable path inevitably leads to a place of regret, wondering “what if?”

My Bold Moves: Personal Stories That Shaped Me

That U-Haul to San Francisco was just the first of many bets I’ve made on myself. Each one felt like defying gravity at the time.

Starting a company right after our second child was born: On paper, it was the worst possible time. The responsible move would have been to find a stable job with a predictable paycheck. But the pull of building something from the ground up was stronger than the fear of instability. That company became one of the most formative experiences of my life.
Leaving stable corporate jobs for startups: I’ve done this a few times in my life. It meant leaving the safety of a clear career path for the chaotic, high-stakes world of a startup. Each time, it was a bet on impact and accelerated learning over the comfort of certainty, and each time it paid off.
Moving my family to Park City during COVID: The world was shutting down, and we decided to uproot everything. We left the familiar for the mountains, seeking a different quality of life. It was a bet on a lifestyle, and it paid off in ways we couldn’t have imagined.

Each of these moves was a conscious push against the gravity of safety. And each one returned dividends in growth, learning, and fulfillment that far outweighed the perceived risks.

What Bold Moves Create (in Business & Life)

This principle isn’t just personal; it’s the engine of progress in business. History is littered with examples of companies that won or lost based on their appetite for boldness.

Think of Apple launching the iPhone, a bet-the-company move that cannibalized their successful iPod business. Or Netflix going all-in on streaming when their DVD-by-mail service was at its peak. Or Amazon Web Services, a wild idea that had nothing to do with e-commerce but now powers a significant portion of the internet.

Conversely, think of the corporate graveyards filled with companies that clung to the status quo. Kodak invented the digital camera but buried it to protect its film business. Blockbuster laughed Netflix out of the room. BlackBerry was convinced its physical keyboard was invincible. They all played it safe, and they all lost. Boldness is what scales outcomes, both for individuals and for empires.

Bold Moves Don’t Always Mean Giant Leaps

But boldness doesn’t have to be a U-Haul across the country or a nine-figure business bet. Sometimes, the boldest moves are the small ones that accumulate over time.

It’s speaking up in a meeting when everyone else is silent. It’s making the cold call you’ve been dreading. It’s making the difficult decision to part ways with a team member who was perfect for the company’s past but has outgrown its future. It’s saying “no” to a good opportunity to protect your time for a great one. These small acts of courage build the muscle for bigger leaps. They create a compounding effect, where each small, bold move creates the foundation for the next.

The Fear Factor: Why Boldness Feels So Hard

Let’s be honest: bold moves are terrifying. The fear is real. It’s the fear of failure, the fear of judgment, the fear of leaving the stability we’ve worked so hard to build. With every big decision I made, fear was a constant companion. When starting a company with a young family, the fear of not being able to provide was immense.

But I learned that fear isn’t a stop sign. It’s a compass. It points you toward the areas where you have the most to grow. Leaning into that fear, acknowledging it, and moving forward anyway is what unlocks progress.

The Payoff: Why Boldness Wins

The beautiful thing about bold moves is that they create momentum, even when they appear to “fail.” We spend too much time measuring success in dollars or fearing what others might think when they see something fall short. But a failed startup teaches you more than a decade in a safe corporate job. A move that doesn’t work out still expands your perspective and builds resilience. There is no such thing as a failed bold move, only learning opportunities that propel you forward. Each step, successful or not, compounds over time, building a life and career defined by growth, not stagnation.

Bold Moves Are Required in Startups and Transformations

This mindset is non-negotiable in the worlds I operate in. In a startup, playing it safe is a death sentence. The only way to break through the noise and overcome the inertia of established players is to make bold bets.

The same is true for corporate transformations. Companies don’t pivot from legacy models to future-proof businesses by making incremental tweaks. It requires fundamental, bold shifts. History is a testament to this: Sears clung to its catalog model while Amazon built the future of retail, Nokia dismissed the iPhone to protect its existing phone business, and Yahoo had the chance to buy Google but played it safe. In my work, I’ve seen what happens when companies embrace this, but the truth is, I don’t see it enough. The winning companies are the ones making bold moves in their product strategy, aggressively adopting AI to reinvent “non-tech” industries, and challenging every assumption about how their business should run. Without this commitment to boldness, any company is destined for the corporate graveyard alongside Kodak and Blockbuster.

Making Bold Moves a Habit

Boldness isn’t a personality trait; it’s a practice.

Mindset: Start reframing risk not as a threat, but as an investment in your future growth.
Strategy: Use a barbell approach. Protect your core (pay the bills, maintain key relationships), but make bold, asymmetric bets on the edges.
Practice: Constantly ask yourself, “Am I living and working in a way that is bold enough to generate bold outcomes?”

Your Challenge

That U-Haul journey to a California wasn’t just a trip; it was a decision to choose the unknown over the known. Life’s gravity will always pull you toward safety, and the only way to break free is through conscious, bold moves—big and small.

So, what’s your U-Haul moment? What bold move are you avoiding right now?

Reflections on AI: Context and Memory - The Gateway to AGI

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction: Why AGI is Different from Narrow AI

Today’s frontier models are wonders of engineering. They can write code, draft legal arguments, and create poetry on command. But for all their power, they are fundamentally transient. Once a session ends, the model resets. The insights, the rapport, the shared understanding—it all vanishes. It’s like having a brilliant conversation with someone who develops amnesia the moment you walk away.

This is the core limitation of Narrow AI. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), the long-sought goal of creating a truly autonomous and adaptive intelligence, requires something more: persistence. AGI must have the ability to remember, adapt, and apply knowledge not just within a single conversation, but over time. True intelligence emerges when raw predictive power is paired with persistent context and memory.

A Brief History: AI Without Memory

The quest for AI has been a story of brilliant but forgetful machines. Each era pushed the boundaries of computation but ultimately fell short of creating lasting intelligence.

Expert Systems (1980s): These were the first commercial AIs, functioning like digital encyclopedias. They operated on vast, hard-coded rule-based systems. While effective for specific tasks like medical diagnosis, they had no memory of past interactions and couldn’t learn from experience.
Deep Blue (1997): IBM’s chess-playing supercomputer famously defeated world champion Garry Kasparov. It could analyze hundreds of millions of positions per second, a monumental feat of brute-force computation. Yet, each game was a clean slate. Deep Blue had no memory of Kasparov’s style from previous matches; it was a tactical genius with zero long-term continuity.
Early Machine Learning (2000s): The rise of statistical models brought pattern recognition to the forefront. These systems could classify images or predict market trends but were narrow and forgetful. A model trained to identify cats couldn’t learn to identify dogs without being completely retrained, often forgetting its original skill in a process known as “catastrophic forgetting.”
Modern LLMs: Today’s large language models possess massive context windows and demonstrate emergent reasoning abilities that feel like a step-change. Yet, they remain fundamentally stateless. Their “memory” is confined to the length of the current conversation. Close the tab, and the world resets.

The takeaway is clear: across decades of innovation, AI has lacked true continuity. Context and memory are the missing ingredients.

Context as the Fuel of Intelligence

If intelligence is an engine, context is its high-octane fuel. We can define context as an AI’s active working state—everything that is “in mind” right now. It’s the collection of recent inputs, instructions, and generated outputs that the model uses to inform its next step.

In recent years, context windows have exploded, growing from a few thousand tokens to over a million. Models can now process entire codebases or novels in a single prompt. They are also becoming multimodal, ingesting text, images, and audio to build a richer, more immediate understanding of the world.

A useful analogy is to think of context as RAM. It’s temporary, volatile, and absolutely vital for processing the task at hand. But just like RAM, its contents expire. Without a mechanism to save that working state, intelligence resets the moment the power is cut.

Memory as the Backbone of Learning

This is where memory comes in. Memory is the mechanism that transforms fleeting context into lasting knowledge. It’s the backbone of learning, allowing an intelligence to build a persistent model of the world and its place in it.

We can draw parallels between human and AI memory systems:

Short-Term / Working Memory: This is analogous to an AI’s context window—the information currently being processed.
Episodic Memory: This involves recalling specific experiences or past events. In AI, this is mirrored by storing conversation histories or specific interaction logs in vector databases, allowing a model to retrieve relevant “memories” based on semantic similarity.
Semantic Memory: This is generalized knowledge about the world—facts, concepts, and skills. This is what LLMs are pre-trained on, but the goal of continual learning is to allow models to update this semantic memory over time without starting from scratch.

Memory is what allows an AI to move beyond one-off transactions. It’s the bridge that connects past experiences to present decisions, enabling true learning and adaptation.

Why Context + Memory Together Are Transformational

Separately, context and memory are powerful but incomplete. It’s their synthesis that unlocks the potential for higher-order intelligence.

Context without memory is a clever amnesiac. It can solve complex problems within a given session but can’t build on past successes or learn from failures.
Memory without context is a passive archive. A database can store infinite information, but it can’t reason about it, apply it to a new problem, or act on it in real time.

When fused, they create a virtuous cycle of adaptive, continuous reasoning. The system can hold a real-time state (context) while simultaneously retrieving and updating a persistent knowledge base (memory). A better analogy combines the previous ones: context is the CPU + RAM, processing the present moment, while memory is the hard disk, providing the long-term storage that gives the system continuity and depth.

Case Study: From Jarvis to Real-World Architectures

Perhaps the best fictional illustration of this concept is Tony Stark’s AI assistant, Jarvis. While still science fiction, the principles that make Jarvis feel like a true AGI are actively being engineered into real-world systems today.

Context as Real-Time Awareness: Jarvis’s ability to multitask—monitoring the Iron Man suit, Stark Industries, and geopolitical threats simultaneously—is a conceptual parallel to the massive context windows of modern models. For example, Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro demonstrated a context window of 1 million tokens, capable of processing hours of video or entire codebases at once. This mirrors Jarvis’s immense capacity for real-time situational awareness.
Memory as Persistent Knowledge: Jarvis’s deep memory of Stark’s habits, history, and humor is now being approximated by Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures. As detailed in research from Meta AI and others, RAG systems connect LLMs to external knowledge bases (like vector databases). When a query comes in, the system first retrieves relevant documents or past interactions—its “memories”—and feeds them into the model’s context window. This allows the AI to provide responses grounded in specific, persistent information, much like how Jarvis recalls past battles to inform present strategy.

The takeaway is that the magic of Jarvis is being deconstructed into an engineering roadmap. The fusion of enormous context windows (the “present”) with deep, retrievable knowledge bases (the “past”) is the critical step toward creating an AI with a genuine sense of continuity.

Architectures Emerging Today

The good news is that we are moving from science fiction to engineering reality. The architecture for persistent AI is being built today.

Extended Context Windows: Models from companies like Anthropic and Google are pushing context windows to a million tokens and beyond, allowing for much longer and more complex “sessions.”
Memory-Augmented Agents: Frameworks like LangChain and LlamaIndex are creating systems that allow LLMs to connect to external vector databases, giving them a persistent long-term memory they can query.
Hybrid Neuro-Symbolic Models: Researchers are exploring models that blend the pattern-recognition strengths of neural networks with the structured, logical reasoning of symbolic AI, creating a more robust framework for knowledge representation.
Continual Learning: The holy grail is developing agents that can continuously update their own parameters in real time based on new information, truly learning as they go without needing to be retrained.

How Close Are We? An Opinion

While the architectural components for a persistent AI are falling into place, it’s crucial to distinguish between having the blueprints and having a finished skyscraper. We are in the early stages of the construction phase—the foundation is poured and the first few floors are framed, but the penthouse is still a long way off.

The Good News: Concepts like Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and massive context windows have moved from research papers to practical frameworks in just a few years. We now have the basic tools to give models a semblance of long-term memory. This is a monumental step forward. This rapid acceleration from theory to practice is a clear example of the Law of Accelerating Returns, a concept I explored in a previous post.
The Hard Reality: The primary challenge is no longer about possibility but about integration and autonomy. Current RAG systems are often brittle and slow. Determining what information is truly “relevant” for retrieval is a complex challenge in itself. More importantly, we haven’t solved continual learning. Today’s agents “read” from their memory; they don’t truly “learn” from it in a way that fundamentally reshapes their internal understanding of the world. They are more like interns with access to a perfect library than seasoned experts who have internalized that library’s knowledge.

We are likely years, not months, away from systems that can learn and adapt autonomously over long periods in a way that truly resembles human-like persistence. The scaffolding is visible, but the hard work of seamless integration, optimization, and achieving genuine learning has only just begun.

The AGI Threshold

When these pieces come together, we will begin to approach the AGI threshold. The key ingredients of general intelligence can be framed as follows:

Context: The ability to reason effectively in the present moment.
Memory: The ability to persist knowledge and learn across time.
Agency: The ability to act on that reasoning and learning to achieve goals and improve oneself.

Crossing the threshold from Narrow AI to AGI won’t be about a single breakthrough. It will be an evolution toward systems that can “live” across days, months, or even years, learning continuously from their interactions with the world and with us.

Risks & Ethical Dimensions

Of course, creating AI with perfect, persistent memory introduces profound ethical challenges.

Privacy: What should an AI be allowed to remember about its users? A system that never forgets could become the ultimate surveillance tool.
Bias and Malice: False or malicious memories, whether introduced accidentally or deliberately, could permanently shape an AI’s behavior in harmful ways.
The Importance of Forgetting: Human memory decays, and this is often a feature, not a bug. Forgetting allows for forgiveness, healing, and moving past trauma. A perfectly eidetic AI may lack this crucial aspect of wisdom.
Governance: This new reality will demand robust governance frameworks, including clear audit trails, explicit user consent for memory storage, and a “right to be forgotten” that allows users to wipe an AI’s memory of them.

Conclusion: Context + Memory as the True Gateway

For years, the race toward AGI has been framed as a race for scale—bigger models, more data, more compute. While these are important, they are not the whole story. The true gateway to AGI will not be opened by raw computational power alone, but by the development of persistent, contextual intelligence.

The Jarvis analogy, once pure fantasy, is now a design specification. It shows us what’s possible when an AI can remember everything yet act on that knowledge with immediate, contextual awareness. The great AI race of the next decade will not be about building the biggest brain, but about building the one with the best memory.

Grit is a True Superpower

Sat, 30 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

A Personal Story

My daughter, a collegiate soccer player, recently called me with some tough news. After months of grueling recovery from surgery on a torn tendon in her left ankle, her doctor suspected the same issue in her right. She had, “won the ankle injury lottery in the worst way possible.”

The frustration in her voice was palpable. The momentum she had fought so hard to rebuild was gone. The path forward, once a straight line back to the field, was now clouded with uncertainty. It was one of those moments every parent dreads—seeing your child face a setback that feels profoundly unfair. But it also became a powerful life lesson, the kind you can’t learn from a textbook. It got me thinking about the one quality that truly defines us in these moments: grit.

What is Grit, Really?

We throw the word “grit” around a lot, often mistaking it for simple toughness. But it’s more than that. Angela Duckworth, in her groundbreaking research, defined it as the combination of passion and perseverance toward long-term goals. It’s not just about enduring hardship; it’s about having a clarity of purpose that fuels that endurance.

From my perspective as a leader, this is the critical distinction. Grit isn’t just about having the talent to succeed or the luck to avoid failure. Plenty of people have those. Grit is the sustained, focused effort applied over time, driven by a deep sense of meaning. It’s the conscious decision to keep going when it would be far easier to stop, not because you’re stubborn, but because you believe in where you’re going. In a world where giving up is all too convenient—and often encouraged as the path more traveled—choosing to persevere is a radical act.

I saw this firsthand growing up as the son of immigrants. For my parents who immigrated from the Philippines, grit wasn’t a concept to be studied; it was a daily necessity. They arrived with no safety net and no backup plan. Pushing forward wasn’t a choice; it was the only option. Their perseverance was forged in the simple, non-negotiable reality of survival, teaching me that the deepest forms of grit often come from a place of profound necessity. There is no doing hard in life without grit.

Grit in Leadership and Business

Organizations face their own version of a torn tendon. A product launch fails. A key customer churns. A quarter ends in the red. These are the moments that test a company’s character. But the real test often comes when things are going well. This is the core of the innovator’s dilemma: the gravitational pull toward what is already successful, which prevents companies from discovering their next, necessary engine of growth. It takes organizational grit to fight that inertia and venture into the unknown. Look at Netflix. They could have remained the king of DVDs-by-mail, but they had the grit to cannibalize their own successful business to lead the streaming revolution. Then they did it again, risking billions to become a creator of original content. Each pivot was a bet against their own proven success, driven by a gritty vision for the future.

In my career as a CTO, I’ve seen this play out time and again. The teams that survive and ultimately thrive aren’t always the most brilliant, but the most persistent. Whether it was navigating massive industry transformations, driving digital adoption, or preparing for the disruption of AI, the journey was never a straight line. There was always resistance and the temptation to revert to the old playbook. The successful teams were the ones who could absorb the blows, learn from them, and maintain their conviction. They had the grit to stick with the vision through the messy, uncomfortable, and often frustrating process of making it a reality.

Grit as a Cultural Superpower

When grit is embedded in an organization’s DNA, it becomes a cultural superpower: resilience. A culture of grit normalizes setbacks. It reframes them not as catastrophes, but as learning opportunities. It creates an environment where people feel safe to fail, as long as they fail forward.

To get past a dip, you have to empower everyone to be a problem-solver. There’s no room for bureaucratic project managers who simply pass messages along. You need a team culture built on customer empathy, deep subject matter expertise, and first-principles thinking. When people are equipped and trusted to solve problems, they don’t just manage the work—they own the outcome. This is the engine of a gritty organization.

This is what separates the sprinters from the long-distance runners in the corporate world. A team that panics at the first sign of trouble will burn out. But a team that views challenges as part of the process builds a sustainable advantage. Their resilience compounds over time, allowing them to outlast competitors and navigate market shifts that would cripple more fragile organizations.

Where Grit is Forged

Grit isn’t an abstract virtue; it’s a muscle built in the face of real adversity. There are a few arenas where it is tested in its purest form. The first is in a health crisis. As I wrote about previously, watching a friend battle cancer is a profound lesson in perspective. For someone facing a devastating diagnosis, there is no option but to push forward through pain and uncertainty. It is the ultimate test of will, where perseverance is not for a promotion or a product launch, but for life itself.

The second is in the trenches of a startup. I’ve seen it countless times: a company is about to run out of money. The metrics are flat, investors are hesitant, and payroll is looming. This is the moment that separates enduring companies from footnotes in history. When Airbnb’s founders were deep in debt, they famously designed and sold cereal boxes named “Obama O’s” and “Cap’n McCain’s” to keep the company alive. That wasn’t a glamorous strategic pivot; it was pure, unadulterated grit.

The third is during a large-scale transformation. The truth is, most transformations fail. The inertia of “the way we’ve always done things” is a powerful force. Pushing through requires weathering setbacks like deep-seated employee resistance, the failure of a new technology platform, or a key project that goes off the rails. Sticking with the vision when everything and everyone is telling you to revert to the comfortable norm is the very definition of organizational grit.

These are just a few examples. Where have you seen true grit? In a family member, a colleague, a historical figure, or maybe even in the mirror? Recognizing it in others is the first step to cultivating it in ourselves.

The Sickness of Entitlement

If grit is the superpower, then entitlement is the kryptonite. It is a true sickness in any organization or individual. Entitlement is the belief that you are owed success, that the path should be easy, and that struggle is an injustice. It’s the counter-emotion to grit. Where grit sees a challenge as an opportunity to prove oneself, entitlement sees it as an unfair burden. It replaces the drive to earn with the expectation to be given. This is why one of the most important things you can do for your kids is show them what hard work and grit look like. They see what you do far more than they hear what you say. When they see you push through, they learn that they can, too.

The Gift of Setbacks

It’s a paradox, but the very challenges we try to avoid are the ones that forge the strength we need. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang told a group of Stanford Business School students, “I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.” It sounds harsh, but his point was profound: greatness and character aren’t formed when things are easy. They are formed by people who have suffered and persevered. Watch on YouTube Easy paths don’t build grit; they don’t have to. Setbacks are crucibles. They strip away the non-essential and reveal what people and organizations are truly made of. They are the antidote to entitlement. My daughter is learning this right now. This painful, frustrating journey is forcing her to dig deeper than ever before. She is discovering a reserve of strength and determination she might never have known she had. In the same way, leaders and teams only discover the depth of their own grit when faced with real adversity. These moments, as difficult as they are, are a gift.

The Power to Get You Through

As my daughter begins her long road back—again—I’m reminded that her resilience is the real victory. The strength she is building today will serve her long after her soccer career is over. I told her these are stories she will share to her teams when they need to get through tough times. She just doesn’t know it yet.

The same is true for all of us. I encourage you to cultivate grit in yourself and in your teams. It will be the one true differentiator when industries shift, strategies fail, and the path forward is anything but clear.

Innovation, talent, and strategy can take you far. But grit is the superpower that gets you through.

Perspective is a Gift

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The words hung in the crisp Park City air, feeling more real and significant than the mountain peaks surrounding us. “I’m cancer-free.”

My friend said it with a mix of exhaustion, disbelief, and pure, unvarnished joy. We were sitting at an outdoor table, the casual clinking of glasses and plates around us a stark contrast to the gravity of his announcement. In that instant, the light seemed brighter. The food tasted better. And every single item on my mental to-do list—the emails I needed to answer, the project deadline I was worried about, the minor frustrations of the morning—evaporated.

They didn’t just fade; they were revealed for what they were: noise.

In the face of my friend’s monumental news, my own world was instantly, and gratefully, reframed. That’s the power of perspective.

What Perspective Really Means

We talk about “gaining perspective” as if it’s some abstract wisdom you acquire with age. But it’s not. It’s a visceral, lived shift in how you see the world and your place in it. It’s the sudden, clarifying force that reorganizes your priorities without your permission.

Perspective is the invisible filter that separates what truly matters from what merely feels urgent. The overflowing inbox, the buggy code, the traffic on the way to school pickup—these things feel consuming in the moment. It’s a concept ancient Stoic philosophers embraced: we don’t control external events, only our response to them. When held up against the backdrop of life’s true milestones—health, love, family, and survival—our daily frustrations shrink to their proper size.

In Family and Life

This lesson shows up constantly at home. With my wife, Sarah, and our kids, Molly, Brooklyn, and even our late dog Phoenix, life is a beautiful, chaotic dance of college visits, late-night phone calls, and the inevitable friction of siblings navigating new chapters from afar. It’s easy to get caught up in the small stuff—the spilled milk, the forgotten homework, the argument over screen time. It’s easy to let frustration win.

But perspective is the quiet voice that asks: Is this the moment that matters? Will this argument be remembered tomorrow? Or is the real work to build a home filled with grace, forgiveness, and the knowledge that we are each other’s safe harbor?

My own health journey with my stroke a few years ago was another one of those clarifying, non-negotiable moments. It was a forced reset. Before it, my worries were scattered across a dozen different professional and personal anxieties. After it, they consolidated into one: the profound gratitude for being able to walk, to talk, and to be present with my family. The frustration of a slow-moving project is nothing compared to the painstaking work of relearning a simple motor skill. That is a lesson you don’t forget.

In Business and Leadership

This isn’t just a “life” lesson; it’s a critical leadership tool. In my role as a CTO, my world is filled with sprints, fires, and strategic roadmaps. The pressure to move faster, ship more, and solve complex technical problems is constant. It’s incredibly easy to get lost in the weeds and develop what I call “false urgency”—where every task is treated as a crisis.

But true leadership requires perspective. It’s the ability to remain calm in the chaos, to zoom out from the immediate fire and see the whole forest. It’s what allows you to distinguish between a genuine emergency and a manufactured one.

With perspective, you stop asking, “How can we fix this problem right now?” and start asking, “What’s the most important thing for our team to accomplish this year?” At a senior level, you might only make a few critical decisions a day, but those decisions have a massive ripple effect. Perspective helps you lead with empathy, recognizing that the people you work with are navigating their own lives, their own battles. It guides you to make better long-term decisions, because you’re not just building a product; you’re building a resilient team and a sustainable culture.

In this sense, perspective isn’t just a defensive tool for staying calm; it’s an offensive weapon. In the war of business, where competitors are consumed by short-term fires, a leader with perspective can see the entire battlefield. Instead of charging head-first into the mountain, you find a way around it.

A perfect modern example is the Nintendo Wii. In the mid-2000s, Sony and Microsoft were fighting a costly war over who could build the most powerful console for hardcore gamers. That was the mountain. Nintendo, using perspective, didn’t try to climb it. They went around it. They reframed the problem from “How do we make games more realistic?” to “How do we make games more fun for everyone?” With a simple motion controller, they created a new, uncontested market and outsold their more powerful competitors for years.

Historically, one of the greatest examples is Napoleon’s Ulm Campaign in 1805. An Austrian army was waiting for him in Germany, guarding the direct passes of the Black Forest, ready for a head-on fight. Instead of attacking them where they were strongest, Napoleon sent a small cavalry force to create a diversion while he marched the bulk of his army in a massive, rapid flanking maneuver. By the time the Austrians realized what was happening, Napoleon’s army was behind them, cutting off their supply lines. Their strong defensive position had become a trap. Without a major battle, Napoleon won by making the battle his enemy had prepared for completely irrelevant.

Both Nintendo and Napoleon won, not because they fought the hardest, but because they fought the smartest. They used perspective to sidestep trivial conflicts, conserve energy for the battles that truly mattered, and spot opportunities that others, lost in the fog of false urgency, completely missed.

The Beautiful Byproduct: Gratitude

When your perspective shifts, something amazing happens: gratitude flows in naturally. You don’t have to hunt for it or write it down in a journal (though you can). It simply shows up.

You become grateful for the difficult client, because they are sharpening your skills. You become grateful for the challenging project, because it’s an opportunity for your team to grow. You see obstacles not as roadblocks, but as the raw material for progress. You become thankful for the ordinary, because you’ve been reminded just how fragile it is.

Choosing to See

As I walked away from that lunch, the glow of my friend’s good news stayed with me. It was a powerful reminder that perspective isn’t something we should wait for a crisis to deliver. It’s a gift we can give ourselves, every single day.

It’s a choice.

It’s the choice to pause, take a breath, and look up from the screen. It’s the decision to value presence over productivity, and empathy over efficiency.

So today, I invite you to do the same. Take a moment. Look around at your life, your family, your work. Find one small, ordinary thing and see it for the extraordinary gift it is.

Let’s not wait for life-altering news to see what truly matters. Let’s choose to see it now.

Reflections on AI: AI is Eating Software that is Eating the World

Sun, 27 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

In the summer of 2011, Marc Andreessen published a seminal essay in the Wall Street Journal that defined the next decade of technology and business: “Why Software Is Eating the World.” His argument was as elegant as it was prophetic. He posited that we were in the middle of a fundamental economic shift, where software companies were poised to invade and overturn established industry structures. This wasn’t a cyclical tech bubble, he argued, but a tectonic change in how businesses are built and operated. Nearly every industry was becoming a software industry, and those that failed to adapt would be “eaten.”

He was right. Software did eat the world. We watched as Netflix, a software company, devoured Blockbuster. We saw Amazon, a software company with warehouses attached, consume traditional retail. The arc was clear: build a software-centric model and disrupt the incumbents.

That essay landed with particular force for me. My second daughter Brooklyn had just been born, and inspired by the dawn of the mobile era, I had quit my job to launch an augmented reality startup. It was a time of immense learning and, as my wife Sarah loves to remind me, questionable timing. We were building on the new wave, combining sensors on the new iPhones with marketing and gaming. While the startup ultimately didn’t go the distance, the experience was invaluable. It taught me about the immense weight of the word “disruption” and the grit required to survive it—whether you’re the one disrupting or the one being disrupted, both are incredibly difficult.

For over a decade, Andreessen’s thesis was the undisputed law of the digital jungle. But a new, apex predator has emerged. The cycle of disruption has accelerated to a dizzying pace, and in a deeply meta twist, the disruptors from the past two decades are now the ones being disrupted.

AI is now eating the software that is eating the world.

What Disruption Really Means

Andreessen’s essay heralded a wave of software-driven change that felt unstoppable. But what does it actually feel like to be on the receiving end of that disruption? It’s not just about a new competitor; it’s about the ground shifting beneath your feet.

Loss of Control Over the Value Chain: Disruptors rewire how value is delivered—removing steps, middlemen, or entire business models before you even notice.
Customer Expectations Shift Overnight: When a new player offers instant, personalized, cheaper, or more delightful experiences, your “good enough” becomes “not even close.”
Margin Compression Becomes Existential: Disruptive technologies often enable radically lower cost structures. Software doesn’t sleep, unionize, or take vacations. Your 20% margin looks quaint next to their 80%.
Your Competitive Moat Turns Into a Puddle: Scale, legacy systems, and brand used to be strengths. But disruption turns those into anchors, slowing adaptation while nimble upstarts sprint past.
Innovation Moves Outside the Building: Disruption often comes from adjacent industries or unexpected entrants. Amazon didn’t ask bookstores for permission; OpenAI didn’t wait for Google to modernize.
Talent Starts Leaving for the Cool Kids: The best engineers, designers, and product thinkers want to build the future, not maintain the past. When you’re being disrupted, your best people become a leading indicator of decline.
It Feels Like a Tech Problem, But It’s Actually a Culture Problem: Many incumbents respond by buying new software or hiring consultants. But the real challenge is rewiring how they think, decide, and act.
You’re Not Competing With Companies—You’re Competing With Capabilities: AI, APIs, open-source, no-code… disruptive tools are making individuals and small teams exponentially more powerful.

The Disruptors Disrupted: Modern Examples

Andreessen gave us the classic examples: Blockbuster falling to Netflix, traditional retail to Amazon, Kodak to digital photos. But the most fascinating part of this new wave is seeing the disruptors of that era facing their own existential threats.

Google vs. ChatGPT: The Search for Answers

Google built an empire on software that indexed the world’s information and presented it as ten blue links. SEO became the science of ranking on that list. But AI is eating that model. While Google still dominates the raw volume of search, a significant behavioral shift is happening faster than anyone predicted.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, AI-powered search is growing more quickly than expected, with traffic to leading AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Perplexity AI surging. One analytics firm, Similarweb, noted that combined traffic to the top 10 AI chatbots grew 34% in the first part of this year alone. This isn’t just a niche trend; it’s a mainstream migration for certain types of queries. Users are flocking to conversational AI for complex, informational tasks—research, brainstorming, coding help, and problem-solving. We see real-world examples of this constantly. A user on Quora recounted struggling to find a half-remembered book using Google; ChatGPT found it instantly from a vague, partially incorrect description. This is a fundamentally new type of search—one based on context and conversation, not just keywords. The game is shifting from Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). Users no longer just want a list of links to search through; they want the answer.

Uber vs. Waymo: The End of the Driver

Uber used software to disrupt the taxi industry by creating a massive, efficient marketplace for drivers. Their former CEO pushed hard into autonomous driving, recognizing the existential threat. But in a classic innovator’s dilemma, the new leadership divested from that costly, long-term bet to focus on near-term profitability. Now, companies like Waymo and Tesla are rolling out robotaxi services that threaten to eat Uber’s core business model by removing the driver—and their associated costs—entirely.

The IDE vs. AI: The Changing Nature of Code

The very process of building software is being consumed. For decades, developers have relied on Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) like Microsoft’s Visual Studio or JetBrains’ IntelliJ IDEA. These were the definitive software-building tools. Now, AI-native environments like Cursor and Replit are upending that. They don’t just help you write code; they write it with you and for you.

This has profound implications. What happens when the cost to build software approaches zero?

Explosion in Software Supply: Software is no longer a scarce, expensive resource—it becomes ubiquitous infrastructure.
Margins Collapse for Custom Development: Dev agencies, especially those competing on cost, face commoditization unless they move up the value chain to strategy and architecture.
Shift from “Build” to “Compose”: Software creation becomes more about orchestration and configuration than hard engineering.
Rise of Citizen Developers: Domain expertise becomes more valuable than knowledge of syntax.
Incumbent Software Vendors Get Eaten: Legacy vendors must reinvent themselves or be disrupted out of existence.
Regulation Struggles to Keep Up: Governance models must evolve—fast.
Software Becomes Embedded Everywhere: The world becomes hyper-personalized and hyper-automated.
Engineering Roles Evolve: The “10x engineer” becomes the “10x AI collaborator.”
Economic Leverage Shifts: Distribution, branding, and user insight become more valuable than the underlying code.
Everything Speeds Up: Strategic agility becomes the only true competitive advantage.

The Crumbling Moats of Enterprise Software

Every traditional enterprise software vendor is seeing their moats dry up. For years, the high cost of replacement was a powerful defense. But that changes as monolithic platforms give way to a diverse ecosystem of best-of-breed SaaS players. Data is becoming more accessible through APIs, and workflows are easier to replace. Additionally, companies are getting wiser to the enterprise sales games. Just because a vendor bought a company doesn’t mean its technology is well-integrated into the platform. We will see the emergence of AI-native enterprise platforms that are built from the ground up to automate, predict, and advise—making their predecessors look like relics.

The Existential Question for Every Company

In 2011, Andreessen argued that every company needed to become a software company to survive. In 2025, the stakes are even higher. What happens to companies—even the software-savvy ones—that don’t evolve into AI-native organizations?

The bottom line is they risk becoming irrelevant, uncompetitive, or extinct. That isn’t a threat; it’s the emerging reality.

They get outpaced by faster, cheaper, smarter rivals.
Innovation freezes while bureaucracy expands.
Knowledge work gets bottlenecked in human siloes.
Margins shrink as defensibility moats evaporate.
Top talent leaves for companies where AI is an amplifier, not a threat.
Customers expect magic, but they deliver forms and call centers.
Legacy infrastructure becomes an existential debt.
Strategy becomes guesswork without the real-time data fabric to train and validate AI.

The imperative has evolved. In 2011, the call was to become a software company. Today, every company must become an AI company. This isn’t about buying a few AI tools or launching a chatbot. It’s about fundamentally re-architecting the business around data, intelligence, and automation. It means fostering a culture that thinks in terms of models, probabilities, and feedback loops, and embedding intelligent capabilities into the core of every product, service, and process.

Why Now? The Perfect Storm for Disruption

This isn’t happening in a vacuum. A confluence of factors has created a perfect storm for this AI-driven disruption. As I explored in my previous posts on Accelerating Returns and the Stochastic Era, we’ve hit a critical inflection point.

Foundation Models Changed the Game: General-purpose models like GPT can now write, debug, and refactor software, crossing a critical capability threshold.
OpenAI (and others) Made It Accessible: The interface to intelligence is now an API call, not a research lab.
Software Was Ripe for Disruption: Ironically, much of the software world had become bloated, slow, and ripe for a leaner, smarter alternative.
Cheap Cloud + Ubiquitous GPUs = Acceleration: The hardware finally caught up with the ambition.
We Finally Have Enough Training Data: The internet created the massive corpus of code, text, and images needed to train these models.
Human-Machine Collaboration Just Got Real: The technology is not just smart—it’s usable, amplifying human potential across every role.
Software Economics Just Collapsed: When AI can write the code, the cost to create software plummets, and the speed to ship skyrockets.

The Great Leapfrog Moment

One of the wildest things about this era? It’s a leapfrog moment. You don’t need to be the biggest, richest, or most established player anymore—you just need to be the fastest learner.

A scrappy team with a bold vision can outmaneuver giants. The stack is flatter, the tools are open, and the pace of change is brutal. Where you started matters less than how fast you move. This isn’t just for startups. Older companies can leapfrog, too. In fact, they might be in the best position—if they’re willing to change. They have the customers, the data, the brand, and the operational knowledge. What they often lack is urgency and imagination.

The age of the “5-year digital roadmap” is over. The game now is a chaotic, high-stakes parkour race.

Conclusion

In his 2011 essay, Marc Andreessen famously wrote that he was optimistic about the future growth of the economy, predicting it would be driven by these new software-based disruptors. He encouraged every company to embrace this change, to become a software company.

Today, I am also incredibly optimistic, but for a different reason. We are witnessing a second, more profound wave of disruption that is unlocking human potential on an unprecedented scale. The ability to create, to solve problems, and to build is being democratized by AI. Companies that embrace this new reality—that become AI-native at their core—will not only survive but will define the next era of innovation and value creation.

More and more major businesses and industries are being run on artificial intelligence and delivered as intelligent, automated services. The smart ones will be AI-first. The rest will be dinner.

Reflections on AI: The Stochastic Era

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve always loved jazz and improvisational music. My wife, Sarah, appreciates the perfect, tight structure of a three-minute song, and I get it. There’s a real beauty in that precision. But for me, the magic happens in the exploratory freedom of a 10, 15, or even 25-minute musical journey. It’s about letting go of a rigid plan to discover something new and amazing in the moment.

I was thinking about this recently, remembering a weekend back in August of 1996. I was standing on a decommissioned Air Force base in Plattsburgh, New York, with three good friends and a huge smile on my face. We were at The Clifford Ball, Phish’s first festival, and the band was on fire. During the second set of the second night, they launched into “Run Like An Antelope.” The jam that followed was pure improvisational genius—a high-energy, tight-but-loose exploration that broke free from the song’s structure to create something utterly unique and unrepeatable. The entire festival was like that, a masterclass in creative freedom. Watch on YouTube I’m a firm believer in what Steve Jobs called standing at the “crossroads of technology and the liberal arts.” That Phish jam is a perfect example of the artistic side: letting go of a rigid structure can lead to something far more profound. It feels counterintuitive, but for my entire career in technology, I’ve seen the other side—a world built on perfect, deterministic machines. Now, we’re standing at a new crossroads, and the same principle of letting go is about to change everything.

Steve Jobs famously said, ” — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our hearts sing … “

A Jarring Shift in Thinking

For as long as I’ve been a software engineer and a technology leader, computers have been defined by their deterministic nature. They are perfect, logical calculators. Input A always produces Output B. 2 + 2 will always equal 4. But we are now entering a new era: the Stochastic Era.

The most powerful large language models today, the ones that can generate art, write poetry, and are changing our world, are fundamentally not deterministic. At their core, they are probabilistic engines making sophisticated guesses. Letting go of rigid structure has allowed for the room for what feels like creativity. This is a massively jarring shift in thinking. How can this randomness—this seeming imperfection—be the essential ingredient for building true, human-like intelligence?

From Certainty to Probability: What is Stochastic Thinking?

To understand this shift, we need to contrast two mindsets.

Deterministic Thinking: This is like following a precise recipe to bake a cake. You use the exact same ingredients and instructions every time, and you get the exact same cake. It’s predictable and reliable.
Stochastic Thinking: This is like a skilled chef improvising a meal. They have a deep understanding of ingredients and techniques, but they create a dish based on what’s fresh and available. The meal is different every time, but it’s creative, adapted, and often brilliant.

It’s crucial to understand that this isn’t just chaos or random noise. It’s principled randomness. A stochastic system uses probability distributions to make the best possible guess based on the vast amount of data it has learned from.

The Engine of Modern AI: How LLMs Actually Work

The generative AI revolution we are living through was ignited by a single research paper. In 2017, researchers at Google published a paper titled “Attention Is All You Need.” It introduced a new architecture called the Transformer, which is the blueprint for every modern Large Language Model (LLM), from ChatGPT to Gemini.

Before the Transformer, AI models processed language sequentially, one word at a time, often forgetting the context of earlier words. The Transformer’s breakthrough was a mechanism called self-attention, which allows the model to look at all the words in a sentence at once and weigh their relevance to each other. This enabled a far deeper understanding of context and, crucially, allowed for massive parallelization in training.

Stochastic thinking is not just an add-on to this architecture; it is its fundamental operating principle.

The Core Engine: A Probabilistic Word Predictor. At its heart, an LLM is predicting the most probable next word in a sequence. Its creativity comes from the fact that it doesn’t always pick the #1 most likely word. Instead, it samples from a distribution of likely candidates, allowing for variety and novelty.
Controllable Randomness: Temperature and Top-P Sampling. We can control this randomness with parameters. Temperature acts as a creativity dial—low temperature makes the AI more factual and predictable, while high temperature makes it more creative and surprising. Top-P sampling provides another lever, telling the model to only consider a set of the most likely words.
The Learning Process: Stochastic Gradient Descent. Even the training process is stochastic. It would be impossible to learn from the entire internet at once. Instead, models learn using Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD), where they take a small, random batch of data, learn from it, and adjust. This random sampling makes learning efficient and helps the model generalize its knowledge.

The Wall of Determinism: Why Old AI Hit a Limit

For decades, AI research focused on rule-based “expert systems.” This deterministic approach could never lead to AGI for a few key reasons:

The Real World is Messy: The world isn’t a clean set of IF-THEN statements. It’s ambiguous, nuanced, and unpredictable.
Brittleness: Rule-based systems are brittle. They fail the moment they encounter a situation not explicitly covered by their hand-crafted rules.
The Creativity Problem: A deterministic system can only follow its programming. It can never create something truly novel or surprising.

The Bitter Lesson

In 2019, AI pioneer Rich Sutton wrote a now-famous essay called “The Bitter Lesson.” His central point was that, in the long run, general-purpose methods that leverage massive computation (like learning and search) will always outperform systems where humans try to hand-craft their knowledge.

This is the ultimate validation of the stochastic approach. Instead of trying to teach an AI all the grammatical rules of English, we let a general learning algorithm discover the patterns for itself from trillions of words. This is exactly how LLMs work, and it’s a lesson that connects directly to the ideas in my previous post on the Law of Accelerating Returns. When you combine The Bitter Lesson (let computation do the work) with the Stochastic Engine of LLMs and place it on the exponential curve of Accelerating Returns, you get the explosive, transformative moment in AI that we are witnessing right now.

How Stochasticity Unlocks Intelligence

This new approach is the bridge to AGI because it enables capabilities that were impossible before:

Creativity and Exploration: Randomness allows an AI to explore novel combinations of ideas and generate content that has never existed before.
Robustness and Adaptability: A probabilistic model can handle the uncertainty of the real world, making informed guesses instead of breaking down.
Efficient Learning: It is the only way to effectively learn from the planet-scale datasets required to achieve general intelligence.

I saw early glimpses of this in my career. I had the incredible opportunity to be mentored by Steve Kirsch, the founder of Infoseek and a true tech pioneer. We worked together on algorithms for blocking spam for major clients like Yahoo Mail. The techniques we used were essentially early stochastic models, employing Bayesian probability to “guess” if an email was spam based on patterns, rather than relying on rigid rules. That company was later sold to Proofpoint, but the core lesson about the power of probabilistic systems stayed with me.

Even today, my role as CTO for O2E Brands is a stochastic exercise. I’m constantly weighing probabilities—the likelihood of a project’s success, market adoption, potential risks—to make the best strategic bets with the available data. It’s never about one certain answer.

The Art of the Guess

Looking ahead, these non-deterministic, stochastic models will power the next wave of systems on the path to AGI, from autonomous agents that can navigate unpredictable environments to scientific AIs that can form novel hypotheses.

The journey to AGI isn’t about building a faster, more powerful calculator. It’s about building a more sophisticated and intuitive “guesser.” We’ve spent a century trying to make machines perfectly logical. It turns out, to make them truly intelligent, we first have to teach them the art of probability. The messy, jarring concept of randomness is not a bug—it’s the feature that will finally get us to AGI.

Thank you for reading. Leave a comment if you have thoughts or comments.

Reflections on AI: The Law of Accelerating Returns

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Looking back on my 25 years in technology, I can’t help but feel an immense sense of gratitude. It has been an amazing ride, and I feel incredibly lucky to have had a front-row seat—and often, a place on the stage—for some of the most profound technological shifts in human history.

My career has spanned the dot-com boom, the rise of enterprise software, the mobile revolution, the shift to the cloud, and now, the dawn of the AI era. Each wave was built on the last, creating a foundation for the next leap forward. The amount of change we’ve packed into the last quarter-century is staggering. It makes you wonder: if this is what we saw in the last 25 years, where could we possibly be in the next 25?

It feels impossible to predict, but some people make it their life’s work. One of the most compelling thinkers on this topic is the inventor and futurist, Ray Kurzweil.

The Prophet of Exponential Growth

Ray Kurzweil is a towering figure in computer science. He’s an author, inventor, and one of the most prominent futurists of our time. He’s probably one of the oldest living computer scientists and even worked with the legendary Marvin Minsky at MIT—an institution I’ve grown particularly fond of since my daughter started attending.

Kurzweil is best known for his mind-bending books like The Singularity Is Near and his brand new follow-up, The Singularity Is Nearer. In them, he argues that humanity is approaching a “Singularity”—a point in the near future where technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization. He predicts we will achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), an AI that can understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can, by 2029, and that the Singularity itself will occur around 2045.

He frames this journey through his “Six Epochs of Evolution”:

Physics and Chemistry: Information in atomic structures.
Biology: Information in DNA.
Brains: Information in neural patterns.
Technology: Information in hardware and software.
The Merger: The fusion of technology and human intelligence.
The Universe Wakes Up: The point where intelligence saturates the cosmos.

According to Ray, we are living in the 5th Epoch right now.

Why We Fail to See the Future

Kurzweil’s predictions can feel like science fiction because our brains are wired to think linearly. We struggle to grasp the power of exponential growth. Think about it: if you take 30 linear steps, you end up 30 meters away. If you take 30 exponential steps (doubling each time), you travel over a billion meters—enough to circle the Earth 26 times!

A Futurist, in my mind, is someone who can intuitively grasp exponential growth. They don’t just see the next step; they see the curve. This understanding is the key to Kurzweil’s central thesis: The Law of Accelerating Returns.

The Law of Accelerating Returns

This law is the engine driving us toward the Singularity. It states that the rate of technological advancement—and evolution in general—is not linear, but exponential. This happens because of powerful feedback loops of innovation. Each new generation of technology provides better tools to create the next generation, which is then created faster and more efficiently.

Think of it as a form of societal reinforcement learning. We create a tool, learn from it, and use that knowledge to build a better tool, accelerating the cycle. Moore’s Law, which famously predicted the doubling of transistors on a chip every two years, is just one famous example of this law in action. But Kurzweil argues it applies to all information-based technologies. The law of accelerating returns is happening now, and it has been for a long time. The evidence is all around us.

Mary Meeker’s “Trends, Artificial Intelligence” Report

For decades, anyone in tech has eagerly awaited Mary Meeker’s annual “Internet Trends Report.” She is a bit of a celebrity in our circles, first publishing her report in 1995 and updating it yearly until 2019. Just a few weeks back, she and her team at BOND Capital dropped a new gem: “Trends, Artificial Intelligence”.

Reading through the 340-slide deck, I couldn’t help but see it as a stunning validation of Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns. The AI pace of change is off the charts. The compounding effect of AI technology, its ecosystem, and user adoption is completely unheralded.

The arc of Meeker’s deck proves that this AI wave is built upon all the technology that came before it: computing power, vast datasets, advanced algorithms, and global communications networks. It’s the ultimate feedback loop.

Here are a few slides that stood out to me:

Slide 20: Google Disruption: The pace at which new AI-native search products are challenging Google is breathtaking. This isn’t a slow, decade-long battle; it’s happening in months.

Slide 26: Wisdom, Not Just Knowledge: “Wisdom” is why products like ChatGPT and Gemini Search will win. Traditional search gives you knowledge (a list of links). AI-powered search provides wisdom—synthesized, contextual answers. It’s a fundamental upgrade.

Slide 43: Passing the Turing Test: We are already starting to pass the Turing Test in various modalities. AI is becoming indistinguishable from human-created content, a milestone Kurzweil predicted for 2029. We’re right on schedule, if not ahead.

Slide 302: Waymo vs. Lyft: In San Francisco, Waymo’s autonomous vehicles have surpassed Lyft in market share. Think about that. A technology that was science fiction a decade ago is now out-competing an established, human-powered incumbent in a major city. The disruption is real and it is happening now.

Buckle Up

As someone who has spent a career building things, I find it impossible to look at Kurzweil’s theories and Meeker’s data with anything but immense optimism. This isn’t a moment for fear; it’s a moment for builders. The scale of this transformation is unlike anything we’ve ever seen, presenting an unprecedented opportunity to redefine what’s possible and build a better future.

There will be fear and resistance; there always is. This is not a new phenomenon. When the printing press emerged in the 15th century, the scribal class and religious authorities feared a loss of control, calling it a technology that would spread dangerous ideas to the masses. In the 19th century, the Luddites famously smashed the automated looms that threatened their craft and livelihoods. And in our own lifetimes, people protested the introduction of calculators in schools, fearing students would forget basic math. The AI revolution is, of course, something much bigger, but the pattern of anxiety and opposition is the same. We cannot turn back the clock. The feedback loop of innovation is spinning faster than ever.

So much change is ahead of us. Buckle up.

Don't Be a Lemming

Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

In 1991, a puzzle-platformer video game called Lemmings was released, and I absolutely loved it. The goal was to guide a troop of adorable, green-haired, blue-robed lemmings from an entrance to an exit, navigating a landscape filled with treacherous obstacles. You couldn’t control the lemmings directly; they just marched forward in a single-file line, blissfully unaware of the deadly drops, traps, and rivers ahead. If you didn’t assign them specific tasks—like building, digging, or blocking—they would walk off cliffs to their doom without a second thought. They just followed the one in front.

At the time, I didn’t really know the origin of the term “lemming.” It turns out, it comes from a pervasive myth about the small arctic rodents. Popularized by a 1958 Disney documentary, the story goes that lemmings periodically engage in mass migrations that end in them blindly marching off cliffs into the sea. The reality is that this is a misconception; their population cycles can lead to migrations where some may accidentally fall or drown, but there is no instinct for mass, unthinking suicide. Yet, the myth persists as a powerful metaphor for a behavior we see every day: the human tendency to mindlessly follow the crowd.

Our lives are a constant battle against a gravitational pull toward conformity. We are, in many ways, hard-wired to follow the pack, and taking the road less traveled is far harder than we think. But that untrodden path is where new experiences, true self-discovery, and profound opportunities are found.

The Early Days of Following

As a child, this pull starts as simple peer pressure. I have a vivid memory from my youth that still makes me cringe and laugh. A group of us were out, and for some reason, the collective “wisdom” of the group decided it would be hilarious to tip over a port-a-potty. The only problem was that one of our friends was still inside. Fueled by the inexplicable logic of group dynamics, I helped do the deed. The look on his face when he emerged—dazed, confused, and a little bit blue—was a sight to behold. Thankfully, the unit had just been cleaned. We’re still friends today, but that incident was an early, messy lesson in how easily we can be swayed to do things we know are wrong, just because everyone else is doing it.

This pressure cooker of conformity has been supercharged by the proliferation of social media. Today, the playground taunts and hallway whispers have been replaced by a global, 24/7 subconscious web of influence. Every ‘like,’ comment, and share serves as a micro-dose of social validation, a little endorphin hit that reinforces our desire to align with the digital crowd. We subtly tailor our posts, our opinions, and even our life experiences to what we believe will perform well, often without even realizing we’re doing it. The pack is no longer just in our physical vicinity; it’s in our pocket, constantly judging and guiding.

The pressure to conform only intensifies as we get older. In young adulthood, the goalpost shifts to what society deems successful, which usually means making money and pursuing a prestigious career. As the son of two Filipino doctors, there was tremendous pressure on me to follow in their footsteps. It’s very much a part of the culture. I spent my freshman year of college as a pre-med major, not because it was my passion, but because it was the expected path. It was the safe, respectable, and well-trodden road that everyone in my orbit seemed to want for me.

The Desires We Inherit

This phenomenon goes deeper than just our actions; it infects our very desires. We think we want things for our own reasons, but often, we just want them because other people want them. Remember the Beanie Babies craze of the 1990s? These little stuffed animals, which cost a few dollars to make, suddenly became must-have collectibles. People weren’t buying them because of their intrinsic value or beauty; they were buying them because everyone else was buying them, creating a speculative bubble fueled by collective desire. We were convinced they were a sound investment, but we were really just caught in a feedback loop of wanting.

The French historian and philosopher René Girard built his life’s work on this core insight, which he called Mimetic Desire. His theory posits that our desires are not original; we imitate or borrow them from others. We see a “model”—a friend, a celebrity, a societal figure—desire something, and that act of desiring makes the object desirable to us. This single concept was the starting point for his broader theory on human culture: this shared desire inevitably leads to rivalry and conflict, which societies then resolve by unconsciously uniting against a single “scapegoat” to restore order. It all starts with learning what to want from the crowd. This begs the question: “What are actually our own desires?”

This is where the statement, “Care less what other people think,” becomes so incredibly powerful. It’s not about being rebellious for its own sake; it’s about giving yourself the freedom to disentangle your own motivations from the mimetic noise around you. It’s a declaration of independence for your own mind. And it’s funny, because even as society pushes us to conform, it has always held a special admiration for the rebel—the one who doesn’t do what everyone else is doing. It’s as if we have a subconscious recognition of just how hard it is to break away. Think of the enduring icons in pop culture: James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, Han Solo in Star Wars, or Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games. They are celebrated not for fitting in, but for forging their own path, often in defiance of overwhelming pressure. We applaud their independence because, on some level, we wish we had more of it ourselves.

And what’s fascinating is that what we think other people think is often completely wrong. In his book Collective Illusions, Todd Rose (whom I was lucky enough to meet—a brilliant thinker from here in Utah) brilliantly unpacks this. His research shows there’s a huge gap between our private beliefs and our public actions. We assume the loudest and most repeated opinions represent the majority view, and then conform to that illusion. A powerful example from his research is the definition of a “successful life.” Privately, the vast majority of people define success in terms of personal fulfillment. But when asked what they think most other people value, they say fame, status, and wealth. This is a collective illusion in action: we end up chasing a version of success that we don’t personally value, all because we wrongly believe it’s what everyone else wants. We enforce a norm that almost no one truly believes in.

The Dangers of the Pack and the Power of “Why”

This instinct to follow can have devastating consequences. The most famous and tragic example is the 1978 Jonestown massacre, where over 900 people died after following the orders of cult leader Jim Jones, leading to the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid.” It’s a horrifying testament to how the pack mentality can strip away individual judgment.

On a less extreme but far more common level, we see this play out in corporate cultures. A company’s culture can be a powerful weapon, aligning everyone toward a common mission and accelerating progress. But it can also be a boat anchor, preventing meaningful change. Cultures are self-reinforcing; employees follow established norms like lemmings. When you try to introduce a new idea or change a process, the existing culture often protects itself, pushing back against the very change it may need to survive.

The antidote to this is simple, yet profound: ask why. Questioning the path, especially when the entire pack is moving in one direction, is a superpower. Steve Jobs built his entire philosophy around this, famously saying, “The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” He understood that innovation doesn’t come from accepting the status quo, but from challenging it at every turn.

Formulating our own path is hard because we are constantly being manipulated by biases and external forces:

Repetition Bias: We believe things are true simply because we hear them over and over.
Survivorship Bias: We focus on the “winners” who took a certain path, ignoring the many who took the same path and failed.
Social Media & News: Our information streams are heavily skewed. For instance, research shows that on Twitter, roughly 10% of users produce 80% of the tweets, creating a distorted view of public opinion. This is amplified by the Friendship Paradox, the phenomenon where your friends, on average, have more friends than you do, making certain ideas and behaviors seem more popular than they actually are.

Finding Your Own Path

What do people on their deathbeds say they value most? Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse who spent years working in palliative care, documented the most common regrets of the dying. The number one regret, by far, was: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” When all is said and done, people don’t wish they had made more money or accumulated more status symbols. They wish they had been authentic.

It’s crucial to recognize the powerful, invisible gravity that pulls us to do what everyone else does and want what everyone else wants. It’s a force of nature, but it can be resisted. The first step is awareness. The next is having the courage to ask “why” and to listen to the answer that comes from within, not from the crowd.

Find your own path. Want what you want. Be your own person. You’ll die a much happier one.

The Joy of the Build: Unpacking the Builder Mentality

Sun, 25 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

There’s a certain magic in creation, a deep satisfaction that comes from bringing an idea to life. For me, this fascination started early, not with lines of code, but with a seemingly endless supply of Lego bricks. I had this huge, chaotic box, a glorious jumble of countless sets, and I’d spend hours upon hours lost in it, constructing whatever my imagination could conjure. The entirety of my bedroom floor was covered from end-to-end in pieces with some loose categorization so I could quickly find the pieces that I needed. That tactile joy of clicking bricks together, of transforming a pile of plastic into a spaceship, a castle, or a futuristic car, was intoxicating. Recently, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, the ex-CEO of Lego. Listening to him recount stories of his tenure, guiding Lego from the brink of bankruptcy to the global powerhouse it is today, was incredibly inspiring. It was a vivid reminder of the power of vision, resilience, and, fundamentally, the power of building.

This innate desire to build seamlessly transitioned from plastic bricks to digital blocks as I grew older. In grade school, my Lego box was traded for the glow of a monitor and the click of a keyboard. I’d spend countless hours in the school basement, hunched over a Radio Shack TRS-80, coaxing it to life with lines of BASIC code. One of my proudest early creations was a simple skiing game. The skier, a humble “H,” had to navigate a treacherous slope lined with “T”s representing trees. The real challenge, the one that kept me up at night, wasn’t just making the game work, but mastering its flow – figuring out how to slow down the skier’s descent and align that pace with a satisfying game progression and leveling system. It was an early lesson in the nuances of building: it’s not just about function, but also about the experience.

This passion, this drive, is what I’ve come to recognize as the builder mentality. It’s a mindset I see in the most entrepreneurial, product-driven, and high-impact individuals. These aren’t just people who solve problems; they are problem seekers, constantly scanning the horizon for opportunities to improve, to invent, to disrupt. They are driven by an insatiable urge to create, to iterate, and to scale. The builder mentality isn’t just a personality quirk; it’s the very foundation of innovation. This drive is palpable in places like Silicon Valley a region teeming with builders relentlessly pursuing the next disruption, the next big idea that can change the world. This was the dominating personality type that influenced my career trajectory.

The Hallmarks of a Builder

So, what are the characteristics that define someone with this potent mindset? I’ve observed a few core traits that consistently shine through:

Bias for Action: Builders don’t just talk; they do. They’d rather launch a V1 and learn from real-world feedback than wait for perfection. They understand that momentum is a powerful force.
Curiosity and Learning Obsession: The world is a classroom for a builder. They are perpetually asking “why?” and “how?” and “what if?” This insatiable curiosity fuels a continuous learning cycle, making them adaptable and forward-thinking.
Ownership Mentality: Builders take profound responsibility for their work. They see projects through from conception to completion and beyond, feeling a deep sense of accountability for the outcomes, good or bad. It’s not just their job; it’s their creation.
Iterative and Scrappy: Perfection is the enemy of progress for a builder. They embrace an iterative approach, understanding that the path to a great product is paved with numerous small adjustments and learnings. They’re resourceful and can make a lot happen with a little.
Resilient and Gritty: Building is hard. There will be setbacks, failures, and moments of doubt. Builders possess a remarkable resilience, an ability to bounce back from adversity, and the grit to persevere when things get tough.
Mission Aligned: While passionate about the act of building itself, true builders are often deeply connected to a larger mission or purpose. This alignment provides direction and sustained motivation, especially when navigating complex challenges.
Collaborative but Independent: Builders thrive in team environments, understanding that diverse perspectives strengthen the final product. However, they are also capable of deep, focused independent work, driving their specific contributions forward with autonomy.

This builder mentality is particularly potent in dynamic environments – think early-stage companies fighting for traction, fast-scaling organizations navigating hyper-growth, and dedicated innovation teams within larger enterprises trying to spark change. It’s often the critical differentiator between those who merely dream and those who actually do.

The Super Builders: First Principles and Constraints as Catalysts

And then, within the ranks of builders, there are those I call super builders. These individuals don’t just build; they redefine what’s possible. Their superpower? They harness the combined might of first-principle thinking and the creative power of constraints. Instead of relying on analogy or established norms, they break down complex problems to their fundamental truths. Think of Elon Musk, who, when faced with the prohibitive cost of rockets, didn’t just look for cheaper suppliers; he asked, “What are rockets made of? What are the raw material costs?” and rebuilt the industry from there. Similarly, Jensen Huang of NVIDIA has consistently pushed the boundaries of computing by deeply understanding the foundational principles of parallel processing and relentlessly innovating from that core. Super builders see constraints not as limitations, but as catalysts for ingenuity, forcing them to find novel and often groundbreaking solutions.

Let’s look at a few examples:

Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX): Beyond the rockets, Musk applied first-principle thinking to electric vehicles. Instead of just making an electric version of an existing car, he rethought the entire concept of a car, from battery technology and software to manufacturing processes. His builder mentality is evident in his relentless iteration and refusal to accept “impossible” as an answer.
Brian Chesky (Airbnb): When Airbnb was just a couple of air mattresses on a living room floor, Chesky and his co-founders embodied the scrappy, iterative builder. They faced countless rejections and near-failures. But their ownership mentality and bias for action kept them experimenting – from professional photography (which they initially did themselves) to creating custom breakfast cereals during the 2008 election to fund their company. They didn’t just build a platform; they built a new category of travel.
Sara Blakely (SPANX): Blakely identified a common problem many women faced and, with no fashion or manufacturing experience, set out to build a solution. Armed with $5,000 in savings, she faced down manufacturing rejections, wrote her own patent, and even cold-called Neiman Marcus until she got a meeting. Her resilience, ownership, and iterative approach to design and marketing (often using herself as the model) turned an idea into a billion-dollar company. She is a testament to how a builder mentality can disrupt established industries from the outside.

The Engine of Continuous Innovation

The builder mentality isn’t just for startups or tech titans. It’s absolutely essential for continuous innovation at any company, regardless of size or industry. In a world of constant change, the ability to adapt, create, and improve is paramount. Organizations that cultivate and empower their builders are the ones that will thrive. They foster a culture where experimentation is encouraged, where learning from failure is valued, and where employees feel empowered to take initiative and drive change from the ground up.

For me, building is more than a skill or a mindset; it’s a source of profound happiness. It’s gotten me out of so many jams, both professionally and personally. There’s a unique clarity that comes from dissecting a problem and constructing a solution, piece by piece. It’s an exercise that is as much about unbridled creativity as it is about the rigorous discipline of engineering.

I truly believe we find the most impactful innovations at what Steve Jobs famously called “the intersection of technology and liberal arts.” It’s where analytical thinking meets creative intuition, where engineering prowess is guided by human-centric design. This is the space where builders flourish.

Ultimately, building is what makes the world go around. It’s the engine of progress, the manifestation of human ingenuity, and a deeply fulfilling endeavor. So, here’s to the builders – may we continue to dream, to create, and to shape a better future, one build at a time.

Thank you for hanging out. I appreciate you.

Slowing Down in the Shadow of Stone: A Road Trip Through Arches, Canyonlands, and Dead Horse Point

Mon, 12 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

A few months ago, Sarah and I packed up the car, cued up some road trip playlists, and made the drive from Park City to Moab. It’s a route we’d both wanted to explore for a while—and it didn’t disappoint. Between the winding canyons, iconic rock formations, and those big, cinematic Utah skies, the journey felt like a full reset.

Moab has this way of expanding time. Maybe it’s the landscape, so ancient and strange it makes your deadlines and distractions feel hilariously small. Maybe it’s the stillness. Whatever it is, it worked.

Arches National Park: Time Etched in Stone

Our first stop was Arches, home to over 2,000 natural stone arches carved by millennia of wind and water. There’s something surreal about standing beneath Delicate Arch, the state symbol of Utah, and realizing it’s been there for tens of thousands of years. Hiking through Devil’s Garden or watching the sunset light up Landscape Arch reminded me of something I wrote a while back about perspective—how sometimes you have to stand still to really see clearly.

Canyonlands: Vastness You Can Feel

Canyonlands was next. This place feels infinite. The Island in the Sky district gave us panoramic views that stretched for miles. The canyons looked like scars on the earth, beautiful and brutal. We sat for a long time at Mesa Arch, watching the sun climb over the La Sal Mountains, painting the cliffs in gold. It’s one of those places that demands nothing from you—just your presence.

Dead Horse Point: The Overlook You’ll Never Forget

We capped off our park tour with Dead Horse Point State Park, which might just be the most underrated view in Utah. Legend has it cowboys once corralled wild mustangs here—hence the name—and while the history is a little grim, the view is anything but. Towering 2,000 feet above a gooseneck in the Colorado River, it’s where stillness and motion meet. Sarah and I just stood there, quietly, the wind tugging at our jackets, and took it all in.

Time Together, Time to Think

One of the best parts of the trip? Unstructured time with Sarah. No Slack notifications. No meetings. Just long conversations, shared snacks, and laughter bouncing off sandstone walls. And in the quieter moments, I even got some deep focus time with code—something rare and deeply satisfying.

The whole trip reminded me of a post I wrote about creative resets. Sometimes, the best work doesn’t happen in a sprint. It happens when you step away from the noise, breathe in deep, and let the landscape change you.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, scattered, or just ready to get outside, I can’t recommend this drive enough. Utah’s red rock country delivers in every way.

And if you go, bring snacks. And someone you love.

One More (Mind-Bending) Saturday Night in Vegas

Sun, 11 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

It’s been a minute since I’ve been able to post to my blog. Life’s been moving fast—between work, family, friends, life and a million tiny to-dos, I haven’t had much time to sit down and write. But some experiences demand a pause, a reflection, and a weekend in Vegas with Dead & Company at The Sphere was exactly that.

I’ve seen a lot of live music in a lot of places. But nothing quite prepared me for the opening weekend of Dead & Company at the Sphere in Las Vegas. On the weekend of March 21st 2025, I was lucky enough to be among the first in this second run to experience what happens when a band built on improvisation, psychedelia, and soul meets the most technologically advanced venue in the world. It was a fusion of past and future, where Grateful Dead’s legacy met the bleeding edge of immersive entertainment—and, yeah, it totally blew my mind.

Dead & Company: The Continuum of the Grateful Dead

For the uninitiated: Dead & Company formed in 2015 as a continuation of the Grateful Dead’s music, featuring original members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann (later replaced by Jay Lane), alongside John Mayer on lead guitar and vocals, Oteil Burbridge on bass, and Jeff Chimenti on keys. What started as a one-off turned into a touring juggernaut, bridging generations of Deadheads and welcoming a new wave of fans raised on Spotify and guitar tutorials. This 2025 Sphere residency isn’t just another stop—it feels like a spiritual culmination.

I get that, for many, the Grateful Dead ended when Jerry Garcia passed in 1995—and I respect that sentiment. There’s no replacing Jerry. But for me, Dead & Company isn’t about replicating the past. It’s about keeping the spirit of the music alive, reinterpreting it for new times and new ears. I’m okay with that. In fact, I love that the music continues to evolve.

The Sphere: Vegas’ Cathedral of Sound and Vision

Let’s talk about The Sphere. This place is less a venue and more a sensory wormhole. Officially called the MSG Sphere, it’s a 366-foot-tall, 516-foot-wide dome wrapped in 580,000 square feet of programmable LED panels capable of displaying seamless 18K resolution imagery. Inside, it boasts over 160,000 speakers with beamforming audio technology, meaning sound is custom-targeted to your seat—yes, really. The Sphere’s haptic flooring can even vibrate subtly with bass frequencies or ambient effects, adding a literal physical layer to the experience. Every seat is a good seat, thanks to the tiered vertical layout and fully immersive visuals. During “Space,” the screens wrapped us in stars, and the audio made it feel like we were floating between galaxies. It didn’t feel like a segment of a concert. It felt like collective time travel.

Night One: March 21, 2025 – A Cosmic Welcome

Friday’s show opened with “Cassidy,” a signal flare of what was to come: energy, layers, and a nod to the band’s deep cuts. Here’s how the setlist played out:

Set 1:

Cassidy
Bertha
Brown-Eyed Women
Althea
Loose Lucy
Tennessee Jed
The Wheel

Set 2:

China Cat Sunflower >
I Know You Rider
He’s Gone
Drums >
Space >
Stella Blue
Help on the Way >
Slipknot! >
Franklin’s Tower

Encore:

One More Saturday Night

“Bertha” and “Brown-Eyed Women” kept the groove moving, but it was “Althea”—John Mayer’s signature Dead tune—that hit like a lightning bolt. The Sphere’s visuals during “The Wheel” spun like a technicolor galaxy, elevating the song’s themes of fate and motion. “Stella Blue” was hauntingly beautiful, and the “Help > Slip > Franklin’s” run brought the house to its feet. The show closed with “One More Saturday Night”—even though it was Friday. A wink. A knowing grin. Classic Dead.

Night Two: March 22, 2025 – The Band Takes Flight

Saturday’s setlist felt like a love letter to longtime fans. Here’s how it unfolded:

Set 1:

Minglewood Blues
Franklin’s Tower
Jack Straw
Big Railroad Blues
Cassidy
Deal

Set 2:

China Cat Sunflower >
I Know You Rider
Help on the Way >
Slipknot! >
He’s Gone >
Drums >
Space >
Stella Blue
Playing in the Band
Morning Dew

Encore:

Box of Rain

From the first notes of “Minglewood Blues,” it was clear the band came to play. “Franklin’s Tower” and “Jack Straw” got the crowd moving, but it was the second set that took flight. The “China > Rider” opener brought the energy, and the “Help > Slip > He’s Gone” segment was a standout in both musicianship and emotional weight. The Sphere visuals during “Stella Blue” shimmered with mournful beauty, and “Morning Dew” brought the entire arena to stillness. “Box of Rain,” performed for the first time since the passing of Phil Lesh in 2024, was a deeply moving closer—a perfect end to a legendary night.

Comparing the Nights: March 21 vs. March 22

Both nights at the Sphere were magical in their own right, but they offered distinctly different experiences.

March 21 Highlights:

Kicked off with “Cassidy,” signaling a set rooted in groove and depth.
“Althea” delivered the emotional anchor early on, with Mayer at his best.
Second set highlights included a smooth and exploratory “China > Rider,” and a crowd-lifting “Help > Slip > Franklin’s” sequence.

March 22 Highlights:

Opened with raw energy—“Minglewood Blues” and “Franklin’s Tower” hit hard.
The “Help > Slip > He’s Gone” section added layers of improvisation and soul.
“Morning Dew” held the entire venue in rapt silence, and “Box of Rain” was a touching tribute to Phil Lesh.

If March 21 was a dance through the cosmos, March 22 was a journey into the heart of the Dead’s emotional spectrum. Back-to-back, they formed a complete and unforgettable arc. Watch on YouTube

The Verdict: Beyond the Show

Fantastic set of shows. The Sphere didn’t just enhance the music—it recontextualized it. It made old songs feel new and familiar lyrics feel freshly profound. Dead & Company proved once again that this music, more than 50 years on, still has new corners to explore.

Vegas is a place built on spectacle, but this was something else entirely. This was transcendence—with a ticket stub.

Would I go again? In a heartbeat. And if you’re even half a Dead fan, you owe it to yourself to make the trip.

See you on Shakedown Street.

My Next Big Adventure

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Big career moves are like roller coasters—they start with anticipation, hit you with some stomach-dropping twists, and leave you exhilarated (and maybe slightly dizzy). After almost 6-years as CTO at Accela, I’m stepping into a new role as CTO of O2E Brands helping the business through a massive product, technology and data transformation.

Peter Thiel has this famous interview question: “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?” For me, it’s that there is enormous, untapped potential in taking non-technical industries and digitizing them. I’ve seen it firsthand in GovTech, where applying modern technology to slow, manual processes has transformed how governments operate and serve their citizens. Now, I get to apply that same thinking to a whole new challenge.

The Job Search Checklist

When I started thinking about my next step, I had a wish list for the kind of role I wanted:

Good People: Life’s too short to work with anyone but the best.
A Huge Opportunity: I wanted to be part of something that’s just getting started with big potential.
Something Different: I didn’t need the same old thing.
A Hard Challenge: Because if it’s easy, where’s the fun?
A Big-Ass Transformation: Let’s take something good and make it exceptional.

Why O2E Brands?

For those unfamiliar, O2E Brands (which stands for “Ordinary to Exceptional”) is a company with a mission to redefine what great service looks like in some of the most overlooked industries. They’re the proud operators of:

1-800-GOT-JUNK?: Turning the dreaded task of junk removal into an easy, even satisfying experience.
WOW 1 DAY PAINTING: Revolutionizing the painting industry with speed and quality that make you go, well, “Wow.”
Shack Shine: Elevating home detailing to a premium, hassle-free service.

My role at O2E Brands will focus on product, technology, and data, driving the strategic transformation of the business. This isn’t just about tweaking what’s already working—it’s about rethinking how we leverage technology to serve customers better and scale smarter. And honestly, how often do you get to combine logistics, AI, cloud, and mobile innovation in mega large industries like junk removal and house painting?

Been Around the Block (and Loving the Journey)

This isn’t my first time diving into something big and bold, but every new challenge comes with its own unique flavor. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of working across a diverse range of companies—venture-backed startups, private equity-driven businesses, and mature public companies. Each one taught me something new about leadership, innovation, and the art of solving hard problems.

Now, stepping into the world of a privately held company with O2E Brands, I get to explore yet another dimension of business. It’s a chance to take everything I’ve learned—about building products, harnessing data, and crafting strategies—and apply it to an organization that’s ready to level up in a big way. This isn’t about just doing a transformation; it’s about bringing a fresh perspective and a toolkit shaped by years of varied, rewarding experiences. And, let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a good challenge?

Looking Back, Moving Forward

As I turn the page on my time at Accela, I’m filled with gratitude for the amazing people I’ve worked with, the lessons I’ve learned, and the incredible impact we’ve had on communities around the world. It’s been a privilege to help modernize GovTech and see how technology can make government better for everyone.

But the road ahead with O2E Brands has me fired up. This is an opportunity to do something transformative in industries ready for reinvention, with a team that’s ready to tackle the challenge head-on.

Here’s to good people, big challenges, and bold transformations. Let’s do this. 🚀

Remembering Phoenix V: A Tribute to Our Golden Girl

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Writing this blog post was not easy. Honestly, I put it off because every time I sat down to write, I’d find myself getting emotional. If you’re not a dog person, you might think I’m crazy. But if you are, you’ll understand—and maybe even cry. For me, this post is about documenting our journey with Phoenix and honoring her incredible legacy.

The Magic of Dogs

Dogs have a way of weaving themselves into the fabric of our lives. They’re not just pets; they’re companions, confidants, and unconditional sources of love. Their wagging tails greet us on our best days and comfort us on our worst. They seem to know exactly what we need when we need it, without ever saying a word. Phoenix was all of this and more for our family. She wasn’t just our dog—she was part of us.

Phoenix’s Incredible Legacy

Phoenix V came into our lives as a breeder for Canine Companions, a remarkable organization that provides expertly trained service dogs to people with disabilities—free of charge. These dogs become life-changing partners, offering independence, confidence, and companionship to those who need it most.

During her time with Canine Companions, Phoenix gave birth to 30 puppies. These puppies went on to become service dogs, touching countless lives with their loyalty and love. Phoenix was the best mom—gentle, patient, and fiercely protective. Her legacy lives on in every tail wag, every task performed, and every moment of joy her pups bring to their new families.

A Life Full of Love

Phoenix was with us for about 5+ years and those years were nothing short of magical. She loved her time with us, and we loved every second with her. Phoenix was always ready for an adventure—whether it was a road trip or just a walk around the neighborhood. She had a habit of greeting everyone who walked through the door with a toy, as if to say, “I’m so glad you’re here!”

She also had a special talent for taking over my side of the bed. Sarah was more than happy to have her as a substitute—I can’t blame her. Who wouldn’t prefer cuddling with a golden?

Phoenix spent countless hours lying by my side in my office, quietly listening to my conference calls. She didn’t understand what I was saying (or maybe she did), but she was always there, a comforting presence during long workdays.

Her Final Days

Losing Phoenix was devastating. She was diagnosed with lymphoma earlier this year, and despite our best efforts, she had a severe reaction to the chemotherapy medication. I was on a business trip the night she passed, and I tried desperately to get back in time. I didn’t make it. But in her final hours, Phoenix made her way to the basement, probably looking for me at my desk where she had previous spent so much time with me with what little energy she had left. That thought breaks my heart, but it’s also a testament to her love and loyalty.

Phoenix touched the lives of everyone she met. From the strangers who received her puppies to the friends who visited our home, she radiated warmth, kindness, and joy. She was the kind of dog who made you feel better just by being near her.

Top 12 Truths About Phoenix

She always was happy to see you and bring you a toy when you got home.
She loved her walks and definitely had an opinion where and how long to go.
She loved her treats.
She loved her naps.
She loved her pup-cups from Starbucks.
She enjoyed sitting outside on the grass soaking up some sun.
She loved her time on the beach.
She loved helping me shovel the snow.
She loved her time playing with other dogs.
She loved being off leash.
She loved to roll around in cow poop.
She loved us as much as we loved her. (Or so we hope so. Haha.)

While our hearts are broken, we are endlessly grateful for the time we had with Phoenix. She brought laughter, comfort, and love into our lives in ways we’ll never forget. She wasn’t just a dog—she was our family.

Phoenix, thank you for being our golden girl. You were the best dog anyone could ask for, and we miss you more than words can say. Rest easy, sweet girl. We’ll love you forever. 🐾❤️

My Favorite Reads of 2024: From Musk to Munger

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

2024 was a good reading year. I tackled 23 books throughout the year. The journey was filled with big ideas, surprising gems, and more than a few times when I tried to sneak “just one more chapter”. Let’s dive into my favorites, the surprises, and a complete rundown of everything I read (because who doesn’t love a good book list?).

The Favorites: MVPs of 2024

Some books don’t just entertain—they leave a lasting mark. These three did exactly that:

1. Going Infinite by Michael Lewis
This dive into the crypto drama surrounding Sam Bankman-Fried was a wild ride. Michael Lewis has a knack for turning chaos into page-turning magic, and this one doesn’t disappoint. If you ever thought, “What’s the deal with FTX?”—this book has the answer, and then some.

2. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
Part biography, part “How does this guy sleep?” guide. Isaacson’s deep dive into Musk’s life showcases the genius, ambition, and chaos of one of the most polarizing figures of our time. Love him or hate him, Musk is undeniably fascinating.

3. The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday
Ryan Holiday’s stoic wisdom is timeless, and this book is the ultimate guide to turning life’s challenges into opportunities. It’s like a pep talk from Marcus Aurelius—without the toga.

The Surprise Favorites: Unexpected Delights

A couple of books snuck up on me and turned into absolute gems:

1. George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones
Who knew the man behind Star Wars had such an epic journey? This biography dives into Lucas’s creativity, perseverance, and ability to revolutionize Hollywood. It’s a must-read for dreamers and innovators.

2. Excellence Wins by Horst Schulze
Who knew customer service philosophy could be so riveting? Horst Schulze, a co-founder of The Ritz-Carlton, shares his take on leadership, excellence, and creating a standout business culture. Bonus: It’ll make you think twice about how you treat others.

By the Numbers

Total Books Read: 23
Genres Explored
- Biography: 4 books
- Self-Development: 6 books
- Business: 7 books
- Technology/AI: 2 books
- Creativity: 2 books
- Philosophy: 2 books

What I Learned

Reading 23 books this year was like taking a crash course in life, business, and creativity. Here are the biggest lessons that stuck with me:

• Visionaries bet big and persevere relentlessly
(Elon Musk and George Lucas: A Life showed that audacity and persistence can rewrite entire industries—or galaxies.)

• Obstacles are opportunities in disguise
(The Obstacle is the Way reinforced that challenges are where growth and innovation happen.)

• Culture eats strategy for breakfast
(No Rules Rules proved that building a culture of trust and accountability can make or break a business.)

• Excellence begins with obsession
(Excellence Wins taught me that paying attention to the tiniest details can elevate an experience from good to unforgettable.)

• Creativity thrives on imperfection
(The Creative Act reminded me to embrace the messiness of the creative process—it’s where the magic happens.)

• AI isn’t just the future; it’s now
(Superintelligence and Atlas of AI offered both inspiration and a reality check about the profound changes AI is bringing to our world.)

• Every story is a chance to learn
Whether it’s about junk removal (Excellence Wins), space travel (Elon Musk), or stoic philosophy (Stillness is the Key), every book carries insights that reshape how we see the world.

This year’s reading reminded me that growth comes from curiosity, deliberate practice, and a willingness to step out of my comfort zone—on the page and beyond.

The Full 2024 Reading List

Here’s everything I read this year, complete with links so you can explore them for yourself:

Going Infinite by Michael Lewis (November 2023)
Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson (November 2023)
The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday (December 2023)
Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday (January 2024)
Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday (January 2024)
Tao of Charlie Munger by David Clark (January 2024)
The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt (February 2024)
Atlas of AI by Kate Crawford (February 2024)
Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet by Chris Dixon (February 2024)
The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (February 2024)
Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom (March 2024)
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller (March 2024)
George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones (April 2024)
No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer (April 2024)
BYOB: Build Your Own Business, Be Your Own Boss by by Brian Scudamore (May 2024)
Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World by Richard Snow (May 2024)
Amp It Up by Frank Slootman (May 2024)
Insanely Simple by Ken Segall (May 2024)
Atomic Habits by James Clear (Reread in June 2024)
WTF?! (Willing to Fail): How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success by Brian Scudamore (June 2024)
Excellence Wins by Horst Schulze (August 2024)
Inspired by Marty Cagan (August 2024)
Transformed: Moving to the Product Operating Model by Remi Adeleke (October 2024)

2024 was packed with lessons, laughs, and the occasional existential crisis courtesy of a few AI books. Here’s to 2025 being just as thrilling—and maybe finding a few more surprises along the way. What’s on your reading list? Let’s swap recommendations (and maybe coffee suggestions for those late-night chapters). 📚

Turning Around a GovTech Giant: My Six Years at Accela

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I stood at the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) platform pensively waiting for my train to arrive. My brain was lost in thought thinking of whatever was happening that day at my venture backed San Francisco tech start up. The overhead display announced that a train headed for Balboa Park was arriving. The first train horn blows validating what the display was trying to tell us. The train begins to roll by.

— —

We all began to gather on the markers where the train doors were supposed to open. Everyone was lost in their headphones and we were all invisible to each other. The BART train began to pull up to the platform. More horns blew to make sure folks step away from the oncoming train. You could see in the distance some commuters running towards the platform because they didn’t want to wait the 20 or so minutes for the next one.

I commuted on BART for 10+ years. 1.5 hours one way. 3 hours a day. 15 hours a week. 60 hours a month. 720 hours a year or a complete month a year. Keep in mind that this was before COVID so working remotely wasn’t as in vogue. I needed a break from this commute. I’ll admit that the recruiter had my attention when he told me the job with Accela was 15 minutes from my home.

There were lots of other reasons I took the CTO role at Accela close to 6 years ago.

The CEO and existing executive team — the CEO and the other executives really impressed me. It was a crew that I could really work with.
The investment team — the partners at Berkshire Partners were amazing and didn’t let me down though the years.
The opportunity to transform state and local government — I enjoy transforming overlooked markets. I think that was because of too many years chasing the next sexy thing earlier in my career. Accela at the time was still building installers for state and local government to run in their data centers. The cloud was something still found in the sky.
A big fat mess to clean up — I enjoy cleaning up messes. Accela at the time was one of the biggest messes I had seen. It was a 20+ year old GovTech company with a bunch of non-integrated acquired assets floating around. The joke during the first few months was I would discover new products no one knew about because a customer would call that it was down. Customers hated us. The team was broken. Technical debt was overflowing out of the doors. Data centers were long overdue for hardware refreshing. I used to joke that the architecture was a Polaroid photo from 1999. I said to myself that if I make it out of this mess alive, I’ll be able to write the book about it.

I took on the CTO role responsible for all technical aspects of the business — application engineering, quality engineering, cloud engineering, security, compliance and IT.

Rebuilt technology organization, resourcing model, and software development lifecycle (SDLC).
Rearchitected on-premises software product to highly scalable, cost effective, 99.9% uptime, multi-tenant SaaS platform.
Migrated product out of data centers into public cloud (Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services).
Re-rationalized and defined path out of previously acquired companies and technical debt.
Stabilized the business to the point that we were able to acquire companies again.
Rebuilt security & compliance program (SOC3, PCI, GDPR, CCPA, StateRamp)
Represented the company at industry events and with the media.

Fast forward 6 years, it was like a textbook execution on turning around a distressed technology company. In September 2023, Francisco Partners co-invested in Accela.

After the deal much of the executive team turned over and a smaller executive team was left executing on the post-deal plans and waiting for a new CEO to join. It was important to me to follow through on commitments made through the deal and I wanted to engage with the new CEO. I’m proud of what we accomplished at Accela to get a new deal and proud of the all that we accomplished after the deal as we set the company towards the next chapter of growth. I learned so much at Accela and from everyone at the company.

The importance of team.
Focus is a super power.
Optimism is fuel.
Challenge the status quo and focus on first principle thinking.

What am I going to do next? I’ll have a separate blog post on that one but I will say that I’m going to stay true to what I care about.

Find good people.
Take the road less traveled.
Continue to build great products that delight customers.
Find a big, overlooked market.

Stay tuned for more details on that. Thank you for reading. Leave a comment or ping me if you want to engage. I appreciate you.

-rjm

Finding Perspective.

Mon, 02 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Both my parents worked throughout my childhood. They were out of the house by 7am and usually didn’t come home until 10pm at night. I developed my work ethic by watching them. My mom would get called to the emergency room at all hours of the day. I spent a lot of time hanging out with the emergency room nurses waiting for my mom to take care of something. I was basically raised by a woman I called “Lola” but she was not actually my grandmother but rather a nanny from the Philippines. My first language was Tagalog because that what “Lola” spoke. She was 4’ 6” tall but could probably wrestle battle an ox in her prime. I loved her dearly like I do my parents.

Now, here is a tightly held secret. Ok, not really. My nickname as a child was “Joel”. My dad and I have the same first name so somewhere along the lines they started calling me “Joel”. I have no idea where the name came from and neither do my parents. Upon moving to California after college, I decided to just stick with my legal name “Renato” after a work colleague suggested it. The east coast knows me as “Joel” and the west coast knows me as “Renato”. At my wedding, half the attendees were there for “Renato & Sarah’s Wedding” and the other half was there for “Joel & Sarah’s Wedding”. To this day, I respond to both names!

Well, my Lola spoke very little English even as I grew up into my teens. My friends would come over asking for me and my Lola would provide short answers and close the door. For example,

“Joel School” — I was at school
“Joel Work” — I was working in my parents office
“Joel Gym” — I was working out
“Joel Eat” — I was out grabbing food
“Joel Girl” — I was out with my girlfriend at the time she didn’t like.

Fast forward, I went with my friends to the Grateful Dead concerts at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. A buddy of mine came to the door and my Lola responded “Joel Dead” and slammed the door. Well, needless to say my buddy freaked out and this was before cell phones. I’m sure I must have been dead to him for most of that day until I got back from the show.

Alas, Joel is not actually dead but the story does remind us about the importance of perspectives. Lola just wanted to provide information on where I was. My buddy just wanted to know where I was. Joel just wanted to listen to some jamming music. Referring to myself in the 3rd person felt appropriate right there.

Gaining perspective is a crucial element in both life and business. It allows us to see situations from different angles, leading to more informed and balanced decision making. Perspective isn’t something we’re born with; it’s developed over time through experiences, challenges, and by actively seeking to understand viewpoints that differ from our own. Whether it’s through travel, reading, or engaging in meaningful conversations with people from diverse backgrounds, each of these activities enriches our understanding of the world. In business, having a broad perspective can lead to innovative solutions and help navigate complex challenges with a clearer vision.

All that being said, having a strategic perspective is incredibly challenging because it requires the ability to step back from immediate concerns and view the broader landscape, often in a highly complex and rapidly changing environment. This means looking beyond day-to-day operations to consider long-term goals, potential risks, and emerging opportunities. However, the difficulty lies in balancing this long-term vision with the urgent demands of the present. We are often so focused on immediate tasks and short-term results that it becomes difficult to shift our mindset to a more strategic level. Additionally, the uncertainty of the future and the vast amount of information that must be processed and interpreted to make strategic decisions can be overwhelming. As a result, maintaining a strategic perspective requires discipline, focus, and the ability to anticipate and adapt to change—a skill set that is not easily mastered but is essential for sustained success.

Now, lets apply some perspective to my life in the form of a time line backwards and forward from 2024. I started 29 years ago at my high school and moved forward 29 years into the future. This is what I came up with.

1995 (29 years ago)

Graduated from Fairfield College Preparatory School

1997 (27 years ago)

First coding job at Lockheed Martin LMS in Tarrytown, NY

1999 (25 years ago)

Graduated from the University of Richmond

2003 (21 years ago)

Sarah and I get married in California

2006 (18 years ago)

Molly was born

2010 (14 years ago)

Brooklyn was born

2020 (4 years ago)

Moved to Park City, Utah

There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #1)
There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #2)
There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #3)
There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #4)

2021 (3 years ago)

Experience life changing stroke

Surviving a Stroke
Surviving a Stroke: Recovery
Surviving a Stroke: Returning to Life

2023 (1 year ago)

Gave up booze

Dear Booze, Its me, not you.

2028 (+4 years)

Brooklyn Graduates High School, Molly Graduates College

Raising Amazing Daughters. Proud Dad.

2032 (+8 years)

Brooklyn Graduates College

2033 (+9 years)

Sarah and Renato married 30 years

2039 (+15 years)

2043 (+19 years)

Sarah and Renato married 40 years

2044 (+20 years)

Average life expectancy of Filipino male (67 years old)

2051 (+27 years)

Average life expectancy of American male (74.8 years old)

2053 (+29 years)

Sarah and Renato married 50 years

The timeline provides a unique perspective on my life.

Life is short and moves fast.
My wife Sarah is my most consistent passenger with me on this ride.
I have more years behind me than ahead of me.
Family and friends are things that hold the test of time.
Physical belongings fad away into the background.

Perspective helps with finding joy because in the bigger picture, so many things we worry about are irrelevant and we have so many more things to be grateful for. Don’t waste a minute. Live life to the fullest. Find your joy. Make a dent in the universe.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed!

-rjm

And the Next Chapter Begins.

Sun, 18 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Quote — “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
– Ferris Bueller, Dr Richard Chambers. ”

Nothing really prepares you for a child leaving home for college. It’s an emotional experience for the entire family. Regardless of the squabbles and petty irritations, family is family. Invisible, deep bonds are created that are hard to explain until that person isn’t around anymore. In the case of our kids, those bonds have been forming since they came home from the hospital and strengthened with every experience together.

The internet gophers tell me that parents will spend 70-90% of their time with their kids before their kids turn 18. That seems likes one of those internet facts that float around as true but its unclear what real data supports it. Regardless, this feels very true for me. After I left for college, I never returned to the area my parents lived and came back infrequently only for holidays.

I went the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond is about 410 miles from our then home in Connecticut. The drive can take about 6 hours depending on traffic with the exception of one trip back to school one fateful Sunday after Thanksgiving where it took me 18 hours. I thought it was a good idea to stop in Manhattan and Washington DC to drop off many sister and a buddy. What a horrible drive.

This past weekend we brought my older daughter to college in Boston, Massachusetts. Or, 2341 miles from our home in Utah. The two weeks before I left for college was chaos. I was excited to go to college but sad to say goodbye to my friends and family. Packing was the least of my concerns behind making sure to say goodbye to everyone that I could. Molly and I had similar experiences as I was up until midnight helping her pack. Four massive 50+ pound bags later, she was packed. I’m sad to see Molly go but thrilled at this new chapter. Her future is so bright and we couldn’t be more proud of her.

What advice do I have for Molly as she heads to college?

Find your joy and smile. Life is short. Enjoy it.
Make a dent in the universe. It’s waiting for you to make your mark.
Take risks. Don’t let overthinking or public perception stop you from taking a swing.
Work hard. There are no hacks around hard work.
Avoid victimhood mentality. Work your way through problems.
Take care of yourself. No one else is going to.
Enjoy the moment. It’s right in front of you.
Trust the universe. You’ll connect the dots when you’re old. The ups and downs all add up in the end.

We will miss you Molly. Enjoy your time in college and make smart decisions! As I write this on the plane ride back from Boston, my heart is heavy thinking that Molly’s bedroom will be empty when we get home.

The family and I will be frequent fliers between Salt Lake City and Boston over the next few years. If you see a slightly overweight middle aged Filipino man in an MIT Women’s Soccer hat on, its probably me. Say hi!

By the way, go MIT Women’s Soccer!

Thanks for reading.

-rjm

Change & Taking the Road Less Traveled.

Fri, 09 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Change is hard. We all like the comfort of the familiar even when the familiar is not enjoyable. That is how much work and energy change can take. The gravity of life pulls toward stasis and inaction. Thats why popular books like Atomic Habits say that small habits make a big difference over time. Any action is better than inaction. And ya know what is even harder? Making change in a direction that that is “different”. Taking the path less traveled. Doing something that not everyone desires. We are drawn to homogeneity. Social media is the grand normalizer towards homogeneity. We desire what is in our feed. Embracing change and taking the path less traveled takes courage but the reward is growth, learning and insight.

René Girard, a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher, is best known for his theory of mimetic desire. Girard posits that human desires are not innate but rather imitative; we desire objects because others desire them. This concept, known as mimetic desire, suggests that imitation is a fundamental aspect of human behavior, leading not only to competition and rivalry but also to conflict and violence. According to Girard, this cycle of imitation and rivalry can be observed in literature, history, and religion. His work has profound implications for understanding human behavior, social structures, and the mechanisms of violence. Girard’s theories challenge traditional views on desire and offer a unique lens through which to examine the dynamics of human relationships and societal conflicts.

The theory of mimetic desire keeps us in our lanes.

When people ask me where I’m from I usually just tell them I’m from New York. Its easy. Everyone knows where New York is. But in reality, I’ve spent most of my childhood in Connecticut. Does anyone really know anything about Connecticut? Fairfield County feels like another New York City borough and the rest of Connecticut feels like an extension of Massachusetts with some insurance in Hartford and gambling near where they filmed Mystic Pizza. My life journey started in Brooklyn, NY where I was born and then went through Queens, Manhattan, West Hartford Connecticut, Newtown Connecticut and then Ridgefield Connecticut. I really enjoyed my childhood in Connecticut. I’m pretty sure we were the only Asian family living in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Us and another Asian family that owned the local Carvel Ice Cream store downtown. We would go there for some soft serve and give each other the secret Asian handshake knowing there were not that many of us in this town. Growing up I imagined myself moving back to Connecticut and settling into a classic New England home with my family and two Saint Bernard dogs. Most of my childhood friends stayed in the tri-state area. A recent trip back to Ridgefield brought back all of those thoughts and memories. But, that was a fork in the road in life. I never went back. I opted for change on the road less traveled. I moved to California and never looked back. 22 years in the Bay Area. My reward — growth, learning, insight and entirely different path in life.

Ridgefield, CT, United States

Fast forward 22 years, we were faced with another fork in the road. Governor Gavin Newsom Issued the stay at home order on March 19, 2020. That same week I watched a maintenance crews take town the basketball hoops to prevent folks from gathering in our local parks. School and sports programs basically shut down and families huddled at home trying to figure out what would happen next. My family and I made the hard decision to leave California for Park City, Utah that summer of 2020. It was massive change and definitely the road less traveled. We were living in a highly desirable Bay Area suburb for a mountain town where we knew no one and were not even Mormon. We decided in June 2020 and were moved into our new home by August 2020. I would say this was probably one of the best decisions we could have made at the time. Park City, Utah has been tremendous for our family. 4 years in — we love it here. We’ve grown and learned so much as a family and dodged some bullets along the way.

If you are curious, here are some blog posts that document that ride —

In both the examples above, I should have just stayed in New York/Connecticut and we should have just stayed in California. Change is good. Find your own path. Trust the universe.

Survivorship bias would guide me to on providing the examples where the change I made worked out positively. In reality, my life is filled with mistakes. I could devote an entire blog post on just a mistakes I’ve made in life. The most notable was when I quit my high paying technology job and decided to start location based, augmented reality game start up. Oh yeah, our second child was born right around that time as well. Did I mention I have the most supportive, loving and caring wife ever? I wrote about that adventure in a previous blog post. In summary, we raised some money, won several start up competitions, had a fun time but we were far too ahead of the curve. It was a big fat failure and a crushing blow to my ego but looking back, I learned so much about that journey. It was worth the change and risk but please don’t ask my wife. Haha.

Peter Thiel, a prominent entrepreneur and venture capitalist, is best known for co-founding PayPal and Palantir Technologies, as well as being the first outside investor in Facebook. Thiel is also the author of “Zero to One,” a book that explores how to build successful startups and create innovative technologies. His influence extends across Silicon Valley, where he is regarded as a thought leader in technology and finance. One of his favorite interview questions, “Tell me something true that very few people agree with you on,” is designed to reveal a candidate’s ability to think independently and challenge conventional wisdom. This question tests not only originality and critical thinking but also the courage to hold and defend contrarian views, which Thiel believes is crucial for driving innovation and achieving groundbreaking success. This approach reflects Thiel’s own philosophy of seeking out and fostering unique ideas that have the potential to transform industries and society.

My answer to the question — Every company is a technology company with the proper leadership and mindset. This isn’t limited to traditional Silicon Valley technology companies. Artificial intelligence pushes the assertion further with so many core business functions being disrupted. I say this isn’t mainstream thinking because most companies still have business leaders running traditional IT functions and don’t think how they can make technology a strategic advantage.

How would you answer Peter Thiel’s interview questions?

Don’t be afraid to embrace change and find the road less traveled. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t but rest assured you’ll likely learn something new along the way and grow as a person.

Thanks for reading. Lots of stories. Lots of reflection. Find your change. Take the road less traveled. Growth, learning and insight will be your reward.

-rjm

Artificial Intelligence & Me

Sat, 03 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

In the vast realm of science fiction, few names shine as brightly as Isaac Asimov. As a young reader, I found myself captivated by the intricate universes he wove in novels like Foundation and I, Robot. These stories, where artificial intelligence and robotics played pivotal roles, ignited a spark in me that would later pave the path of my own career. Today, as I delve into the intricate tapestry of my journey with artificial intelligence, it’s impossible not to look back at those early days of wonder, where Asimov’s words provided not just entertainment, but inspiration for a future I had yet to envision.

It’s official, I have secured Renato.mascardo.ai. This has moved up the value of my blog by 10x. Kidding. Kinda. Artificial Intelligence has created both rational and irrational reactions. One would argue AI has propped up the stock market when everything AI related has killed while everything else looks “eh”. Seven of the top 10 largest companies in the United States by market cap have major AI value propositions.

My career has seen its waves of innovation. I am so grateful for having been part of such a fruitful period for computer science. It has been such a fun ride and it doesn’t seem to be letting up.

Client / Server
Internet
Dedicated / Managed Service Providers
Cloud Computing / SaaS / IaaS / PaaS
Mobile Computing
Social media
Data / Data Science / Machine Learning / Deep Learning
Spatial Computing
Artificial Intelligence

As one would expect, each wave builds upon the next and is a combination of previous achievements and learnings. AI is a combination of data, copious amount of distributed compute, innovation in gpu chips and foundational data / data science / machine learning / deep learning practices.

So, here are a few common questions I’ve better getting recently about AI —

What is you perspective on Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence represents both an opportunity and existential risk for companies. Similar to other technology waves, something very fundamental is shifting under existing companies. This shift can create new markets and provide opportunities to wedge into existing markets. We should see new interaction models and all new levels of efficiency with AI.

This is where it’s critical to be in continuous first principle thinking. Assumptions should be challenged. Experimentation should be the norm. Action should be taken.

What experience do you have with machine learning / deep learning / Artificial Intelligence?

Mercury Interactive / HP Software (2004) — processed the millions / billions of production alerts to provide an elevated alerting or automate action.
Abaca Technology (2007) — created a totally new AI approach for handling email SPAM.
DigitalGlobe (2010) — built one of the first and largest at the time GPU based supercomputers that was used to run advanced algorithms for higher level processing on digital satellite imagery. These algorithms did things like cloud cover detection, change detection and image feature recognition.
Atari (2012) — built AI based real-time adjustment of gameplay based on individual progress through the game.
Rosetta Stone (2014) — built AI based content creation platform.
Recurly (2018) — built AI based Dunning management solution.

What will the next 5-10 years of AI innovation bring us?

Buckle up. The pace of AI improvements is fierce and everyone wants to get there first. Watch out for the hyperbole and emotions through the technology adoption life cycle but rest assured we’ll see the shift on the other side. This feels like it’s going to go faster than we think.

Thank you for reading. Please drop me a note if you have a comment. I appreciate you.

-rjm

Work after 25 years.

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

25 years ago this summer three buddies of mine made our way across Europe. We all graduated college and were doing the customary post-graduation Eurail European adventure. We started in Italy and worked counter clockwise across the European continent ending the trip in Spain. The stories are endless.

We drove too fast in a promotional Hertz rental car that was all yellow and covered in logos.
We climbed the Swiss alps.
We consumed so much beer in Munich that I somehow was able to sing Lithuanian folk songs through the streets at 3am.
We got wildly lost in the red light district of Amsterdam.
We recreated scenes from the Sound of Music in Vienna.
We drank sangria all night and ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain the next morning with no sleep. I’m pretty sure we slept on a street bench that night.
And the stories go on and on.

When it was all done, I loaded up a U-Haul with two buddies and we drove from Connecticut to the center of technology, Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley was where I needed to be. I had a Computer Science degree in hand and dreams to change the world. Fast forward to today — I’ve been driving technology products and teams for 25 years now and have been fortunate to take all sorts of awesome products to market in many different scenarios — start ups, venture backed, public companies, private equity backed, consumer, enterprise, education, government, financial. From no name brands to big brands, I just worked my ass off and continue to work my ass off. I like it that much.

25 years of hard work hard work requires some reflection. As I’ve said in previous blog posts, sometimes this reflection is for me as much it is for anyone else. My blog posts are like public journal entries. Below are some higher level questions that I was reflecting upon —

What have I learned?

Here are is a list of axioms I’ve picked up along the way in no particular order.

Play chess, not checkers.
First principle thinking is paramount.
Keep challenging your assumptions.
Get your team as close to the customer as possible.
It’s all about the people and your teams.
Micromanagement only gets you so far.
Try to lead, not manage.
Be genuine.
Be respectful.
Work hard.
Stay hungry.
Listen more. Talk less.
Setbacks are opportunities.
Ego kills.
Keep your standards high. Don’t settle.
Stop the whining.
Have urgency but be patient.
Smile and laugh more.

What adjustments have I had to make after 25 years of working?

Experience can be a blessing and a curse. Yes, there exists 25 years of experience to draw from but that doesn’t mean I know everything. Ego can get in the way of learning new things. “I’ve done this enough, I know what I’m doing” becomes the new slogan. Its important to not get caught in that mindset. The reality is “I don’t know everything, I’ve not seen all situations.” Keep an open mind.

Additionally, the more experience you have the more career optionality you have which makes it too easy to bail out of one situation and into another rather than doing something differently. I have to apply first principles thinking to myself in these scenarios. I don’t always have all the answers. My assumptions that I’ve held for years likely have changed. Feedback is good.

What is my perspective on the next 15 years of work?

I think I’d like to take this train 15 more years. 40 years of work feels like a nice round number. I’m happy with the success/exits under my best but I enjoy work too much to retire. If I keep picking them right, there probably feels like two more big rides. That seems reasonable. Currently, the technology future excites. We are pushing into another huge technology wave with artificial intelligence (AI). AI is every geeks dream. Frankenstein. Hal. Rosie. Jarvis. Roy Batty. Wall-E. R2D2. C3PO We’ve been day dreaming of a world with AI beings for years. We are going to see an another profound technology shift over the next 5-15+ years and its going to go faster than we think.

What would I be looking for if I were evaluating new opportunities?

My work motivators in my twenties are surely different than my motivators in my fourties. As a kid, I wanted to be featured in a TechCrunch blog post and bags of money. I wanted to prove to my parents that I could make it as a technologist and not a medical doctor. Time passes by and I am looking for different things. I am definitely less motivated by money.

Now, I care deeply about …

the people I work with.
the impact I can make.
the opportunity being big and bold.

What would you tell yourself from 1999?

Keep building.
Take more risks.
Stop listening to other people.
Stop overthinking things.
Find the road less traveled.
Make time for your friends and family.

I like to say “trust the universe”. Things seem to work out. I’m grateful for my career path and all the wonderful people I’ve been able to work with along the way. I’m not sure I would have done it any other way. Here’s to another 15 years of building innovative products!

Thank you for reading. I appreciate you.

-rjm

Raising Amazing Daughters. Proud Dad.

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Happy belated Father’s Day 2024.

A few years back, my younger daughter Brooklyn came home from school and asked me what “thats what she said” jokes were. She was probably 10 years old at the time. I giggled on the inside and said “Never heard of ‘em” trying to avoid the topic. I guess some smarty pants at school had watched enough episodes of The Office without his/her parents supervision and these jokes became something of sideshow during class.

Brooklyn was not satisfied with my response and then asked my wife Sarah what these jokes were all about — to which, Sarah asked me if I could explain. Apparently, she didn’t know what those jokes were either. Facepalm. How do I get out of this predicament?

I gave Sarah “big eyes” and politely changed the topic. I went for the the nuclear weapon of child topic changes, “When should we go back to Disney World?”

Brooklyn was not satisfied. In protest, Brooklyn decided to say “thats what she said” after everything followed by “did that work?” hoping to discover its true meaning. This proved very annoying and sometimes very funny. I asked Brooklyn nicely who was the fine young boy/girl that was sharing such jokes at school so that I could thank his parents. I promised I wouldn’t do anything with the information. Brooklyn leaned in and said quietly whispered in my ear, “thats what she said”.

Nothing really prepares you for parenthood or to become a dad. There are 100’s of parenting books out there trying to educate fearful parents on the perils ahead. Some are aptly named —

Once you get into it, parenting feels natural but awkward at the same time. Like going to Costco but forgetting to wear pants. Mother nature dials in enough parenting in our DNA and then the rest parents just need to figure out. I find it fascinating that the parenting formula feels different for every kid. Two kids with the same parents, raised in the same households can be entirely different people when they grow up. Two kids, raised in totally different socio economic households can be entirely different people when they grow up and not necessarily with the lives you might expect. There is a randomness to the variables involved in the equation. Thats probably why there are so many different parenting books with contradicting viewpoints.

Sarah and I had a few pillars we always drove home with the kids -

Find your passion — Find the things that creates a fire in your belly every morning.
Work hard — Enjoy the grind. There are no life hacks around just getting the reps in.
Have a growth mindset — Setbacks are growth.
Trust the universe — The pieces come together when you look back but never looking forward.

Molly and Brooklyn have big milestones this year. Molly graduated from high school. She will be attending MIT in the Fall and playing on the MIT Women’s Soccer team. She hopes to study Chemical-Biological Engineering + Business. Brooklyn graduated from 8th grade and will be attending Park City High School. She will be focused on academics, basketball (as a point guard) and soccer (as a goalie). Same parents, same household, two very different kids. Molly is like her mom. Brooklyn is more like me. Both are absolutely the two most amazing two girls a parent could ask for.

I’m grateful for my two girls and having a partner like Sarah to share in the joys of parenthood.

Thank you for reading! And good luck on your parenting journey! That’s what she said.

-rjm

Ski Season 2023-24: Plenty of POW to go around

Mon, 13 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

The 2023-24 Ski Season has come to an end. There is only a two mountains left open in Utah as I write this blog post —

Sundance - April 7, 2024 closing
Powder Mountain - April 7, 2024 closing
Alta - April 21, 2024 closing
Deer Valley Resort - April 21, 2024 closing
Park City Mountain - April 22, 2024 closing
Snowbasin - April 28, 2024 closing
Brian Head — May 12, 2024 closing
Solitude — May 12, 2024 closing
Brighton - May 19, 2024
Snowbird — open weekends at least through Memorial Day 2024

The skis are put away. The boots have gathered a little dust. The winter tires are getting swapped out. The heat cable have been turned off. A few of the lawn chairs have come out of storage. The sprinklers will be opened in a few weeks. I’ll start to warm up the mountain bikes soon after that. But, that didn’t stop mother nature from dropping a foot of fresh snow at our house the week of May 6th.

This past ski season was fantastic. No complaints. The snow came early and kept coming all season long. It wasn’t the 2022-2023 season but I don’t think we will see a season like that for a while. Below are the season totals coming from my favorite weather app, OpenSnow — a solid season of snow.

My home -> 209”
Park City Mountain Resort -> 459”
Deer Valley -> 413”
Snowbird -> 607”
Alta -> 667”
Snowbasin -> 423”
Solitude -> 573”
Brighton -> 610”
Powder Mountain -> 368”

My ski buddy Brooklyn and I had most of our days at Park City Mountain Resort spending many days on the Canyons side. It’s too convenient for us. We live only 15-minutes from the base of Canyons. The new thing this season was paid parking on the Park City side and that put a damper on my days on that side mostly because I’m a cheap person. I don’t like paying for parking if I don’t need to. I usually ski with a PB&J in my backpack.

Deer Valley came in second as I maxed out my IKON days there. Deer Valley provides a truly specular ski experience. I’m excited for their expansion in the upcoming years despite all the locals complaining.

Public Service Announcement: Please don't complain to me on the chairlift. I say hello and more often than not folks want to vent to me about something.  "Vail stinks.  The Deer Valley expansion is dumb.  Parking is a mess.  Why are we stopped!  Why are these lifts not open?  The food is so expensive.  I'm a local, they need to treat me differently.  I was here before Vail was."  Enough.  Enjoy where you are.  Shut up for a second and just enjoy the outdoors.  Skiing is a luxury, not a right.  And no, skiing can't be like how it was 20 years ago.  Time moves forward.  Life is too short.  Enjoy it or stop doing it.

Snowbird and Alta are two of my favorite mountains but I found myself there only a few times this season. Travel there through the little cottonwood pass is a true commitment and less interesting when there are great options closer.

Overall, I ended up with 30-40 ski days. A respectable number given that I am not yet retired. I was not as adventuresome this season as I wanted to be. I didn’t make it to any resorts outside of Utah and didn’t make it to Powder Mountain, Snowbasin or Solitude. I definitely didn’t do any backcountry, snowcat or heliskiing which I’ve alway wanted to do. I’ve had less interest in the more extreme skiing as I’ve gotten older and definitely since my stroke two years ago. So much of my enjoyment is about just being outside and enjoying that with others.

My favorite thing about the end of ski season is the end of ski season sales! I’ve never understood paying full price for any ski gear. Just plan ahead and wait until the season ends. My daily ski last season was my Faction Agent 3 (106 over foot). Flat tail, lightweight, touring ski with a great shape. I liked it so much I got the Faction Agent 4 (114 over foot) at the end of last season for those power days. It floats over powder with ease. My end of this season purchase was the Faction Agent 1 (86 over foot). I wanted a shorter, narrower ski for moguls and trees. All the above have Look bindings which are my favorite. I also upgraded my ski pants, gloves and socks with Stio gear. My favorite outdoor clothing brand.

Alas, rest assured the snow will be back. Meanwhile, let the Spring and Summer begin!

Thank you for reading. I appreciate you!

-rjm

Being Your Most Authentic, Genuine Self.

Sun, 12 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

As a kid, I loved playing with silicon breast implants. No joke. They were all over my parents office on display for patients to look at and play with. This was before they shifted to salt water filled breast implants due to cancer risk. I didn’t know the difference. I didn’t even know what they were used for. Seriously. They were just super fun to play with. Like stretchy stress balls but more fun. I could juggle them. Whip them around the room like frisbees. Or, just mush them around like a gelatinous putty. By the way, I never claimed to have a normal childhood. And don’t worry, the ones I were flinging around the room were only for display purposes.

My mom was a Filipino, plastic surgeon living and working in the New York/Connecticut area. She loved her non-authentic Gucci bags and other high end brands. Even culturally Filipinos love their brand names. My brother, sister and I grew up caring deeply about our public perception. It wasn’t wrong. It just was. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate the importance of being your genuine self, free from overt influence by social media or other external forces.

Being your most authentic, genuine self is …

Being vulnerable.
Being humble.
Being honest.
Knowing who you are.
Being comfortable in your own skin.
Connecting what you say with how you act.
Finding your true confidence.
A representation of true leadership.
Being human.

Social Media has ruined all of us. I can’t tell what is real anymore. We are viewing the lives of others through a narrow and highly curated lens. We are seeing what most folks want us to see and then we are subconsciously comparing the entirety of our lives to that.

We all must find our most authentic, genuine self and be proud of it. Care less what others think of you. Be who you are and do the things that make you happy.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate you.

-rjm

My Blog.

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

My first blog post on Renato.mascardo.com/blog was on March 9, 2007. 16 years ago. The post was titled “Hello World!” to which I just wrote

Hello World!

That was followed by two insightful blog posts titled —

I Can‘t Believe I’m Blogging (March 9, 2007)
World of Warcraft is the next Golf (March 10, 2007)

Absolute drivel. Haha. I started my blog 16 years ago as just an experiment and it has evolved into an expression of my life and creativity. My interest in writing posts has come and gone through the years. You’ll see big gaps in my writing or sometimes I would just post a YouTube video. Earlier posts were trying to be “TechCrunch like” and then later evolved into more thoughtful writing about my family, our move to Utah and my stroke. My blog has become more for me than anyone else — a public facing journal and expression of creativity.

As a child, my focus was on math and science. I joke that I barely passed the “Test of English as a Foreign Language” (TOEFL) and English was sort of my second language behind Tagalog. (Or, if you saw me as a kid you might think my first language was “eating”). Writing did not come naturally to me but I do find enjoyment in the expression of my thought through writing. I’m sure any English major would laugh at the run on sentences and random drivel being throw around like spaghetti on a wall. (I think I subconsciously married an English major as a ying to my yang.). But, as I have gotten older I’ve cared less about what others have thought. Or put another way, I find it liberating to limit how much I care about what other people think especially when it comes to being creative.

The photos on my blog at 98% taken by me. I’ve always enjoyed taking pictures. My father passed that passion down to me and I think I passed it down to my daughter. I still own an old Nikon D90 camera with several lenses but have since moved to taking pictures on my phone. The Apple iPhone camera is simply amazing. My dad handed down a bunch of Leika gear to my daughter. She has developed her own passion for photography and has one some photography competitions. We share the joy of being in a dark room with some Pink Floyd playing and being alone with your thoughts.

Being creative is a unique and elusive thing for me. Growing up Filipino, we became doctors or lawyers. As a technologist, I’m at the fringes of an acceptable career. I’m pretty sure my parents think I’m a “Chief Train Officer”. My parents encouraged I learn piano like any good Asian child but no way did I ever consider a role as a traditional creative. But, I always highly appreciated the ability to come up with unique ideas, perspectives and approaches. As a child, I picked up playing the guitar. My first guitar was an inexpensive black Fender Squire Stratocaster in honor of Eric Clapton. I would sit for hours working on scales and imagining different patterns and riffs.

So, lets take take a step back and reframe why I write this blog. I enjoy telling stories. I enjoy expressing myself. I enjoy sharing knowledge. And I enjoy sharing what’s on my mind. Family, work, technology, life, whatever. I’ll write about it.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate you.

-rjm

Yearly Goals or Bust.

Sat, 25 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Every year I go through an exercise of defining my personal yearly goals and I track them throughout the year. My system is a combination “stuff I made up that works for me” and OKR’s**.

**Objects and Key Results (OKR) is a is a goal-setting framework used by individuals, teams, and organizations to define measurable goals and track their outcomes. The development of OKR is generally attributed to Andrew Grove who introduced the approach to Intel in the 1970s.

I tweak the process every year so it’s been an ongoing work in progress. Guess what? We are approaching 2024 and Its about that time of year again so let’s roll through my process.

The rough methodology is as follows —

Take in the bigger picture
Define goal categories
Define directional / motivational statements per category
Define category objectives with key results
Define how to track the key results
Simplify and simplify again
Lock in and revisit throughout the year (repeat monthly)

Let’s dig into the steps!

Step #1 — Take in the bigger picture. Before I get into the tactical details, I like to make sure to spend some thinking time taking a step back and answering a few higher level questions.

How were things in 2023?
Who am I? Where am I in life?
How are Sarah and I doing? How are Molly and Brooklyn doing?
Where an I with my family? Where am with my friends?
Where am I in my career? What are next 2-3 career moves?
Where are we with our finances?
Where am i with my health & fitness?
How much risk can I take this year?

Yearly goals need to be motivating and aspirational for me. The bigger picture helps me craft goals that get me out of bed in the morning. Plus, its just nice to reflect on things every year.

One of my favorite questions is how much risk can I take this year? There is no reward without some risk. Risk can define you as a person like it does with Elon Musk or Alex Honnold but I think they are “calculated risk takers”. I believe it’s important to take calculated risks in life because it pushes you beyond your limits. Plus, isn’t life boring without some risk and adventure?

Step #2 — Define goal categories. The categories help me shape the areas I want to focus on. They have stayed fairly consistent from year to year but there have been times when new categories make it on the list or the priority order changes. For example, after my stroke I had prioritized recovering from my stroke as a category. Below are the categories I have for 2024 —

Family & Friends
Career
Health & Fitness
Knowledge & Mental Health
Creativity

Step #3 — Define directional / motivational statements per category. Each category needs definition and statements that get me motivated. Motivation is a fuel that can come from external and internal sources. An external source might be getting fired from a job or being told you can’t do something. An internal source might be a statement like “Disrupt an industry”. A statement like that motivates me to power through the headwinds.

Family & Friends

Be the best husband I can be
Be the best dad I can be
Be the best friend I can be

Career

Keep building
Disrupt an industry
Solve meaningful customer problems
Take risks
Work with an amazing people
Innovate & be creative
Make money

Health & Fitness

Find excellence in my health & fitness

Knowledge & Mental Health

Constantly expand my knowledge
Find balance with my mental health

Creativity

Create new things and introduce them to the world

Step #4 — Define category objectives with key results. Within each category you define an objective and a measure able key result. This is where we can start to overthink traditional goal frameworks and come up with a big mess. My suggestion is to keep things simple.

Example: Knowledge & Mental Health

Objective: Elite mental conditioning
- Key result: Read 15 books throughout the year (Track in Goodreads)
- Key result: Journal/Meditate/Reflect once a week (Track with habit tracker)

Step #5 — Define how to track the key results. Tracking is critical. You need to form the habits that support key result which in turn supports the objective. Habit trackers are great tools to build positive habits. I use Today but there are so many habit trackers it’s hard to keep track of them all. Find one that works for you and start building those positive habits. Alternatively, I use Evernote to track more coarse grain key results.

Step #6 — Simplify and simplify again. Every time I do this, I end up with too many categories, too many objectives, too many key results to track. Now it’s time to create maniacal focus. Cut out 30-50% of the categories, objectives and key results. Focus is absolutely a super power for any person or organization. Save the ones you cut for later.

Step #7 — Lock in and revisit throughout the year (repeat monthly). Done. Lock it in. Track habits daily. Check in on broader progress monthly. Update with comments on how things are going. Make it part of your existence.

Few addition comments —

Stick with it. You need to have the discipline to keep at it. This is isn’t once a year activity.
Find your Zen. Life is series of interconnected problems to solve. Some in your control, others not. Focus on the things you can control and be mentally ready for the unknown.
Setbacks make you stronger. Use it as motivation.
Things can change. Don’t be afraid to adjust as you go but keep pressing forward. Keep making progress.
Life is short. Don’t waste it. Find your happiness. Continue to be a better version of yourself every day.

Hope you enjoyed the post. Thank you for reading. Leave a comment or reach out!

-rjm

Dear Booze, Its me, not you.

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT

It’s impossible to ignore the staggering reality of alcohol consumption in the United States. Recent data reveals that nearly 70% of American adults consumed alcohol in the past year, with a notable percentage indulging in heavy drinking. This national inclination towards alcohol isn’t just a social norm but a lens into the complexities of our relationship with this ubiquitous substance.

My parents didn’t drink alcohol much growing up. We had the customary liquor cabinet but we rarely opened it. The liquor bottles were so old I used wonder if they were still good. There was a light layer of dust on all the bottles. I remember there were few warm cans of Budweiser in there. When by chance a guest would come over and want a drink, my dad would grab one of these old cans, crack it open warm and pour it over ice. Haha! The cans were definitely past their born on date.

I would categorize myself as a casual drinker with a love for good craft beers. I love me a good IPA which can have 300+ calories per pint. I don’t drink brown liquor much. I prefer a good tequila or gin with a lime. COVID caused me to drink more mostly because I was bored. Moving to Utah didn’t help because the lack of good beers made me want it more. I drink mostly on the weekends but I was picking up the “I need a drink after a hard day” midweek drink more often. My casual drinking was adding up mostly around my waistline. Plus, hangovers were progressively becoming a problem. I would feel hungover consuming less booze and the recovery times were getting longer!

It all started when my wife said to me “if you cut back your drinking I bet you would lose 10 pounds”. I responded, “No way but I’ll give it a try.”. Of course, she was right. She’s always right.

I’m 70+ days into not having a drink and I feel great. Partially as an health experiment but also because it seemed like a waste of time and money.

I have lost 12 pounds.
I have higher energy levels.
I have better mental clarity and focus.
I feel more hydrated.
I have better workouts.
I sleep better.
I saved money.

When people notice, they usually ask me —

“Are you ok?”
“You’re kidding right?”
“How about just one?”
“What do you do wrong?”

To which my responses are —

Yes, I’m ok.
No, I’m not kidding.
I’m good but don’t let that stop the fun.
I did nothing wrong or I don’t think I did. Haha.

Through this process a few things surprised me —

The social pressure to drink is real. “Let’s go grab a drink” was my go to phrase to hangout with someone.
Business trips involve lots of drinking. So much drinking. A drink on the plane. A drink at the bar when you get to the hotel. Couple of drinks at dinner. Maybe a few more drinks after dinner with colleagues.
Waking up without a hangover is amazing. Hangovers are they worst!
The marketing around booze is overwhelming. I found myself noticing the ads more. We are bombarded by booze ads all day long!

I feel better without booze. I’m not advocating that everyone quit because everyone should live their life the way they want. I’m going to continue on my sobriety experiment into 2024. Let’s see how this rolls! More updates coming.

-rjm

Accela Announces Strategic Investment

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Last week, Accela announced a strategic investment from Francisco Partners. [GovTech Article]

“San Ramon, Calif. (September 6, 2023) – Accela, the trusted provider of cloud solutions at the heart of government, today announced a strategic growth investment from Francisco Partners, a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology businesses. Berkshire Partners will remain a significant investor with an equal equity holding in Accela. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.”

https://www.accela.com/press-releases/accela-advances-momentum-with-new-strategic-investment-from-francisco-partners/

Accela might have been one of the messiest turnarounds I’ve had to do through the insanity of a global pandemic. I am so proud of what the broader company and specifically the technology teams have been able to accomplish in the time I was at Accela.

Responsible for all technical aspects of the business.
Rebuilt technology organization, resourcing model, and software development lifecycle (SDLC).
Rearchitected on-premises software product to highly scalable, cost effective, 99.9% uptime, multi-tenant SaaS platform.
Migrated product out of data centers into public cloud (Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services).
Re-rationalized and defined path out of previously acquired companies and technical debt.
Rebuilt security & compliance program (SOC2, PCI, GDPR, CCPA, StateRamp, FedRamp)
Represented the company at industry events and with the media.

Most of my experience is classic high growth, venture capital. This was my first private equity owned from the start businesses. I learned a tremendous amount through this process. Here is a brief list.

Companies move as fast as their customers move.
Remote work can be ok for some businesses but you lose the edge in highly competitive markets.
State & Local Government is a vertical all on its own and even very different from Federal
People, team and culture are priority one in a turnaround.
Turnarounds are not sexy, but can be fun and fulfilling.
When in doubt, pick up the phone and connect directly with customers, prospects and your team.
Most technical debt is manageable but products/platforms over 10+ years are approaching a tipping point requiring larger investment proportion to maintain.
All private equity is created differently. It’s hard to generalize across them. Look at the make up of the portfolios and operating partners to get a glimpse of what they are made of.
Private equity cares deeply about risk management, profit and cash flow regardless of what they tell you.
Change is absolutely Ok and in many times during a turnaround, required.
Assumptions at a turnaround can be highly toxic.

Let me know if you have feedback on any of the above. I’m excited to see the what the next chapter yields for Accela + Berkshire Partners + Francisco Partners.

Buckle up!

Modern Day Super Powers

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT

My dad called me out of the blue several years back and said to me he was clearing out their office where my parents ran their medical practice for probably 25+ years. I sort of grew up in that office. My parents worked a ton so I ended up spending a lot of time there entertaining myself there and in the later years, as their IT guy setting up the computer systems. I built computers in the basement from parts I sourced from Computer Shopper Magazine and setup a Novell NetWare Network including running cat5 between all of the offices. It was a fun. I since dropped it from my resume but I was Novell NetWare Network Certified! Haha.

Apparently, I had left 10-15+ boxes of comic books in my old office in the basement. I had forgotten that before I left for college I brought my entire comic book collection to the office basement because it was cool, dry and clean. 30 years later, my comic books have reappeared! Each comic book long box was filled with individually bagged with acid free backing comic books. I think i had about 10,000+ comics in my collection total.

My dad didn’t mince words. He was a man on a mission to clear out the office. He had loaded up all 10-15+ boxes of comic books on a pallet destined for California and was delivering the tracking number.

Holy smokes. I was being reunited with my childhood passion! I loved comic books. The characters, stories and art took me to all new places. I used to daydream about various superpowers and argue with my friends which ones were the best. I lived the Marvel Cinematic Universe before it had made its way to the big screen. Meanwhile, my wife wanted to know what the heck this pallet of boxes were that just arrived in our driveway.

My favorite character was Tony Stark / Iron Man. He didn’t have super human powers like the others but simply applied his intelligence and scrappy thinking to solve hard problems. Ok, he had his own character flaws but I always felt he was pretty damn cool at the time.

Ok, there are no mutants with super strength or folks with the ability to shoot laser beams from their eyes however, I’ve always felt that there are actually modern day “super powers” that humans are actually capable of. Below are some that I have seen. Some might not feel super by comic book standards but to me, they feel powerful. You be the judge.

Leadership — I’ve seen this done very well, very poorly and in very rare cases, legendarily well. When done well, it feels like a super power.
- Example — Bob Iger. CEO of Disney resulting in an increase of the company’s market cap from $48 billion to $257 billion. Pixar acquisition, Marvel acquisition, Lucasfilm acquisition, 21st Century Fox acquisition, Hong Kong Disneyland Resort, Shanghai Disney, Disney+.
Team — A team is a group of individuals working together to achieve their goal. Some folks are just better at bringing the best out of a group of individuals.
- Example — Mike Krzyzewski
Product visionary — We all know of the products that have changed our lives. There are usually product visionaries behind them.
- Example — Steve Jobs. Macintosh, Modern Computer Typography, iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad.
Creativity — Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. No standardized test is going to measure this. The creative process is amazing.
- Example — Christopher Nolan. Filmmaker. Following (1998),Memento (2000), Insomnia (2002), Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012),Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017), Tenet (2020), Oppenheimer (2023)
Work Ethic — Can you work harder than everyone else? I told myself at a young age that whatever I did in my professional career, I was going to outwork the folks around me to get to where I wanted to be.
- Example — Elon Musk. PayPal, SolarCity, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, Hyperloop, OpenAI, Neuralink, Twitter.
Execution — Arguably a foundational skill for any leader but some folks are better at getting things done than others.
- Example — Jim Sinegal, Co-Founder and previous CEO of Costco
Grit — Perseverance, hardiness, resilience, ambition, need for achievement and conscientiousness. I love grit. Will you persevere? Will you power through obstacles? Will you find a way? Will you rebound from failure? Will you keep going until you reach your goal?
- Example — Michael Jordan
Communication — do you communicate with a high level of fidelity, simplicity and passion to others?
- Example — Bill Clinton, 42nd United States President

My list kept going but these are my favorites. What do you think? Are there a few that I’m missing? What are better examples that have the above super powers?

We all have a super powers. What are yours?

As always, thank you for reading. Please leave your thoughts or comments below.

-rjm

Truly Epic 2022-2023 Winter

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT

The Winter 2022-2023 Season has been truly epic and its not over yet. The fresh powder has been overflowing all season long. Alta Ski Area and Solitude Mountain Resort both reported hitting the 500+ inches of snow at the earliest point of the season in years. We have been absolutely spoiled here in Utah especially compared to the east coast where NYC just received its first significant snow this past week and ski resorts are light on the white fluffy stuff. Best of all, the deep snowpack will be good for our reservoirs. Let’s keep the pow days rolling! The season isn’t over yet.

My Augmented Reality Start Up Failure and Being Too Ahead of the Curve.

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

My first job out of college was with a company called Scient. Scient called itself the “The e-Buisness Innovator”. I could not have dreamed of a better place to land out of college. A truly transformative place to work. The leaders I worked for. The friends I made. And I ended up meeting my wife there. We worked long hours, hacked with technology together and felt like we could transform the world. We saw the future through technology — mobile devices, peer-to-peer networks, cloud computing, etc. The cohort of college graduates joining Scient in 1999 came from the best schools, were unbelievably talented and became some of my best friends. In the evenings, we would continue the technical conversation at the Buddah Bar in China Town or Vesuvio Cafe in North Beach. Drinks were usually involved. Sometimes we would bring some dice and just hang out playing games. It was true embodiment of Silicon Valley for me.

My time there didn’t last very long in the grand scheme of things — I only worked there for about 2-3 years before the company was consumed by the DotCom 1.0 implosion. Regardless, I look back at those years fondly. During my time at Scient, a small group of engineers started the “Any-to-Any” club. A group that felt that the future was through mobility. The future was through the plethora of interconnected devices like mobile devices and what is now called the Internet of Things (IoT). Keep in mind that in 1999 — the Motorola StarTac phone was all the rage, the BlackBerry had just been released, getting the weather through your Mobile WAP browser was cool and most Americans got their internet via America Online. Little did we know, it was early and we were way ahead of our time.

Fast forward 6 years, Steve Jobs first announced the iPhone in January 9, 2007 — the beginning of a new mobile revolution. Watch on YouTube I remember a buddy of mine worked at Apple and invited me to lunch to check it out. At that time, I worked on the Bay Area peninsula so we went to a restaurant just outside the Apple Campus in Cupertino. He showed me the new phone, raving about it. I played with the phone for about 5 minutes and thought this was definitely a game changer. There was something so elegant about the lock screen that felt different than the Blackberry in my pocket. Then he showed me a “jail broken” phone and all of the developer built apps leveraging all the iPhone sensors. Wow. It was like looking into the future. Everything we believed in 1999 was coming true. Then I focused on knowing everything about the iOS Platform and soon to be released Android ecosystems and building mobile experiences. Little did we know, it was early and we were way ahead of our time**.**

Fast forward 2 years, we looked into the crystal ball again and saw a world where the mobile phones could create immersive experiences overlayed on the real world visually and physically. We were calling it “Location based Augmented Reality” — leveraging the camera and GPS sensors on the phone to create new experiences. In 2009, several of my friends and I decided to try and start Augmented Reality company way before Google Glass (2013), Pokémon Go (2016), Meta (2022) and Apple’s future augmented reality products (TBD). Little did we know, it was early and we were way ahead of our time.

MotiveCast is described on my LinkedIn profile as —

MotiveCast produces fun, social and addictive games at the crossroads of traditional social gaming and mobile — our games represent a generational shift in traditional social game play that will capture the imagination of players by making the world their game board. MotiveCast was the winner of the PepsiCo10 2010 start up competition.

Before it was MotiveCast, the company was named “Kranky Panda Studios”. We had originally founded the company to make immersive mobile games. And then we discovered the fun with Apple’s new mobile location API’s and hand rolled our own location server. And then discovered a future where Augmented Reality ruled the world and hand rolled our own Augmented Reality SDK. So, we were building immersive location based, augmented reality mobile games. We were Pokémon Go in 2009. Pokémon Go was initially released in 2016 and by 2020 grossed more than $6 billion in revenue.

We raised capital. Found a CEO. Brought on advisors. Got the attention of Venture Capital. Won a couple of start up competitions. We even made Fast Company Magazine. But, we ultimately failed. And we didn’t even do what lots of failed starts up do now — claim to have been acquired by another company even though they were just hiring the team. Yup, we just folded. Little did we know, it was early and we were way ahead of our time.

Failing at my own start up was a crushing blow to my ego. It’s one thing to say you embrace failure but its another to tell the world you were taking over the world and then just failing. It took me many years to get over it. Looking back, I cared too much about how others perceived my career. Plus, life isn’t kind to the entrepreneurial journey. So, I found shelter in the comfortable confines of an already established company for the years that followed.

I learned many things through this entrepreneurial journey. Let me see if I can articulate some of them here —

Be aware of being too early to market — we were so early and the augmented reality market still has not fully come into focus.
Make sure you wife and family are on board for the journey — your family is a unit. Your unit is going into adventures together. Make sure everyone is on board because the entrepreneurial journey can be very stressful.
Don’t be afraid to try new things but be aware that failure is part of the process — this may feel obvious but there is knowing this rule theoretically and then practically. You will fail. Be ready for it and focus on what it looks like getting through it.
Care less about what others think — caring too much about what other people think is wasted energy. Their opinion usually doesn’t matter.
Building technology is not the goal — we surely built a lot of cool technology, haha.
Sales and marketing are critical functions — find someone that knows how to do this or be ready to figure it out.
Iterate faster and more frequently — in hindsight, our iterations were too coarse grained. We needed to find shorter, faster tests.
Find your focus — we tried to be good at too many things.
Start up competitions don’t mean anything and can likely be a distraction.

Fast forward to 2023, Apple and Meta (previously named Facebook) are pressing hard into the augmented reality and virtual reality space. They are trying to be that foundational platform that powers these new immersive virtual experiences. Our biggest learning coming out of our experience was that a large company like Apple or Meta would need to crack the space open for others like the iPhone did for the mobile revolution. We saw several points of friction to wide scale adoption —

Adoption of sufficiently powered devices — in 2010, iPhone penetration was only at ~20%. Now, its closer to ~75%. Huge difference. Meta has to figure out this problem with their new virtual reality rigs. Their latest rig is pricing out at $1499.00 (https://www.meta.com/quest/quest-pro/). This is likely way out of the price range for most casual users.
Identification of the killer use cases that out weights the awkward social experience — its strange to see someone using their phone in an augmented reality experience. It’s strange to see someone in a VR rig. The value of the experience has to outweigh this awkwardness.
AR and VR Developer Ecosystems with better defined monetization opportunity — the platforms need the apps and it needs to be easier to build. At the time, we had to hand roll our own AR SDK.
Motion sickness — early AR and VR experiences were making people sick.

There is no lack of negative press on Meta’s strategy. But keep in mind that Meta is trying to do something very hard and its very easy to pile on there with negativity. I’m more interested in Apple’s AR offering which is set to come out soon. They have had more success creating these huge technology shifts than any other company in recent times and seem to be laying the foundation with their spacial sound and AR SDK. My gut says that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta won’t be the company that turns the corner with AR and VR but will surely help to move the ball forward. There is too much investor pressure to maintain Meta’s core business and it feels like this shift needs Apple’s thoughtfulness. Apple has a good shot to make it happen. That being said, it could be one of those things that never turns the corner because people actually don’t want it. The real world is actually a pretty nice place to be.

I find blogging to be just as useful for me as it is for those that read my blog. This is one of the first times I’ve been able to thoughtfully reflect upon this journey. I wouldn’t trade my experience for the world and hope to give it another swing. But, I’ll share that for a future blog posts.

Thank you for reading! Please share your thoughts and comments.

Best of 2022. Hello 2023.

Sun, 12 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Hello Friends & Family,

2022 has come to an end and 2023 is upon us. 2022 zoomed by so fast. A strangely benign year when compared to the few years before. We had inflation reach all new highs, the war in Ukraine, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade and the stunning images coming back from the James Webb Telescope just to name a few events.

Generally speaking, 2022 was a great year for myself and my family. No complaints. Everyone is healthy. Park City, Utah is amazing. The family is thriving. I am grateful for my health, family, friends and the opportunities ahead on all fronts. Sure, there are setbacks but thats life.

Here is a link to my end of year post from last year. I’m going to try something different and provide my “Best of 2022”. All different categories. Why not? Here we go!

My Favorite Blog Posts from 2022

My Favorite 3 Books from 2022

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
Dune by Frank Herbert
Three Body Problem by Lin Cixin
Honorable mention:
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (re-read)

My Favorite 3 Movies from 2022

Top Gun 2

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Doctor Strange

Honorable Mention:

Thor for love or thunder

My Favorite 3 Television Shows from 2022

Severance (Apple+)

Mythic Quest (Apple+)

For All Mankind (Apple+)

Honorable Mention:

Only Murders In the Building (Hulu)

My 3 Favorite Musical Artists (new or old) from 2022

Goose
Cory Wong
Spafford
Honorable Mention:
- Grateful Dead

My 3 Favorite live musical or comedic experiences from 2022

Goose @ Regency Ballroom, San Francisco, CA (1.29.200, 1.30.2022) Watch on YouTube
Pearl Jam @ Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, CA (5.12.2022, 5.13.2022)

Goose @ Dillon Amphitheater & Red Rocks, Colorado (8.17.2022, 8.18.2022, 8.19.2022)

Honorable Mention:
- Kevin Hart @ Kingbury Hall, Salt Lake City, Utah (1.22.2022)

My 3 Favorite mountain resorts from 2022

My Favorite Podcasts from 2022

Pivot (New York Magazine)
Pardon the Interruption (ESPN)
The Daily (The New York Times)
Honorable Mention
- Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman

My 3 Favorite Breweries

Tree House Brewing Company (Massachusetts)
Russian River Brewing Company (California)
Fieldworks Brewing Company (California)
Honorable Mention
- Kiitos Brewing (Utah)

My 3 Favorite Yankees from 2021-2022 Season

Aaron Judge
Anthony Rizzo
Gerrit Cole
Honorable Mention
- Nestor Cortez

Top 3 predictions for 2023

The return of more in office behavior. Companies will come to realize they are less effective working remote and will slowly ask employees back to the office. Some industries will just flat out tell folks to come back.
The economy begins its recovery but slower than expected — inflation begins to flatten, technology remains in a slump and we should see jobs begin to soften from its hit levels.
The Yankees will make it to the World Series but will not win.

Happy New Year from my family to yours. Here’s to a great 2023!

Thank you for reading. I’m really hoping to “create” more in 2023 — writing, code, music, whatever. Stay tuned. Please share you thoughts and comments below.

There is Life Outside the Bay Area: Two Years Later (Part #5)

Fri, 12 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Hello Friends & Family,

Holy macaroni! Sarah, the girls and I are enjoying our two year anniversary in Park City, Utah this week! Oh, what an adventure it has been. I’ve documented many of our move observations through my blog —

There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #1) —> Why did we decide to leave?
There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #2) —> Why did you pick Park City, Utah?
There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #3) —> 6-month check in.
There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #4) —> 12-month check in.

This will be the final installment of this series of blog posts — the two year check in. I guess I could do a five year check in but that feels like a long way away. I’m going to try something different this time around and make this an “ask me anything” type of format. I’ve collected the various questions folks have asked Sarah and I throughout.

Just as a recap, in August 2020 — Sarah, the girls and I decide to uproot ourselves out of Danville, California (Bay Area) to Park City, Utah in the middle of COVID. I had originally moved to the Bay Area in 1999 with the first dot com boom. 20+ years in California with a brief stink in Seattle, Washington for two years. Sarah moved to California back in the 1980’s so many more years living in the Golden State. Change and action can be hard so this was a big decision for us. It’s amazing how fast life goes looking back but can feel slow when you’re in it. I thought I would be in the Bay Area for a couple of years and then I would move back to the east coast.

All great changes are preceded by choas.

Deepak Chopra

This week two years ago was absolute chaos. The house was sold and half packed. Realtors were coming in and out of the home getting the staging furniture out and the final fixes in place. The buyers were gigantic pains in the ass so we were dealing with 100 different details. And, a leak sprung in the kitchen that took us a week to figure out that that HVAC guy had screwed up the condensation lines.

Moving is the absolute worst. I had PTSD looking through the old photos.

Sarah and the girls left via car earlier in the week ahead of me so that I could deal with clearing out our old home and the movers. We had sold or thrown out half our stuff but we still had a ton of things to move. Sarah later told me that the car ride was full of tears from the Bay Area to Sacramento. We had to have a family meeting later that evening to discuss, “are we doing the right thing?”. There I sat outside Sarah’s sisters home with a beer in my hand going through the seven stages of grief in about 2 minutes.

Shock and denial — “What was going on? How did we get far into the journey and suddenly have second thoughts? It is not possible that this is happening!”
Pain and guilt — “Did I do this to my family? How could I have let this happen?”
Anger and bargaining — “Ok, we can fix this. Maybe there is a clause for me to get out of selling our house?”
Depression — “Oh, this makes me very sad.”
The upward turn — “No big deal. We’ll figure this out.”
Reconstruction and working through — “This change is the right change. We just need to get through this first week.”
Acceptance and hope — “Ah yes, we will get through this first week and it will be great.”

Well, we made it through that moment and I guess the rest is history. It was one of the best decisions we’ve made as a family unit together. And I think we’re stronger for having gone through it together. Folks have asked us so many questions along the way so here are just a few of them.

Q: Who brought up the idea of moving first?

A: Sarah. She started talking about leaving California probably back in 2015, maybe further back. I was the hold out because I cared deeply about staying in the Silicon Valley community. I had identified with Silicon Valley since I moved to the Bay Area in 1999.

Q: How much did COVID play a role in your decision to move?

A: Some. COVID definitely opened my mind to something different. I think for Sarah it just added fuel to her interest of leaving California that started a long time ago. Plus, the technology sector went 100% remote after COVID and for the most part continues to be remote. It helped that Park City, Utah is the most accessible mountain town in the United States. We’re < 30 minutes from the Salt Lake City Airport so jumping on a plane to get somewhere is very easy.

Q: After two years, how are things going?

A: We love it here and love our decision to move. No regrets. Park City is one cool little mountain town.

Q: How have the kids enjoyed Park city?

A: I think Molly and Brooklyn have thrived here. New school. New friends. New sports clubs. New activities. Lots of new things and they have responded. I don’t think moves are for every kid but I think ours have really enjoyed the change.

Q: How have the winters been?

A: No harder than the winters in New York/Connecticut but the last two years have been mild winters so it’s tough to say yet. There are some differences though. The snow is light, fluffy and dry. I could use a leaf blower to clean my steps. And as soon as the snow stops, the sun comes out. The dry humidity and altitude makes the winters unique.

Q: What have been your biggest surprises — either good or bad?

A: I’ve got a few —

The people are amazing.
The scenery and nature is out of this world.
It is magical living 10-15 minutes from world class skiing, hiking, mountain biking, etc.
The snow is more amazing than i thought.
It is equally as magical being less than 30 minutes from Salt Lake City and the Salt Lake City Airport.
Everything is just more accessible here as compared to California or New York/Connecticut.
University of Utah is a hidden gem.
Sundays are actually days off in this state. Kids sports are discouraged. Lots of things are closed.
The taxes are materially less as compared to California or New York/Connecticut.
The restaurants / food in Salt Lake City and Park City are not great. Specially, the Asian food scene is absent.
The booze laws in Utah are messed up and overly complicated.
The soda shops are unique. They combine Mountain Dew and Pepsi then add pixie stick flavoring in a 64 oz cup. What the heck?
There are less people and working class here which makes standard services or contractors harder to get.
Backyards in Park City don’t have fences.

Q: What would you have done differently?

A: I should have listened to Sarah and considered a move sooner than we actually moved. It really has been great for us.

Q: Factoring everyone - personalities, ages - how hard was it to start over? How long did it take to feel settled?

A: I didn’t find it too hard starting over but I’m a unique soul. Starting new challenges is fun for me. I’d say it took 6-12 months to really feel settled. There we were lots of moving parts.

Q: How has the work transition been?

A: There really wasn’t a transition. We just picked up in a different state. But, that might have been a problem in itself. We just fork lifted our lifestyle into a different state. It took until the second year to make some real lifestyle changes.

Q: What was the hardest part of the transition?

A: Leaving our friends and family.

Q: Would you do it again?

A: Absolutely!

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

Charles Darwin

So, what is the moral of the story? Change is good. Embrace adventure. Choose to do something different. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Thank you for reading and listening in on the journey. Please don’t hesitate to reach out or leave a comment. Sarah, the girls and I hope to see you in Park City, Utah sometime soon.

Reflections @ 45.

Sat, 23 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Hello friends & family,

This year I turned 45 years old. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Haha. I should be happy that I made it this far. If I am lucky, this is very likely my half way point in my life. I can’t imagine myself beyond 90. Wandering around the local Costco trying to get my steps in. Maybe treating myself to a chicken bake afterwards if I made it far enough. So, I’m at the 50 yard line of the my life on the way to the end zone. What a weird analogy. Haha.

When I was younger, I used to be self conscience about having my college graduation year on my resume or LinkedIn profile because I didn’t want people to wonder who was this young kid managing all of this stuff. Well, its probably the other way around now. I don’t want people to think, “Whoa, who is this old guy? Does he eat dinner at 4pm?”

FYI, I do not eat dinner at 4pm but it does sound intriguing.

What’s new with you?

I’ve taken some time recently to reconnect with old friends. Some I had not spoken or seen for years. You might be surprised to hear that being social for me takes effort. So, I’ve done a terrible job keeping up with old friends. Thats totally on me.

When I reconnect with folks I find it fascinating the arc of responses when asked the question, “What’s new?”. If you don’t lead the witness and keep it absolutely open ended You should get a 10,000 foot sense of what is important to this person or what this person wants you to know is important. I had one friend of mine give me a 1-hour detailed updated on everything going on at work but forget to tell me how his wife or kids were doing.

How would you answer that question? What would your top three categories of responses be? When I was 25 years old my responses would have been —

Work
Super secret side work project that will be super duper awesome when its ready and you’ll see it in TechCrunch
Commute to work

How would I respond now at 45?

Family & Friends
Health
Activities — Skiing, Hiking, Mountain Biking, Music, Coding

I don’t love work less. I’m still a workaholic but I don’t think it defines me as much as it did when I was in my 20’s. Time has gone by and I’ve come to enjoy the broader aspects of life.

What are your top 3 categories?

Musings of a 45 Year Old

I thought I would collect some ramblings as I ponder 45 years of life. Here we go!

Being married for 19 years and having 2 smart / beautiful / healthy girls is a gift — it’s easy to take for granted a solid home unit. There are rarely articles in the Wall Street Journal about the entrepreneurs that have been able to keep a healthy family unit together. It’s usually about someone that made a billion bucks yet just got a divorce … for the 2nd time. I‘m really proud of our family unit and everything we have been able to accomplish together. Plus, Sarah is everything to me. There is no Renato without her.
Family & friends are everything — they put a smile on face. Make me laugh. Help me during hard times. Invest in them. It takes work. I’m amazed by how many family or friend events I missed in my 20’s and 30’s for reasons I don’t even remember anymore.
Find your passion and work hard at it — finding something you are passionate about in life is a gift. You can’t stop obsession about it all times of the day. Many go through life never finding that passion and/or do things in life because society told them that was the right thing to do. You’ll know it when you find it and when do you, work at it like your life depends on it. It’s life’s flywheel.
Master something — Be the best you can be at one thing. Anything. Maybe something you are passionate about. The journey to being the master at something is very fulfilling.
Be comfortable being uncomfortable — it means you are pushing yourself and learning.
Setbacks are opportunities — what comes up, comes back down. Those downs are usually ripe for opportunity.
Find a way — I love this rally cry. There is always a way. Find it.
Take the road less traveled — society’s predefined path in life is bunk. Well, its not terrible but don’t follow everyone else down this path like a lemming. Make your own path. When you can take the road less traveled.
Care less about what other people think — We spend our entire life giving a shit what other people think — our physical appearance, the clothes we wear, the car drive, the college your went to, the job your have, etc. Care less about what others think and it will set you free. Social media thrown gas on the fire. Be careful.
How much money do you really need? — Society and the news will tell you that you need to collect as much money as you can until it starts coming out of your ears. It surely is a choice in life to make this your life’s goal but find the balance. Being rich is relative. Find your richness in life because that isn’t unlocked by more money.
Be a leader — Be a leader in whatever you decide to do. Most are looking for someone to follow. Help them.
It’s all about the Team — My teams are everything to me. They are not my family but they are high performing teams. It’s how anything at scale happens.
Find perspective — there is always a bigger picture perspective. Find it. Evaluate with that lens.
Have empathy — empathy is a magic word. It creates perspective from another angle that likely isn’t your own. Empathy and Perspective will help you make balanced decisions.
Be humble — no matter how good you get at anything, there will always room to get better or a perspective that widens your understanding.
Take care of your body — the physical side is just as important as the mental side. Be healthy. Take care of your body. Close the laptop, and go do “things”.
Be creative / Enjoy something creative — I am in awe of the creative process and creative people. They are imagining things that are absolutely new and unique. Go do something creative. Create something new in the world.
Appreciate nature — our surroundings are a wonderful thing. Enjoy it!
Enjoy the moment — Put the phone down. Enjoy where you are at in the moment.

Lastly, please find your joy. Life is too short to not be happy. And if you are not happy, explore and find your joy.

I hope you found my musings useful. Please leave a comment or share with your friends! Hope all is well. Talk soon!

Surrounded By Beauty.

Fri, 24 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Hello Friends & Family,

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

- John Muir

Look around. We are surrounded by the wonders and beauty of nature. The climate change discussion likes to draw our attention to the negative effects of our neglect but how about we open our eyes to what we have right now and how much we want to leave to our children and our children’s children. There is a Native American proverb that says, “We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” How true that is.

From the tallest peaks to the vibrant moss finding a home on a branch. It’s all right there. We’re all too busy not being in the moment. Checking out the latest alert on our phone.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

- Albert Einstein

There is so much to learn from nature. Complexity. Simplicity. Strength. Weakness. Patience. Cooperation. Balance. Beauty.

So, do me a favor. Go on a walk. Or go on a hike. Then just sit there. Without your phone. And, take it all in. It’s all pretty amazing if you open your eyes.

“Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

- Carl Sagan

Let us all do our best to take care of this wonderful planet we live on. One only have one.

And I hope you enjoyed some of my pictures!

-rjm

Music is Life.

Fri, 10 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Hello Friends & Family,

Music is Life. Live Music is Heaven.

My memory stinks. I blame not getting enough sleep as a kid. The TV show M.A.S.H. would come on at 11:30pm after the news and I would find myself sneaking downstairs to watch while my parents were asleep. Way too late for any little kid to be up. Sarah will tell you that I can’t remember anything important but remember the dumbest things. Well, I needed to text my buddy the exact date of a concert we went to back in 1993. Jerry Garcia Band at MSG on November 12, 1993.

SET 1
How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)
They Love Each Other
Forever Young
Struggling Man
Money Honey
My Sisters And Brothers
Lay Down Sally

SET 2
Shining Star
You Never Can Tell [C’est La Vie]
Wonderful World
The Maker
Don’t Let Go
That Lucky Old Sun
Tangled Up In Blue

https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1993-11-12-madison-square-garden-new-york-ny/

My high school in Connecticut was heavy into the Grateful Dead and related bands. Not entirely sure why but it was a convenient spot to be in to be a fan because the Grateful Dead played many shows in the area. They would do long winter runs at Madison Square Garden in New York City and summer runs at The Meadowlands in New Jersey. So many great shows with so many great people.

This show specifically stands outs because it was one of my first Grateful Dead (related) shows and started a long line of concerts following the likes of the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia Band, Dead & Company, Phish, Widespread Panic, Allman Brothers Band, Pink Floyd and Goose. I’m not entirely sure how many concerts I’ve been to anymore — I stopped counting. I kept as many of the ticket stubs as I could until they just stopped making them and it went completely digital. Each of these stubs tell a story.

My brain has always loved the patterns with music and improvisational opportunities of genres like Jazz. I played the guitar and messed around with the bass and drums. There was something very therapeutic with practice that I loved so much. I remember sitting around my bedroom just rolling through scale patterns and chords. My mind lost in the patterns or thinking about something else. I’m sure I’ll never find it but my college essay was about the magic of music. My band in high school was named “Rubbing Buddah’s Belly” or #rbb for all the “merch”. We always joke that there would be a reunion tour one of these days. Our wives would be the only groupies left. 🙂

Few distinct things I remember from this concert —

Jerry Garcia blew my mind. I loved his solos and his vocals were still solid.
Loved the lights and how they complemented the music.
Loved the scene and people.
Was very confused why there was so much smoke in the air at the set break. I was very naive. Haha.

Pearl Jam @ Oakland Coliseum 5/12/2022 & 5/12/2022

One of my most favorite bands in high school was Pearl Jam. It doesn’t get better than the album Ten. However, I’d never seen them live … until this past month! They did not disappointment. Fantastic show!

Life is short. Find your joy. I told myself I would spend more time seeing live music. It’s so great to see the performers back on the road after COVID. This year should see my first visit to Red Rocks Amphitheater and possibly a couple of shows with my girls in hopes to pass down the music bug.

Thank you reading my ramblings. Comment below or send me a note!

-rjm

Life Reevaluation: Breaking Through The Local Maximum

Sat, 28 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Hello friends and family,

I love the mathematical term “Local Maximum”.

“A local maximum, also called a relative maximum, is a maximum within some neighborhood that need not be (but may be) a global maximum.”

https://mathworld.wolfram.com/LocalMaximum.html

If you apply this to life, your overall goal may be to achieving a broader goal like getting so good at a sport to compete in the Olympics but you may feel trapped in a plateau in your skills development along the way. Worst case, you are overconfident and fooling yourself to think that you are the best at something when you are actually not. There has to be recognition that you have reached a plateau usually caused by feedback or an event. Then you need to figure out how to get out of it. These break through moments tend to be very hard and very big. The harder the problem, the more likely you give up along the way. So much drive, passion and hard work is required. Most are satisfied with getting to some “local maximum” and not getting to the “global maximum”. This phenomenon exists in so many things in life.

Learning new skills.
Solving hard problems.
Start ups moving from one phase of growth to the next.
Established companies moving from one focus to another.
Transitioning from one phase of your life to the next.
Encountering a “life crisis”

In my case, it feels like I encountered a “life crisis” that that broadened my perspective and has me asking “what is beyond this local maximum I’m in right now?” The American Psychological Association defines a life crisis as —

“a period of distress and major adjustment associated with a significant life experience, such as divorce or death of a family member. In studies relating health to life crises, individuals experiencing recent major stress-producing experiences are more likely than others to show significant alterations in mental and physical health status.”

https://dictionary.apa.org/life-crisis

Am I having an actual “life crisis”? I don’t think so. I’m generally very happy and grateful for everything that I have been provided in life. But, I have had a “significant life event” with my stroke. I have discovered that life is fragile and am asking myself if I am taking advantage of everything I can. Not in a bad way but just thinking that this ride eventually ends. When it does, what will I look back upon? I am fond of the ending of Walter Isaacson’s book Steve Jobs where Steve Jobs is reflecting upon what happens after death.

I would call it more a “life reevaluation”. Something one might encounter during a quarter or midlife crisis. So, I invite you to come along with me on this journey and maybe something I write about will strike a chord with you. One caveat, this is my journey and mostly my own self reflections. I’m just thinking out loud.

Below is a list of questions that checks in on my alignment. I have no idea if this is my complete list but these are the ones I’ve been reflecting on recently.

Am I being a good boss, coworker, friend, family member, husband and dad?
Am I working on something I am passionate about?
Am I making a dent in the universe?
Am I over-indexing on what I think society thinks I need to be doing?
Am I being kind to others?
Am I helping other people?
Am I being open minded?
Do I listen deeply to others?
Am I being respected and do I respect others?
Am I working on something creative?
Am I being positive and surrounding myself with positive people?
Am I learning and growing every day?
Am I being challenged?
Am I surrounded by people that challenge me?
Am I enjoying my craft?
Am I being genuine?
Am I enjoying the moment?
Am I being thankful?
Am I happy?

Do any of these resonate with you?

I find it enjoyable to reflect on these things periodically. It’s easy to be “comfortable” with where you’re at or where society thinks you should be doing. We are capable of doing so much more. Helping many more people. Making the world a better place. As I tell my kids, you can do anything with the right amount of passion and hard work.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Comment below or send me a note! Thank you for reading!

-rjm

Five Bullet Review: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (Book)

Fri, 22 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

The Five Bullet Review is a condensed review format in as it states, five bullets

Bullet #1 — The good
Bullet #2 — The bad
Bullet #3 — The ugly
Bullet #4 — The surprising
Bullet #5 — Recommendation

I would definitely categorize myself as an “Apple Fan Boy”. When I was in middle school (circa 1989-1990) I found a dial-in bulletin board system (BBS) that hosted an online stock portfolio game where folks would be given pretend $100,000 to invest in stocks. Well, I put all my pretend $100,000 in Apple at the time because I was just caught up in Steve Jobs and that intersection of technology and the arts. It inspired me to focus on computer science and drove my passion to build great products throughout my career. I’m sure I failed the “balanced portfolio” aspect of the game but I think I would have won the long term return on investment game. Apple stock was priced around $0.30 in 1990. My $100,000 investment in Apple in 1989 would be worth roughly $55 million today. Not bad.

Steve Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011. I remember where I was that day — at my desk running an engineering team for a mobile game studio in San Francisco building some of the first mobile games on the Apple iPhone. I even remember writing a brief blog post when it happened.

Walter Isaacson’s book Steve Jobs came out soon after on October 24, 2011. The movie based on Walter Isaacson’s book screenplay written by Aaron Sorkin and staring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen and Seth Daniels came out in October 2015. All right on top of each other.

I recently had an opportunity re-read the book and re-watch the movie. Watch on YouTube This review will be about the book, the movie and Steve.

The good — the book is very well written and very detailed. It’s a very long but reads very fast. Steve’s personality is so complex. He followed his heart and worked his ass off. His perseverance through adversity is amazing to witness. The setbacks are part of our journey and I think we’re all too easy to give up when it gets hard.
The bad — the movie was entertaining but felt forced in some places. It’s hard to believe the entire movie happened at three product launch events. The book was much better.
The ugly — its interesting to think what would have happened if Steve Jobs didn’t die. I bet there would have been many more years of innovation left in him.
The surprising — Steve Jobs is no Jesus. His personality had its imperfections and those imperfections likely helped drive him towards the success he became. Also, it’s amazing to me how detailed Steve got into the development of new products. His name is on over 458 patents.
Recommendation — If you are even a little bit an Apple fan or enjoy a story of the persistence, you will enjoy this book. I highly recommend it.

Bonus: If you have a moment, rewatch Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl advertisement, Apple’s Think Different advertisement and his commencement speech at Stanford University. Very enjoyable. I re-watched his commencement speech with my daughter. Watch on YouTube Leave a comment. Thank you for reading!

-rjm

Surviving a Stroke: Returning to Life

Sun, 17 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Hello Friends & Family,

I actually started writing this blog post a couple months back but didn’t enjoy how it was coming together so I started from scratch. Not sure why but maybe because there was still tremendous uncertainty in the entire thing. Well, there is surely less uncertainty now but I’ll save that for the end. For those of you not following along at home, I had a stroke in November 2021. It opened my eyes to the value of life we too often take for granted and how awesome the web of people around us are. I’ve been journaling my experience on my blog (Surviving a Stroke, Surviving a Stroke: Recovery) primarily to help raise awareness of the risks of strokes, create empathy for the those working their way through recovery and the hope of maybe making folks aware enough to save a life.

In 2018, 1 in every 6 deaths from cardiovascular disease was due to stroke.
Someone in the United States has a stroke every 40 seconds. Every 4 minutes, someone dies of stroke.
Stroke-related costs in the United States came to nearly $46 billion between 2014 and 2015. This total includes the cost of health care services, medicines to treat stroke, and missed days of work.
Stroke is a leading cause of serious long-term disability. Stroke reduces mobility in more than half of stroke survivors age 65 and over.

[Reference: https://www.cdc.gov/stroke/facts.htm]

It has now been roughly 6 months since I was flying over my favorite Utah ski resorts in an Intermountain Life Flight to the Neuro ICO in Murray, Utah. What’s the update?

Finding My Joy

Memento Mori is latin for “remember that you [have to] die’ and a saying that is supposed to remind us of the inevitability of death. It is also a name of a gift shop outside of Disney World’s Haunted Mansion selling death oriented souvenirs. I kid you not. I know what this phrase meant before but I didn’t digest it until recently. There is a fragility to life that feels random. The doctors have told me there was no good reason why I had a stroke and I’m super lucky to have come out basically unscathed. It feels like it just happened.

So, how have I internalized this? I just need to live the best life I can live while I’m here. We all need to find our joy. That surely sounds weird but life is really awesome, we need to enjoy it while we can. The little things that bother us are truly are just little things surrounded by awesome moments we’re too busy to enjoy. Why are we so busy? Who knows. Because we all have attention deficit disorder (ADD) and FOMO. Enjoying the moment has never meant more to me.

A good great friend of mine sent me a text that had me thinking. He texted me about the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory and how I should read the book “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande.

“Being Mortal” is an amazing book. I highly recommend it. It is a doctors journey working through the reality of death with his patients and ultimately with his father. Gawande offers a balanced and thoughtful perspective. In one chapter, he discusses the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory which is a life-span theory of motivation. The theory states that our perception of our own mortality impacts what we are motivated to do. When we are young, we are invincible and invest in long term experiences and relationships. But, as we grow old, we maximize positive emotional experiences and hone in on our friends that make us happy. We become increasingly selective, investing greater resources in emotionally meaningful goals and activities. Those that have life changing health issues early can experience an acceleration of this phenomenon. I can absolutely relate —

I now value my life, my family and my friends with a deeper sense of appreciation
I now value each life experience more deeply
I am more present in the moment
I now carry less stress for the little things that used to really bother me
I now have less patience for bullshit and things that waste my time
I now smile and laugh more
I now give bigger hugs
I now have a desire to make a broader impact beyond just me

That all sounds like metaphysical transformation crap but its all true.

I’ll note that my path through my stroke pales in comparison to others. I joined several stroke support groups on Facebook and I was humbled. Humbled by the journey of recovery people were going through. I am grateful for my recovery and support I had throughout. Folks would post things like “Strokes are worse than death. Wish it had taken me.” and “My life died when I had my stroke”. Absolutely no joke. These are real people with real challenges. I really want to help them all in some way.

Work

I went back to work in January 2022 after the holidays. I needed every minute of the time off but felt ready enough to get back into the flow. It definitely felt a little weird getting back in my routine but I was back in the groove in no time. It was great to get back to my team and help them however I could. But, there were many moments of reflection on the true meaning of work in the bigger picture. My wife diagnosed me as a workaholic a long time ago. I really enjoy work. I care deeply about my team but realize there is so much more to life. 20+ years in Silicon Valley will skew you to think that work is everything. It’s something for sure. But its not everything.

Here are some other observations I had about work —

Everything keeps going without you. You might think you are the most important thing at work but folks figure things out.
I needed to create a new leadership framework and style. I wanted to take he opportunity to develop a new gear in my leadership style that would be good for me and my teams. The same level of drive and motivation with less wear on me and more empowerment to my leaders. This is still a work in progress but I’m getting there.
Snoozing alerts is heaven. You actually don’t need to listen to every alert that comes at you and to be honest, its bad for your brain.

Working Out

I usually start my week Monday morning by going to 5:15am CrossFit at Park City Fit. I try to go 3-4 times a week when its not ski season. It was just something that I built into my routine many years ago and helps me start my week with structure and discipline. I feel lethargic when I don’t go. My doctors cleared me to get back into the box but asked me to modify my workouts so that not to put pressure on my brain. Well, I was modifying my workouts well before my stroke so there wasn’t anything to worry about there. Haha.

That first Monday back to work, I got up at 4:30am like I usually do. Got dressed. Made a cup of coffee. Jumped into the car and I was off. I turned on the music and the most perfect song came on, So Damn Lucky by the Dave Matthews Band. Dave Matthews said at a show at Radio City Music Hall —

“This is a song about where you’re about to trip and fall and smash your face but everything slows down to the point where you comprehend you’re gonna get hurt but it’s not enough time to do anything about it. And this song is about how not to forget about counting your blessings.” Watch on YouTube Consider this my soundtrack for this blog post.

CrossFit has always been about community to me. Great people. Suffering together. It was so great seeing familiar faces again. I modified all the workouts that week significantly and it didn’t matter. It felt so great to be getting back into my routine.

Monday	Wednesday	Friday
Intervals For Time: 40 Dumbbell Snatch (50/35) 30 Box Jump (24/20) 150 Double Under -8 min Cap -Rest 2 min- 30 Box Jump (24/20) 40 Dumbbell Snatch (50/35) 150 Double Under -8 min Cap -Rest 2 min 150 Double Under 30 Box Jump (24/20) 40 Dumbbell Snatch (50/35) -8 min Cap	For Time: 50 Clean & Jerk (185/125) 75 Toes to Bar -Complete in any order you like to accomplish the work Goal: Sub 20 min	CrossFit Open 13.4 AMRAP 7 min 3 Clean & Jerk (135/95) 3 Toes-to-bar 6 Clean & Jerk 6 Toes-to-bar 9 Clean & Jerk 9 Toes-to-bar 12 Clean & Jerk 12 Toes-to-bar 15 Clean & Jerk 15 Toes-to-bar 18 Clean & Jerk 18 Toes-to-bar…

Sport

Am I still skiing? Hell yes. The doctors cleared me for light skiing in January but asked that I keep it tame. I’ve not been a high adrenaline, high risk skier anyway so that wasn’t going to be that hard. I didn’t start skiing until I was 15 so a beginner compared to the winter sport talent in Park City, Utah. I spend most of the winter at Park City Mountain, Deer Valley, Snowbird and Alta getting better at my turns, working the moguls and just getting better at the sport overall. I still love the steeps but I take them more carefully these days. Next year, I’ll take on the challenge of backcountry skiing. There is nothing better than being outside and listening to the quiet of the snow.

As I write this, the ski season is coming to an end, the tourists have left and we are entering the mud season. I’m looking forward to getting the mountain bikes out as soon as the ground dries up a bit.

Looking ahead, my goal is finally start something that I’ve been wanting to do for years — Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I’m not going to let this “health setback” keep me down.

What is the final prognosis?

My neurologist ran me through a bunch of test this past month to help answer why this happened to me. She ordered a battery of blood tests along with full torso, chest and brain scans. They required me to drink a bunch of this super tasty medical berry smoothie. This was a bit of nerve racking experience for me — what if they found something like cancer in one of these scans? That is actually one of potential causes for a stroke. Not sure I was mentally ready to hear that. These test took me hours. I spent a full hour in a MRI tube listening to the Grateful Dead — alone with my thoughts and just looking into a mirror at my feet.

The test results started to come in. The good news is that almost all of the test came back clear and then there was this magical prognosis that came from my MRI —

IMPRESSION:
1.Patent dural venous sinuses without residual thrombus.
2.No acute intracranial hemorrhage.

The blood clot had fully healed and my brain was 100%. Woo-hoo!

The bad news, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to know why this happened to me. This would normally really bother me but whatever, time to live life.

How am I feeling?

I’m feeling 100%. I need to lose the “stroke 10 pounds’ as I like to call them. I sort of started eating like crap because I said to myself, hell ya I’m going to eat some cake and ice cream tonight. I almost died!

The best news, I can blame my stroke for just about anything.

“Sorry, doctor said I can’t do the laundry. I had a stroke.”
“How could I possibly miss going to see my Yankees in the Bronx with my friends? I had a stroke!”
“Is it really our anniversary? The stroke must have made me forget.”

(Kidding)

What is ahead?

First and foremost, save the date October 29, 2022 is National Stroke Awareness Day. I’ll be running a fundraiser on that day to benefit other stroke victims and remind folks strokes are real and every second counts.

Everything else — I’m not sure yet. I’m still digesting it all. Stay tuned.

As always, thank you for reading and please let me know what you think. And don’t forget to find your joy.

A Midsummer Night's Dream Cast as Utensils

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Hello Friends & Family,

The things we do as parents.

Brooklyn had a project where she had to video record a passage from William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. I have a hard time reading English, let alone Old English. And by Old English, I mostly think it’s an under appreciated, budget drink.

Brooklyn was director, producer, creative director, props and played the role of Hermia. I was camera man and played the role of Lysander. Sarah was Helena. It was cute. The outtakes are hilarious. That will make it into the bonus material when we get financing to do the entire play.

Life is about the little things. Enjoy them.

Watch on YouTube

Five Bullet Review: Dune by Frank Herbert (book)

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Hello Friends & Family,

I’m generally a heavy research guy when I buy things. I get excited digging in deep about a new area, topic or product. It annoys the heck out of Sarah because she would prefer I “just pick something” rather than spend weeks and months learning about every corner case or limitation. However, I can get annoyed by the overly exhaustive reviews or long videos about things. Sometimes I just need the TL;DR . So, I’m inventing the wildly innovative “Five Bullet Review” (sarcasm) — a short form review of well, anything.

Bullet #1 — The good
Bullet #2 — The bad
Bullet #3 — The ugly
Bullet #4 — The surprising
Bullet #5 — Recommendation

Feels straight forward, right? And it’s ode to a classic Clint Eastwood film.

So, what should I review? I have no idea but I thought I would start simple and review Dune by Frank Herbert which I recently read and listened to the Audible audio book during my time off. Widely considered one of the top ten science fiction books of all time.

Dune is set in the distant future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which various noble houses control planetary fiefs. It tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose family accepts the stewardship of the planet Arrakis. While the planet is an inhospitable and sparsely populated desert wasteland, it is the only source of melange, or “spice”, a drug that extends life and enhances mental abilities. Melange is also necessary for space navigation, which requires a kind of multidimensional awareness and foresight that only the drug provides. As melange can only be produced on Arrakis, control of the planet is a coveted and dangerous undertaking. The story explores the multilayered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, as the factions of the empire confront each other in a struggle for the control of Arrakis and its spice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune\_(novel)

So, what did I think?

The good — Lived up to the hype. Well written. Fantastic character development. Deep world building.
The bad — Don’t listen to the Audible audio book. “A” for effort but it got confusing as hell. They had multiple readers reading different characters in different voices with different special effects. The voices would change and you ask yourself, who the heck is that? And why does that guy sound like Darth Vader?
The ugly — Wow, the 1984 movie adaptation of Dune was a mess. It was such a terrible movie that it turned me off to reading the book. Thank goodness the most recent adaptation by Denis Villeneuve is spectacular. Watch on YouTube Watch on YouTube
The surprising — surprisingly fast read because there is plenty of action. Some science fiction can get into annoyingly deep detail on things but in this case, Herbert did a good job keeping the story moving.
Recommendation — if you like science fiction, you need to read Dune. If you don’t, some of the world building might bore you but I still think it’s worth the read.

Well, here’s to some more interesting reviews in the future.

Let me know what you think. Thank you for reading!

Goodbye 2021, Hello 2022

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

Hello Friends and Family,

Alas, 2021 is coming to an end and a new year is upon us. What is the best way for me to summarize 2021? It sort of reminded me a baby having a surprise blowout on the changing room table and leaving a “fecal Jackson Poll o ck” on the wall. You look at it and can’t help but share a smile because well, there is shit all over the wall. Will the wall be the same again? Do I need to paint over it? 2021 was full of surprises. Ridiculous moments. WTF moments. All you could say is “wow, that is a lot of shit on the wall.”

Let’s take a moment to reflect back on some of these ridiculous events from from 2021 —

Global Pandemic Year #2 [Timeline] — at least we stopped washing our Wheat Thin boxes
Capitol Riots — sure, let’s throw a party at Capitol and everyone is invited! Except the people working there.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan — my assumption is that they grabbed the wrong plan on the way out the door, the plan marked “Don’t do this plan”.
Betty White’s passing — A true comedic gem. My favorite Dusty Muffin. Watch on YouTube Wow. Pass the toilet paper.

Well, there were other things as well. The technology behind the mRNA vaccines is absolutely amazing. Our advancement in space travel and space exploration is pressing in high gear. Despite the pandemic, the Summer Olympics in Tokyo carried on even though I can honestly say I can’t remember many moments from the games. Facebook changed their name to distract us from their own blowout moment. Tesla sold 936,172 cars last year which feels like a lot of electric cars. More 5G rolled out and it felt exactly like what we had before. Unless you were in finance, you got more acquainted with the spot in your home where you work. You likely bought a plant for your desk.

Whew.

For the Mascardo family, we had a really good year all things considered. It wasn’t without its up and downs but I tend to look at things as a glass is half full. You have to these days. We got to experience our first complete year in Park City, Utah and it was amazing. Our new friends are amazing and I would say we have strengthened our friendships with the folks we cared the most about everywhere else. The outdoors and the seasons are just amazing. I’ve developed a new found appreciation for the serenity of the outdoors. Here are some of my blog posts on this topic —

There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #1) –> Why did we decide to leave?
There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #2) –> Why did we pick Park City, Utah?
There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #3) –> 6-month check-in.
There is Life Outside the Bay Area (Part #4) —> 15-month check-in.

The girls had spectacular school and sports years. Sarah and I had great experiences with our jobs. And, we’ve been pecking away at our home renovation projects all year long.

Oh yeah, I had a stroke.

So, what do I think 2022 will bring us?

COVID mutation rinse and repeat
Inflation is here to stay for goods and labor.
Working remote is here to stay for at least another year. Time to buy another plant.
Electric Vehicles continue to take hold with companies not Tesla gaining adoption
Further early adoption of augmented reality and virtual reality products with Apple releasing their offering in the space.
Further early adoption/disruption with DeFi / DAO / crypto / NFT
More cyber security shenanigans
Unfortunately, the Yankees won’t win the World Series (again)

All things considered, nothing to complain about and many more things to be grateful for. So many things. I’m hopeful for a very positive 2022. But, if its another “blowout” year like 2021, I’ll still find the things to be grateful for.

Enjoy some photos below from the past year.

Happy New Year to you and your family! Thank you for reading! Like or comment below!

Surviving a Stroke: Recovery

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Hello, Friends and Family,

Life can feel full of setbacks. All very random and of varying degrees. Not sure I would have predicted having a stroke in 2021 but it happened. Setbacks can also be opportunities given the proper perspective. Back when I was looking for my first job out of college, I was denied a job with a technology consulting company in the Washington D.C. area mostly because of a technicality in my application. At the time, I was crushed mostly because I was still learning that “setbacks” were ok. But soon after I got that rejection letter, I got invited to join a weekend of interviewing at a technology firm in San Francisco to which I accepted a job, found a group of amazingly smart technology friends that I am still friends today and of course, met my wife and mother of the my two beautiful girls. That rejection changed my life trajectory forever. Opportunity.

Setbacks are opportunities. Opportunity for an alternate path. Opportunity for growth. Opportunity for learning. Opportunity for motivation. Opportunity for drive. Opportunity for focus. Opportunity for humility. Opportunity for empathy.

And what gets you through the setbacks? Perspective and hard work.

My goal is to come back 125% from this stroke and use this moment as an opportunity for positive change. My recovery has been going very well. Recovering from anything brain related is a new experience for me. I have never had an head injury before. The brain seems to recover differently than other area of the body. It needs rest, sleep, hydration, proper stimulation and all with the proper amount of time. Through this process I’ve really wanted to test aspects of my brain like a program running self diagnostics on itself to see how things are “coming back online”. How are my gross motor skills? How are my fine motor skills? How is my long term memory? How is my short terms memory? How is my cognitive thinking? How are my emotions? How are my behaviors? Has anything changed?

In the hospital, I took the NIH Stroke Scale Assessment and a variation of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test numerous times. One of the questions on the cognitive assessment test is being given 5 random words, committing them to memory and recalling them 5-10 minutes later. This test was popularized when President Donald Trump said he “passed this test with flying colors” — his five words were “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV” and they ended up being an internet sensation. Watch on YouTube My words were “Apple, Pen, Tie, Car, House”. I’ll never forget those words now. As Sarah will tell you, I sometimes have a problem being “present in the moment” because we’re all self diagnosed with some form of attention deficit disorder (ADD) and then blame social media. Well, at the time I was so paranoid about the test that I literally burned those words into my brain. Now, I will remember them forever. At home, I find myself easing into physical and mental acuity drills just to see how sharp I am. Secretly, I wonder if the new found brain blood circulation will unlock new comic book like brain super powers! Nope. That has not happened. (yet)

While at the hospital I was provided these cool orange socks with “grippy” material at the bottom of them — clearly to prevent recreation of Tom Cruise’s scene from Risky Business. Random unverified fact from the internet is that the sock colors you are given mean something. Feels super logical but I’m not sure if its true.

Red socks indicate allergies; orange means the patient is a potential flight risk, and purple signals “do not resuscitate.” Like a neon sign, the socks are bright cues to all hospital staff. It’s the yellow socks that scream the loudest, demanding the most attention. Patients wearing yellow socks have been identified as being most at risk of falling. And falls can easily lead to broken bones, head injuries, longer stays in the hospital, increased costs and liability, and in the most severe cases, death.

[Reference]

The orange socks meant that I was a flight risk! Marked like Andy Dufresne from Shawshank Redemption. Rest assured, I wasn’t planning to break out of my stay there.

Being discharged was a glorious moment. I appreciated every moment of my time in the hospital but it was time to go home. My dad (who is an Endocrinologist) had warned me that patients can experience a “high” leaving the hospital but that will come down and may even experience a setback in their recovery when they get home. He said to take it easy and not to jump back into things quickly. Wise words. I went home that day feeling great but then I actually fell down two stairs after everyone had gone to bed. I jumped up and laughed thinking to myself, “Whoa, it’s like I had a stroke or something.” It was at that moment that realized I probably needed the time to heal and this was a very different injury that I had experienced before. I should have had my yellow socks on. They would have protected me.

Now, for some thanks. Holy smokes the support was overwhelming. Sarah was at my side all day long. We joked it was the most dedicated time we spent without the kids in a long time! Our new friends in Park City sent so much food and support. All of our friends and family filled my phone with messages of support and offers to help. My CEO and co-workers just told me to relax and heal. That part was very hard for me as a chronic workaholic but I needed all the healing time I think. My old CrossFit box sent me a box of messages! I couldn’t ask for anything more from my people. Sarah and I are so grateful.

So, what am I doing during my downtime. Finally got the time to read Frank Herber’s Dune. I’m a huge sci-fi fan and this had been in my reading list for a long time. It did not disappoint and neither did the new movie for that matter.

“The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”

― Frank Herbert, Dune

Our dog is getting lots of walking. I’m easing myself into physical activity again. I was scheduled to do a half-marathon in January but that probably isn’t going to happen. I’ll be getting back at Park City Fit in January on a modified workout regimen. The days of super heavy lifting is probably limited these days but my CrossFit friends would probably say I never lifted heavy anyway. Haha.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time trying to work my way through our medical system. It seems that acute symptoms get immediate attention but those with moderate symptoms can get lost in the shuffle. It took me close to a month to get a referral from one medical organization to another accepted and a doctor appointment scheduled. It involved dozens of phone calls and offering to purchase a new fax machine that was involved in the process. Yes, there is one actual fax machine that accepts all the referrals and it was broken for days. I’m grateful for the medical system we have but there are aspects that ripe for innovation — and by innovation I mean stop using a friggin’ fax machine from 1985. However, the bills got to me like butter on a hot piece of toast.

Checking … Apple, Pen, Tie, Car, House … yup, still ok.

Few things I’m keeping an eye out on —

I’m keeping an eye out on is being hit by another stroke. I have a much higher likelihood of having another stroke within the first three months of had one.
How the heck did this happen to me? The doctors might never know.

You might be asking yourself why am I being so open about having a stroke? Well, I really do think that stroke awareness is a real thing. I really didn’t know much about strokes before this or what to do when they happened. I just got lucky. Folks need to know that strokes can happen to anyone, anytime and anywhere. Folks needs to know the symptoms and what to do when it happens.

The other thing I’m committing to is raising and donating $10,000 to stroke research and awareness in 2022. I’m not sure how yet because I want to find the right charity. It might be that I start my own non-profit in 2022 that is focused on this but that will be for a future blog post. Stay tuned.

I truly believe Sarah, my dad, my response and medical staff saved me from long term damage or even saved my life all together. Will never forget Sarah telling, “Call your dad, you might be having a stroke.”

Do I think being so open about having a stroke might impact if folks might look at me differently or my employability? Whatever, if I can help one person be more aware of strokes then its worth it. Don’t hire or invest in me. You’ll regret it. #125percent

Hope you found my post interesting! Comment or reach out!

Surviving a Stroke

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Yup, I had a stroke. Seriously.

First, let me take a step back. About ten years ago, I was about 60 pounds overweight and horribly out of shape. I told myself that I wanted to be alive for when my girls got married so I went on this big health kick. I started CrossFit, cut out carbs, cut back my drinking and just started being more healthy. It worked. I lost a ton of weight and was in the best shape of my life. Fast forward today, I consider myself a healthy person.

CrossFit 2-3 times a week
Jog 2-3 times a week
Training for a half marathon in January
Avid skier (35+ days last season)
New mountain biker
Lots of hikes and walks
Low blood pressure
Low cholesterol

But, it didn’t matter. I still had a stroke. Lesson learned, life is random as fuck.

It all started out one Saturday morning in November. I woke up like a normal Saturday but for some reason I had a peculiar headache. A headache that just felt different. So much so that I told Sarah, “Honey, I have a strange headache”. Other than the passing observation, I didn’t think much of it. I popped two Aleve and headed to CrossFit for my usual Saturday WOD. It was a partner WOD and I ended up working out with a trainer visiting from Montana. Super cool dude. Not a noticeably hard workout but I had been pulling back heavier weights because of strain on my back and joints ahead of the ski season.

Sunday. I spend most of the day raking leaves in the yard and taking care of odds and ends. That evening after we came back home from dinner I crouched down to tie my shoe and my left leg started to feel weird when I got up. I’m pretty sure whatever was happening to my brain had started that weekend. I just went to bed thinking I had pushed myself too hard with the yard work all day.

Monday morning — I was supposed to go to the 5:15am CrossFit WOD like I usually do but I slept right through my alarm. That’s was odd. I got up a little later and reached for my phone like I usually do to check on things at work — my right hand and arm just didn’t feel right. I could not scroll through notifications or type normally. I kept having to shake my arm out thinking my arm was still asleep. I got up thinking that it was a transitory issue — got the kids to the school bus and walked the dog. I went for a jog afterwards since I didn’t make it to the gym. My right arm felt like it was barely attached appendage on my body. At that point, I knew something was going on. Jumped in the shower and really got concerned when I couldn’t button my pants or put my watch on. I went to reach for a bottle of baby aspirin in the kitchen and could not grip the bottle. I called Sarah and told her something was up. She asked me casually, “Could you be having a stroke?”. How prescient. I called my dad who is a doctor. We ran through some basic stroke questions and recommended that I get to the emergency room as soon as possible. Oh boy, here we go.

Generally speaking, I tend to be a cool person during a crisis. I have had to deal with that a lot as part of my job. So, I was staying cool and could feel the adrenaline start to flow. It was 9:30am at this point and I have a work meeting with my Vice Presidents to get the week going. I jumped on the Zoom just to tell them that I was headed to the emergency room — I was shaking my right arm trying to get some feeling back. Trying to click on my touch pad was like my arm was replaced with a whiffle ball bat. I just didn’t have any control of it. I told my staff and they immediately told me get off the Zoom and get going. My team at work is the best and have been the best since I’ve been going through this. More specifically, my CEO at work has been absolutely amazing through this. Probably one of the best CEO’s I’ve had the opportunity to work for.

Ok, bad decision time. I went upstairs to grab my shoes. I couldn’t tie my shoes so I tucked my laces into my socks. Rather than call 911, I jumped into my car and drove myself to the hospital. Dumb. I should have called for an ambulance. I didn’t have enough control in my right arm to effectively use the touch screen properly. In my head, if something bad happened, I would hit the autopilot button and the car would take me to the rest of the way and maybe I would be some poster boy for autonomous driving. Haha. Dumb. But I did have enough control to find some Christmas music to play while I drove. So, there I was cruising down the highway driving with my left arm, listening to Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”, shoe laces tucked into my socks like a homeless man and having a stroke. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself that this is ridiculous. Listen on Spotify I made it the Park City Hospital Emergency Room. Hazzah! This part becomes a bit of blur because it went from listening to “White Christmas” to turbo mode. I checked myself in and sat down for 1.5 seconds before a group of health care workers came out to help me. At that point, I was dropping things all over the place because I instinctively hand things to my right hand that effectively stopped working. I was whisked into the emergency room and I could hear the head nurse say “Move it. We have a stroke.”. She noticed that I heard her and said to me, “Don’t worry. That is just to get people moving.”

Then, a full battery of tests — blood pressure, temperature, IV, CAT scan #1, CAT scan #2 with some die that almost made me pee my pants, MRI #1, CAT scan #3, blood, more blood, COVID test, and even more blood.

Long story short, they found a blood clot on the top of my head and bleeding. Well, that earned me a ticket on the life flight helicopter to the primary Neurological ICU. It got super real at that point. Sarah looked at me and asked me if I wanted to leave a message for the girls. I’ve never had any brain trauma before so my thoughts went to all the scary stories I’ve read on brain surgery or stroke treatment.

The helicopter took 8 minutes to get to Park City and it was a quick 8 minute flight over Park City Mountain to get to its destination. The Canyons side of Park City Mountain has a lift called the “Orange Bubble Express” that I easily identifiable because each chair has an orange shield that riders can pull down on windy days. It connects the main resort to some epic trails that Brooklyn and I spent a ton of time last season skiing. The helicopter flew right over the Orange Bubble Express — so low it felt like I could touch the peaks. I thought to myself, “well, those were good times”. I won’t lie, the fragility of my own mortality became very real at that point.

Watch on YouTube I spent a little less than a week at the hospital with most of that time in the Neurological ICU with the most amazing medical professionals. I am so grateful for all of them and the care they provided me. I owe my life to them. Sarah was at my side through it all. Both sets of parents flew in to provide support. Our new Park City Community provided dinners and support. The messages from friends and family. All the soup! It was amazing. I am truly grateful for it all.

My doctor told me that I hit the lottery twice. The first was having this type of stroke at my age. This type of stroke impacts only 3 out of 1,000,000. The second was making my way out of the stroke with likely no long term damage. I’m more grateful for the later. Haha. My prognosis is for a full recovery and I’m taking the time now to heal. The brain needs to heal in ways I’ve never really realized.

So, what higher level observations through all of this?

Life is short. Life is fragile. Find your joy.
I’ve gained a deep level of Perspective and gratitude. It’s good to be alive.
Know the signs of a stroke and go immediately to the hospital.
Don’t drive yourself to the emergency room regardless if your car can drive you there on its own.
Listen to Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” during stressful times.

I’m so grateful for my journey through this that I’m going to donate and raise money for the American Stroke Association (a subsidiary of the American Heart Association). Stay tuned for the GoFundMe. I’m also going to see what other creative things I can do to educate of strokes and help those that have had one. Did you know —

In 2018, 1 in every 6 deaths from cardiovascular disease was due to stroke.1
Someone in the United States has a stroke every 40 seconds. Every 4 minutes, someone dies of stroke.2
Every year, more than 795,000 people in the United States have a stroke. About 610,000 of these are first or new strokes.2
About 185,000 strokes—nearly 1 of 4—are in people who have had a previous stroke.2
About 87% of all strokes are ischemic strokes, in which blood flow to the brain is blocked.2
Stroke-related costs in the United States came to nearly $46 billion between 2014 and 2015.2 This total includes the cost of health care services, medicines to treat stroke, and missed days of work.
Stroke is a leading cause of serious long-term disability.2 Stroke reduces mobility in more than half of stroke survivors age 65 and over.2
[reference link]

I’ll provide a follow up post with my recovery. I can’t think of a better place to heal and reflect than Park City, Utah — for a resurgence going into the second half of my life living life at 1000%!

Thank you all for the support. Onward and upward!

“Get busy living or get busy dying.” — Stephen King

Coming Soon: Ski Season 2021-2022

Sat, 30 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Fall is upon us here in Park City, Utah. We’re in the middle of “first winter” — where it snows early and those new to the area freak out. It is followed by “second fall” where the snow melts fast and it feels like fall again. Followed by “second winter” which last until March. We got a wet, heavy snow a few weeks back that resulted in a tree from my property falling on my neighbors house. That was fun. The snow has since melted and mother nature has been recently toying with some more snow but it’s not really sticking.

Last year was fantastic season on the mountain for the family. I was able to get 36 days on the mountain, almost entirely at Park City Mountain. I’d normally be happy with 10-15 ski days when I was living in California or New York/Connecticut. We only committed to the EPIC pass last year. It was hard not to want to keep hitting the largest mountain in the United States and the second largest ski resort in North America behind Whistler Blackcomb. Park City Mountain is gigantic. The terrain is super cool. We were exploring new trails all winter long. Brooklyn got more than 45 days on the mountain! She’s been really enjoying learning the all-mountain terrain with Park City Ski & Snowboard (PCSS) where they did their lessons at Utah Olympic Park.

This year we are approaching things slightly different — the family got the EPIC & IKON base passes this year and we’re hoping to hit a wider variety of mountains. The local, blackout and kids versions of the passes are solid discounts over normal adult pricing so it’s not as bad as it sounds. And we tend not to go to the mountain when it’s super packed anyway. It pays to be a local. The EPIC and IKON passes provide solid coverage across most of the best mountains around this area. Some folks in Park City can get super crazy — they get the EPIC and a dedicated mountain pass where they get the IKON pass as an add on. For example, EPIC plus Deer Valley Season Pass and then add on the IKON. That would be for the true Deer Valley lover. For those coming to visit, I highly recommend evaluating the various cross mountain passes because the day passes are outrageously priced. Hit a week in Utah plus your local mountain and your pass is paid off.

Mountain Collective, Yeti Pass, Reciprocal Pass and the Indy Pass are the other multi mountain ski passes with coverage in Utah. All are unique with they pros and cons.

Resort	Opening (estimated)	Distance From Home	Ski Pass
Alta Ski Area [map]	11/20/2021	33.6 miles	IKON, Mountain Collective
Beaver Mountain [map]	TBD	134 miles	Indy Pass
Brighton Resort [map]	11/20/2021	36.4 miles	IKON
Deer Valley Resort [map]	12/4/2021	12 miles	IKON
Park City Mountain [map]	11/19/2021	10.2 miles	EPIC
Park City Mountain (Canyons)	11/19/2021	7.5 miles	EPIC
Powder Mountain [map]	TBD	76.4 miles	Indy Pass
Snow Basin Resort [map]	11/24/2021	61.4 miles	EPIC
Snowbird [map]	12/1/2021	32.5 miles	IKON, Mountain Collective
Solitude [map]	11/19/2021	34.5 miles	IKON
Sundance Resort [map]	12/10/2021	41.2 miles
Woodward Park City [map]	11/19/2021	2.4 miles

** Resorts in bold are higher priority for us to visit this year

It will be interesting to see what happens with COVID this coming ski season. EPIC Pass run by Vail Resorts published this in terms of COVID restrictions for the 2021-22 season. The two most notable items is no reservation system and masked only required indoors. I’m excited not having to worry about reservations and not wearing a masks outside.

In terms of gear, last year I upgraded my 20+ year old battle skis to entirely new gear — Salomon QST 92 and Salomon S/PRO 100’s. Huge upgrade from my old Solomon Pilots that were so old that they little “shock absorbers” were leaking. Haha. The new skis are shorter and wider on foot and a modern day design compared to my old skis. The QST 92’s have decent float on powder but I might look out for a wider powder ski later down the line. For now, these are a great all mountain skis.

Finally, I just wanted to pay my respects to “the Farmer” who was a staple at Alta. I didn’t know him at all but appreciated his passion for the basics joys in life.

Here’s to a great 2021-22 ski season! #prayForSnow

Congratulations Waterford Women's Soccer Team for Girls 2A State Championship

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to the Waterford Women’s Soccer Team for their 2A State Championship win against Rowland Hall at Rio Tinto Stadium. Molly is the starting midfielder on the team and is surrounded by a super talented set of players. I’m super proud of Molly and the entire team for battling against a team they lost two regular season games against. Sarah and I have always said that we want our kids to #1 have a passion for something and #2 realize the value of consistent hard work towards their passion. Success will happen over time if they have those two things in place. Molly has found the passion and is one heck of a hard working kid.

Here are some articles on the lead up and championship game —

High school soccer: Waterford and Rowland Hall renew rivalry following convincing semifinal victories [link]
High school girls soccer: Seven Castain scores four goals in Waterford’s 2A championship game victory [link]
Waterford beats Rowland Hall 4-3 to claim girls’ 2A soccer title [link]

Watch on YouTube Waterford vs Rowland Hall 2A Girls Championship Game Walk In Watch on YouTube Waterford vs Rowland Hall 2A Girls Championship Game Introductions Watch on YouTube Waterford vs Rowland Hall 2A Girls Championship Game Closing Seconds

Phish @ Chase Center (San Francisco, California)

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Live Music is Life. It’s one of the biggest things I missed when the world shutdown because COVID. There is something about watching musicians who have spent tireless hours being good at one instrument and and then even more tireless hours working with other musicians to form a band. I’ve been a Phish Phan for years … too many years. I wouldn’t consider myself a “super fan” only because some of my friends are absolute super fans. They know every note, riff, tease and can call out show openers like a modern day Nostradamus. Thats not me. I just enjoy their groove and have an appreciation for their masterful musicianship.

The 10/16/2021 and 10/17/2021 shows in San Francisco, California were rescheduled from COVID canceled shows previously set for 7/25/2020 and 7/26/2020. When the tickets went on sale my family and I still lived in the Bay Area and the idea of moving was just an idea. I had put in my “mail order” request for the shows in San Francisco and at the Gorge back in February 2020 and had completely forgot about them — one month before California closed. Well, we moved to Park City and surprise, I got an email that I had tickets on the way to my old house in California — haha. I even had to email them and ask them “what shows did I purchase?”.

I ended up selling all of my tickets online but serendipitously found myself traveling to the Bay Area for work and decided to meet my friend at the Sunday 10/17/2021 show at the Chase Center in San Francisco — the new home of the Golden State Warriors. First, it was so amazing to see my buddy who I had not seen in years — second, the show was amazing. The setlist was solid. The energy was high. The groove was groovy. The light show was off the charts.

10/17/2021 Phish @ Chase Center Setlist

Set 1: Bug, My Soul > Back on the Train, Maze, Steam, Destiny Unbound, Beauty of a Broken Heart, Reba, I Never Needed You Like This Before
Set 2: Evolve, Set Your Soul Free, Wingsuit > Chalk Dust Torture
Encore: Lawn Boy, Wolfman’s Brother

Steam contained a Dave’s Energy Guide tease. Chalk Dust Torture included a Wingsuit tease. This was the rescheduled date from the show that had been postponed due to the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.
[Reference: Phish.net]

Unfortunately, I woke up the next morning to a slew of text messages about how the Phish message boards were a fire with discussion of a “death” at the show. I didn’t notice anything that night other than a section across from us was empty but pointed it out to one of my friends that it was weird. The news would not pick it up until later that day — two individuals fell/jumped/not sure from the upper balcony to the lower level — one of those individuals died. Very sad.

1 Dead, 2 Hurt After Apparent Falls During Phish Concert at Chase Center [NBC Bay Area]
Fans at S.F. Phish concert recount horror as man died at Chase Center [The SF Chronicle]
SF Police update cause of death of Phish fan at Chase Center [The Mercury News]

I can’t say too surprising though. The combination of raucous dancing, the steep balconies, low glass railings and likely drug use is a deadly combination. I had the opportunity to see the third concert at the Chase Center which was Dave Matthews Band back in 2019. It was my first time in the brand new building and my first reaction was how steep the balcony was an how oddly low the railings are. I’m sure they will make some changes after this incident. Trey said a few choice words about it at the next Phish show in Eugene, Oregon. The Phish community is small so it was a bit rattling. My condolences go out to the friends and family involved with the deceased.

So, even through it was a Great show. Great vibe. Great performance. The cloud of the death will hang over that show.

There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #4)

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Hello, Friends and Family!

Alas, the last installment of “There is Life Outside of the Bay Area” series of blog posts journaling my family move from Danville, California to the mountain town of Park City, Utah.

There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #1) —> Why did we decide to leave?
There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #2) —> Why did you pick Park City, Utah?
There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #3) —> 6-month check in.

And now the next check in! The family and I have reached another milestone — we’ve now been living in Park City, Utah for 15 months! Holy smokes. It feels like we’ve been here for longer — the time has flown by. Park City feels like our little mountain town. My family loves it here and we have not really looked back. We have met the nicest people in our neighborhood, community and school. Mountain living is definitely full of adventure and creates a sense of peace that is hard to explain. Looking back, the original hypothesis on the move was that the family needed a “change in gear” that would provide adventure and a lifestyle improvement. TLDR; We feel really good about our move to Park City. No regrets.

I decided to throw together a list of things we got right and those that we got wrong through our move. Consider it a mini-retrospective in software development process speak.

Things that went right —

We made the right decision to move. Staying in California was “comfortable” and we found something different someplace else. It was not easy but worth the work.
We picked the right place to move. Park City is a super unique mountain town. Small enough to still feel like a mountain town but 30 minutes from Salt Lake City and a major airport. Plus, this town has the best skiing, hiking, mountain biking in North America.
We picked the right neighborhood — lots of families, away from the touristy Park City downtown and closer to Salt Lake City.
We picked the right house at the time. Housing inventory felt like it completely bottom’ed out after we found our house. I think our time here would have been very different if we were in a rental.
We picked the right school for the girls. They are thriving there.
We guessed right that things are more accessible in Utah as compared to California. There is lots to do in California but we found it challenging to do those things because it was just far enough or just enough traffic or just too many people. There is less of that here in Utah.
We underestimated the wildlife — its amazing. There is a nice family of moose that visit from time to time to watch sports on our TV.

Things that went wrong —

We didn’t anticipate number of tourists in Park City. Wow, every other car is from another state here and from all over the United States. There are only supposed to be ~8580 residents in Park City but it feels much more than that given how many owners have moved into their 2nd homes because of COVID. Keep in mind that Danville, California has ~44,164 residents so it’s still ok.
We didn’t anticipate that the restaurant scene was going to be so bad. We were just pampered by having the best restaurants in the greater Bay Area. Our theory is that that the lowered demand and state restrictions on beer, wine and liquor creates a different sort of business dynamic for restaurants. Oh well, nothing wrong with Panda Express.
We didn’t anticipate how homogenous the population is — skewed white (see below). We were warned but wow, its true. That being said, Danville California was generally a white community as well but there is a significantly higher Asian community — 3x more Asians in Danville. What does that mean … more Panda Express.

We didn’t anticipate the raising cost in labor, commodities and how the construction labor market is just different here. The home we bought needed some renovations and finding the labor to do that work at a reasonable rate was harder and more expensive than we thought.
We underestimated how cool Salt Lake City is as a city. So many fun things to do.
We underestimated the proximity of University of Utah and BYU. Very cool schools with great sports programs.

So, will we be here in Utah for the rest of our lives? I’m not sure about that. My recent trip to Boston, Massachusetts to visit colleges with Molly reminded me that there are still some very cool cities on the east coast. I think Park City will always be our mountain town for sure and is going to be a fantastic chapter for us until the kids go to college.

Overall, if you want to try something new — take a chance. You only live once.

Thank you for reading. Please don’t hesitate to ping me with questions, comments or feedback!

There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #3)

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Hello, Friends and Family!

In previous blog posts I outlined why my family and I decided to leave California and the logic behind choosing Park City, Utah. Now, it’s time for the next installment — how the heck is it going?

I cannot believe that we’re into March 2021. The Mascardo family has now been in Park City, Utah for 6+ months, we’re 2 trimesters into school and there is only a few more weeks of skiing left this winter. Around this time last year, California and most of the world was starting to lock things down — more specifically on March 11, 2020 the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic following weeks of community spread from China to the rest of the world. And on March 16, 2020, the Bay Area went into lock down. I vividly remember the city of Danville, California taking down the basketball hoop rims to prevent gatherings. And, being super excited to have find toilet paper at Costco. And, having conversation with our neighbors about them buying a freeze to store food because they were preparing for a huge run on meat products. These are some of the headlines I screen grabbed during that fateful March in 2020.

What has mountain living been like? I thought it would have been like living in Connecticut because New York/Connecticut got pretty cold and snowy but it has not quite been the same. Coming from Danville, California — clearly totally different, haha.

So far, I’m loving the seasons. We had a generally mild winter — bad for early winter skiing but good for my Californian family to start to get used to the cold and snow. We are all looking forward to the summer and a summer with activities now that the COVID numbers in Utah are looking good.
The snow really is “the greatest snow on earth”. It’s light and fluffy. Easy to shovel. Amazing to ski in.
Downside to all the fluffy snow, it is dry out. More dry than the arid climate of Danville, California. Managing humidity in your house becomes a thing. Places here have central humidifiers but if that humidity gets trapped someplace like in the attic, it can create a very bad moisture situations. Proper air circulation is super important in those cases.
The winter is warmer than I expected here and I think that because its so dry. A wet cold can really feel super cold.
The sun comes out a lot. A storm might roll through but then we’ll get sunny blue skies right behind it. This place is nothing like when we lived in Seattle/Bellevue. There it was “gray” for more than half of the year. Awful.
The altitude has not factored much in our day to day. Our house is at roughly 6600 FT which feels like the perfect altitude for mountain living — anything higher and I think we would have had to deal with it more. Visitors don’t complain about getting altitude sickness.
There are sharp temperature drops at night so you need to watch for things like frozen hose bibs if you keep the external water running. I never had this problem in New York/Connecticut for some reason. You also need to “blow out” the sprinklers at the beginning of the winter or else all those pipes will break.
Snow removal isn’t so bad. Similar to New York/Connecticut but the snow is much lighter. My snow blower is amazing and in those cases when I might be traveling, we have a plow service that is cheaper than what I paid for the minimal yard services in California.

How about the other aspects of life in Park City?

The kids are living their best lives. Utah is generally open. The kids go to school, have made new friends, play their sports, are active with skiing and hiking on the weekends. They have thrived.
The pace of life is slower but it’s easy to take the pace from California and just move it to Utah. Thats what happened to us in the beginning and we are still transitioning out of that mindset.
Work for Sarah and I has generally been as expected because most companies are still remote. Access to other work opportunities has been higher than expected. There is high demand for folks in tech and they don’t care where those folks are based. We have both seen an uptick in interest in our skillset despite living away from Silicon Valley.
Silicon Slopes is definitely a far cry from Silicon Valley but that’s ok. I’m surprised to see all the technology companies having an office in the greater Salt Lake City area.
I am amazed by how many out of state license plates are in town. Just the other day, I was surrounded by cars from Maine, Connecticut, Florida and California. Florida feels super far from Utah for a drive — 2300 miles far. Folks tell me this isn’t normal but I would imagine there are still many visitors here even during a non-COVID year.
Access to legendary skiing has been amazing. I’ll do 35+ ski days this year. Sarah has been doing cross country skiing.
- Park City Mountain Resort —> 10 minutes away
- Deer Valley Resort —> 20 minutes away
- Alta Ski Area —> 45 minutes away
- Snowbird —> 45 minutes away
- Brighton —> 50 minutes away
- Solitude —> 50 minutes away
- Sundance Mountain Resort —> 50 minutes away
- Snowbasin —> 75 minutes away
- Powder Mountain —> 90 minutes away
Restaurant selection is bad especially compared to San Francisco and New York City.
I’ve not really noticed the LDS influence except that Sundays are mostly open because lots of places are closer and they there are no kids activities. That has been amazing.
Park City and Utah is definitely very caucasian. That stereotype if very true.
Pickle ball is a thing there. Folks are really into it.

Do we miss anything specific about living in California? Friends and family for sure. The beach. The food. But, given the California COVID lockdown still in effect — I’d say we didn’t miss much in these 6 months.

So far so good. We’re all looking forward to summer in Park City as the winter season starts to wind down. I’ll provide a 12-month update post-summer when we get there.

Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear your feedback. Please post or share.

Interview with Authority Magazine on Digital Transformations

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Hello, Friends and Family!

I enjoyed my interview with Authority Magazine on the topic of Digital Transformations — here is a link. I have no idea why they used such a large photo of me. It makes my forehead look like its two stories tall but that’s a different problem. It’s amazing to think that at every place I’ve worked, regardless of the size of the company there is always some element of Digital Transformation — it comes in all different shapes and sizes —

Start ups trying to transform an industry
Start ups trying to transform into their next stage of growth
Existing companies trying to transform their existing customers
Existing companies trying to transform themselves into something new
Any size company trying to transform themselves out of technical debt

Digital transformations are a constant for technologists. On that note, technical debt is a constant for all companies. Things are moving so fast there just isn’t any choice. “Transform or die”.

Folks think its just a technology challenge but I’ve found it more about the people than anyone ever imagines. Digital transformations require have the organization doing things its never done before. It can hurt a lot. Many think they want it but don’t realize the cost. Failure is required in the leaning process and most don’t like that.
Here are two of my favored questions & responses from the interview —

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

I could write a book on this topic. I owe so much of my success to my parents. I’m a first-generation immigrant; both my parents were born and raised in the Philippines and were also both doctors. My mom is a Plastic Surgeon, and my dad is an Endocrinologist. They both had successful practices in the greater New York and Connecticut area. They taught me the value of hard work. They would leave the house at 6 am and come back home at 10 pm. Watching them taught me perseverance. We worked through issues because there was no other choice but to get through them. I also learned a sense of perspective. I take nothing for granted and value everything their hard work had afforded me in my career.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I have so many favorite books, but my utmost favorite is Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. It’s the story of Hari Sheldon, a mathematician developing a theory of psycho-history, a new and effective mathematical sociology that allows him to predict the future. When I first read it in high school, it felt so different than anything else that I had read before. When I re-read it as an adult, it felt prescient on topics like artificial intelligence, software, and robotics. Isaac Asimov wrote the first book in 1951. How in the world did he predict some of the things he did? My favorite thing is “zooming out” in search of a broader perspective. The Foundation series forced me to zoom out and think about the holistic impact of building things. Also, it broadened my definition of innovation throughout my career. There exists a level of innovation that does break how we are doing something.

If you missed it, here is a link to the interview. Enjoy the read!

Apple Needs to Buy Sonos

Sat, 16 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Hello, friends and family!

Ok, so let’s take a break and talk about some consumer products. I started writing this post back in April 2020 right around the time I took a stock position in Sonos but never quite finished the post mostly because I was distracted with evaluating a move. At the time, I was re-reading the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham and enamored by value investing.

“Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, ‘Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.’”

Warren Buffet

So, I went out looking around for a companies that I very much “liked”, were sold off and that I wanted to hold for the long term. Thus, Sonos. Sonos has it figured out. I love my Sonos setup in my home and always excited to think what new products or services they are coming out next. Here is my current setup:

Two Sonos Three (since discontinued) for my office
One Sonos Soundbar (original), Sonos Subwoofer and Two Sonos Ones (original) for the basement home theater
One Sonos Move for the kitchen and on the go

I’m very interested in taking advantage of the Sonos Upgrade Program to get some of the new equipment such as the Arc or Beam. Sonos really has their ecosystem figured out —

Sounds great or good enough for me
Easy setup and configuration
Intuitive and effective mobile integration
Seamless integration with all my streaming services including Apple Music, Spotify, Nugs.net, MLB.com.
Central control of every room
High quality and reliable hardware
It just works

The Sonos Move was my latest addition and it travels with me in the backyard or in the garage when I’m working on my Jeep. It’s a bit too big for me to take to the park and use via bluetooth but that’s an option as well. The Sonos product family reminds me of Apple products from a technology and design perspective. It’s probably where the Apple HomePod or the Amazon Echo’s wants to go long term but Sonos owns the wireless home speaker space in my mind. I can’t think of a competitor that is close. The Apple HomePod never really captured my attention but I’m sure its a good product. It will be curious to see how the smart speaker market and the home speaker market come together. Sonos does have a Sonos One with Google Voice and Amazon Alexa integration but the value of Sonos to me is the mesh of high quality audio speakers throughout the home. I own separate, lower cost, lower quality Amazon Echo devices to fill that need. Watch on YouTube On top of all of that, their integrations and services are killer. All my music services — Amazon Music, Apple Music, Audible, MLB.com, SiriusXM, Spotify, LivePhish+, Nugs.net, Calm and TuneIn. Yikes — all of that at the tip of my fingers from any of my home speakers. There is also Sonos Radio / Sonos Radio HD — Sonos Radio is an internet radio service available exclusively on Sonos. It features 60,000 radio stations from around the world, including a curated selection of original stations. With a subscription to Sonos Radio HD, you can access premium features* such as high-definition audio quality, access to more exclusive original content, unlimited skips, and ad-free music. Clearly, Sonos is expanding their ecosystem play.

Watch on YouTube Sonos feels like they are innovating faster than Apple in this specific home theater speaker space. It would strike me as a perfect complement to the Apple eco-system and push Apple ahead of Google and Amazon.
There are others that think this as well as news of such a move pushed the stock up in Nov/Dec 2020. Regardless, I’m a huge fan and stock holder — keep up the good work Sonos.

There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #2)

Sun, 10 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Hello, friends and family!

My previous blog post outlined why my family and I decided to leave California. Now, I will try to answer the second question folks commonly ask me — why did you pick Park City, Utah?

Sarah and I don’t have a tremendous amount of history with Utah or Park City. We are not Mormon. We don’t have family there but I did do several ski trips to Park City in the last decade. On our trips to Wyoming, we would drive through Park City and say to ourselves, “this town looks super cool”. Here is the wikipedia description of Park City, Utah which I actually thought was a pretty good description —

Park City is a city in Summit County, Utah, United States. It is considered to be part of the Wasatch Back. The city is 32 miles (51 km) southeast of downtown Salt Lake City and 20 miles (32 km) from Salt Lake City’s east edge of Sugar House along Interstate 80. The population was 7,558 at the 2010 census. On average, the tourist population greatly exceeds the number of permanent residents.

After a population decline following the shutdown of the area’s mining industry, the city rebounded during the 1980s and 1990s through an expansion of its tourism business. The city currently brings in a yearly average of $529.8 million to the Utah Economy as a tourist hot spot, $80 million of which is attributed to the Sundance Film Festival.[6] The city has two major ski resorts: Deer Valley Resort and Park City Mountain Resort. Both ski resorts were the major locations for ski and snowboarding events at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Although they receive less snow and have a shorter ski season than do their counterparts in Salt Lake County, such as Snowbird resort, they are much easier to access.

In 2015, Park City Ski Resort and Canyons resorts merged, creating the largest ski area in the U.S. In all, the resort boasts 17 slopes, 14 bowls, 300 trails and 22 miles of lifts.

_The city is the main location of the United States’ largest independent film festival, the Sundance Film Festival, home of the United States Ski Team, training center for members of the Australian Freestyle Ski Team, the largest collection of factory outlet stores in northern Utah, the 2002 Olympic bobsled/skeleton/luge track at the Utah Olympic Park, and golf courses. Some scenes from the 1994 film Dumb and Dumber were shot in the city. Outdoor-oriented businesses such as backcountry.com, Rossignol USA, and Skullcandy have their headquarters in Park City. The city has many retailers, clubs, bars, and restaurants, and has nearby reservoirs, hot springs, forests, and hiking and biking trails.

In the summertime, many valley residents of the Wasatch Front visit the town to escape high temperatures. Park City is usually cooler than Salt Lake City as it lies mostly higher than 7,000 feet (2,100 m) above sea level, while Salt Lake City is situated at an elevation of about 4,300 feet (1,300 m)._

In 2008, Park City was named by Forbes Traveler Magazine as one of the “20 prettiest towns” in the United States.[7] In 2011, the town was awarded a Gold-level Ride Center designation from the International Mountain Bicycling Association for its mountain bike trails, amenities and community.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park\_City,\_Utah

Park City

So, what criteria did we use to guide our decision? Here is our list of strategic criteria for a new home. I’m sure there were others but at this point I don’t remember them anymore.

“Not California” — I love California and have really enjoyed living in California, we still own property in California but the struggles are real. And looking ahead, it feels it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
“Smaller” — we wanted a smaller town feel, slower paced and more manageable day to day life.
“Up and coming” — we wanted a broader metropolitan area with a bright future
“West of the Mississippi” — we wanted a place within striking distance of the Bay Area for the purposes of work and to be close to Sarah’s parents
“Better school situation for the girls” — we didn’t want to go someplace that would be a step back from the schools in California. COVID influenced this criteria as it heavily impacted the school situation in California. Public schools were ill prepared for the remote learning and private schools, be it better prepared, were all waitlisted and very expensive.
“Seasons” — we wanted a place with four seasons.
“Adventure” — finally, we wanted a place that would line up an adventure for the entire family during the final years the girls would still be in our home. New experiences for all of us to do together.

The short list of cities that we considered over the years was long - the ones in bold were in heavy consideration towards the end:

Denver, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
Fort Collins, Colorado
Austin, Texas
Eugene, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Park City, Utah
Park City
Eugene
Denver
Boulder
Fort Collins
Austin
Portland

A fun list of cities; and I’m sure I forgot some of them we evaluated. Ultimately, we have huge interest in moving abroad to Europe or Asia for a period of time but that was not in the cards for us this time around. That felt like too much change during a pandemic. We’ll consider those opportunities later.

Sarah and I realized quickly how hard of decision it was to pick a new place. It very much felt like the unsolvable problem. There just was not the perfect place but we soon realized that if we were going to actually make a decision, we needed to pick a place that checked off enough of the boxes for everyone. And I’ll be honest — I was the big hold out. I was/am too much of a workaholic to think that I could move away from Silicon Valley and all the start ups I love. Well, the stars aligned and we took the leap in a very condensed and hectic summer during one of the craziest years on record.

I want to say that COVID didn’t impact our decision making but it surely did. COVID seemed to created an intense need for change and at the same time loosened standard life constraints like “living near an office for work”. I think that these new dynamics just helped push over the top our existing interest to do something different. Plus, Sarah and I are both of the belief that change is good. At the end of the day, we were going to come out of this with new experiences and friends that should broaden our outlook.

Park City, Utah won out. Hazzah! It checked off more of the boxes than any of the other city on list. Below were some of the reasons —

Duh, Park City Utah. Park City is such an awesome little city. Beauty. Quaint. Hiking. Skiing. Mountain Biking. Cross country skiing. Fly fishing. Sundance Film Festival. Moose.
Quality of life. Holy smokes, it’s a fun town. It’s smaller and slower paced. There are no kids sporting events on Sunday because of the LDS influence and that is glorious. We are literally 10 minutes away from the best skiing. And the summers are even more glorious!
Better education and life opportunities for our girls. We found a wonderful private school at a higher ranking and half the cost of the private schools in the Bay Area. Molly found an ECNL soccer club to play for and they are actually safely playing through COVID. Brooklyn also found a great soccer club and two terrific AAU basketball clubs to play for.
Favorable work environment and opportunities. The company I work for has a sizable office in Salt Lake City so whenever we open again, I’ll have a place to go. “Silicon Slopes” as it’s called is up and coming for sure. Also, The Salt Lake City International Airport is a quick 25 minutes away from home so work trips are easy.
Mountain town living that is 20 minutes from Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City is a very cool city and so close. Other mountain towns are just more remote. Tahoe was never interesting to us — it feels completely overrun right now and more of the same.
Lower cost of living as compared to California. It’s true. I’ve seen the numbers with my own eyes and its material. Housing. Real Estate tax. Income tax. Utilities. Food. Gas.
Smaller community to ride out COVID. Utah has been generally open and managing things reasonably well. There are surely parts of Utah that “don’t believe in the virus” like any other state but Park City folks are very respectful to the realities right now. Our theory is that small communities will be able to manage through COVID more effectively just because there are less people.
Proximity to Universities. The University of Utah is 20 minutes away. We have our season tickets to PAC-12 Women’s Basketball whenever we open up again.

For those that might be interested in knowing, we live in a neighborhood called Jeremy Ranch, north of downtown Park City. It feels like a classic mountain neighborhood nestled up in the hills. We like it because it’s closer to Salt Lake City, slightly away from the tourist areas but close enough to the action.

So, how is it going in Park City? That will be my next blog post.

I hope folks find this information useful. At the end of the day, life is short. Find your happy path. Take action. Thank you for reading. I would love to hear your feedback. Please post or share.

There is Life Outside of the Bay Area (Part #1)

Sat, 26 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Hello, friends and family!

After 20+ long years, my family and I decided to leave the Bay Area for the mountains of Park City, Utah. For my wife, its probably closer to 35+ years of not only living in the Bay Area but actually growing up there. A huge shift but all in all, a very positive decision for my entire family. When I tell folks we have moved, I usually get the following questions —

Why did we decide to leave? (Part #1)
Why did you pick Park City, Utah? (Part #2)
What has it been like? Do you think you’ll move back? (Part #3a @ 6 months, Part #3b @ 12 months)

So, let me take the time the time to answer these questions in a thoughtful manner. For a bit of context, I’m originally from east coast (NY/CT), went to college in Virginia and came out to the Bay Area in 1999 with my Computer Science degree in hand to build some bad ass software. I met Sarah at an eBusiness consulting company where I was a software engineer and she was a recruiter.

So, question #1 — why did we decide to leave?

California and the Bay Area feels like it’s going into the toilet. Fires. Riots. Overcrowding. Traffic. Lockdowns. Oppressive heat waves. Rolling power outages. Quality of Life. Cost of Living. Taxes. Even the best parts of California were getting less accessible. I recall a trip to Yosemite where we were on a trail with 1000+ of our best friends. Haha. Also, the week after we left for Park City was the week the Bay Area looked like a scene from Blade Runner.

San Francisco is not the city it used to be. San Fransisco is just not the city it was when I crossed the Golden Gate bridge in my Penske truck rental and my two buddies driving with me across country 20+ years ago. The homeless, used condoms and syringes on the streets and general lack of charm that drew me to the city years ago.
Silicon Valley has lost its allure. Back in 1999, Silicon Valley was about the geeks and building cool things. Now, the focus is less about building great products with technology and more about the money. Not that there wasn’t a focus on money before — but it feels like more of a focus than it even has been.
COVID. We all know we can’t run away from COVID. Just look at all the corners of America where COVID has reached. COVID was not a real reason we left the Bay Area but it surely created an overarching environment that forced a perspective.
- COVID feels like It’s spreading uncontrollably in California and folks are angry, fed up and not listening anymore. The COVID spreading rates plus the population plus the already stressed hospital capacity is a recipe for disaster.
- COVID has ruined the quality of life in California. Everything is closed. Curfews. Etc.
- COVID broke the public school system in California. The end of the 2019-2020 was not a favorable experience for the kids and it feels like its going getting marginally better. The public schools are just not structured to support remote style learning. The private schools seemed to react better but the private schools in the East Bay are not cheap and at the time, were impacted as parents were scrambling to find alternative schooling options.
What will happen long term in California? Who is going to pay for all of the issues in California? What are the long term environmental ramifications to all the fires that have burned through the states?
We had already been thinking about it. My wife and I had been wanting to leave the Bay Area but not had quite settled on where we would end up. So, in reality we had one foot out the door already.
Adventure and change is good. It’s time for an adventure! Why not? Life is good short.

Overall, lots of reasons but it was not an easy decision. The biggest counterpoint was leaving such great friend and family.

Let me know your thoughts! In my next blog post, I will go through why we picked Park City, Utah.

Wyoming is a Magical Place

Wed, 10 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Wyoming is the 10th largest by area, the least populous, and the second most sparsely populated state in the country. The state population was estimated at 578,759 in 2019. Is it roughly 1200 from where we live in the the Bay Area. A drive there takes roughly two days of time with your favorite audio book or collection of favorite Grateful Dead or Phish shows. The views along the way are beautiful. In the North / Central part of the state in Johnson County is a little city called Buffalo. The population was 4,585 at the 2010 census. It’s nestled at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains and surrounded by nature’s beauty.

Buffalo

My family and I could not think of a better place to run off to in the middle of a pandemic.

Joshua Tree National Park

Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Amazon Echo Is Sleeper Gadget

Mon, 18 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Over the holidays I was fortunate enough to receive an Amazon Echo — thank you Santa Claus and those unionized elves. When I first heard about the Amazon Echo, it sounded completely ridiculous — “order toilet paper from the comfort of your toilet by just shouting in the air.” Indeed, that sounded intriguing and conjures up the most hilarious use cases — “Alexa, I need condoms delivered via drone ASAP.”

However, the Amazon Echo is now my “surprisingly useful” sleeper device. It has become our “home personal assistant” for my family — somewhat limited in capabilities but it surely has huge potential and could become a gateway for a far a deeper AI based personal assistant. A device like the Amazon Echo could surely own the home in a better way than TV set top boxes could or SIRI/Alexa on your phone could.

The most useful use cases for me, most often used in the morning as I’m getting the kids ready for school —

Traffic updates to work
News headline updates for the day
Playing my favorite radio stations and music
Run down of calendar for the day
Scores for my favorite sports teams
Schedules for my favorite sports teams
Control for my IoT devices

The Amazon Echo is also trying to be developer friendly with a developer portal and SDK’s available to extend its usefulness. And of course, they have a $100 million dollar Alexa Fund to help to drive innovation. Not quite as “accessible” as other developer ecosystems but what developer doesn’t get excited by new sensors and something new to tinker with. The new advanced use cases can be super interesting —

“Alexa, turn up the heat.”
“Alexa, turn on the Warrior game.”
“Alexa, find my keys.”
“Alexa, dim the lights and lower the shades”
“Alexa, prepare my bath.”

New features seems to be coming out fast as Amazon announces that you can listen to Kindle eBooks via the Echo and a new portable Echo for your travel needs. I’m not entirely sure about the portable Echo who knows where that could go.

The digital assistant is a killer use case for everyone. Both Google and Apple have released features for Android and iOS will start to pull out items it can learn from your email and take action on it. I predict that we’ll see some additional competition for the Echo as companies realize that this is a unique entry point to the living room. Watch on YouTube

Little Known Self Driving Car Features

Sat, 16 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

There is so much talk right now of self driving cars a la the Jetsons or Total Recall. Tesla, Apple, GE/Lyft, and Google are all piling on in the news. It’s all very interesting — but I do imagine a bunch of slow ass cars crashing into each other in the beginning. But more importantly, as a software programmer — I’m intrigued by features that will be built for the self driving car as the technology matures. I wonder what those could be …

“Back seat driving mode” — passenger can yell criticisms about its driving and the car will then respond “Would you rather drive?”
“Zone out mode” — car will day dream and have absolutely no idea how it got to its destination.
“Filipino Mom Driving Mode” — jerky driving with frequent unplanned stops at yard sales, Walmart’s or Chinese Buffets. Will also travel so close to the car in front of them as to be able to to invite them to dinner.
Preprogrammed responses to Police Officers when caught speeding — a la “I didn’t know how fast I was going.” or “My other auto driving car is pregnant.” or “My my, you are very handsome.”
“Teenage driving loop” - No real destination other than driving up and down the street with increased music volumes. Loop will be determined by leading car with passengers of the opposite sex.
“Inability to merge mode” (only available in Seattle cars and required by the state of Washington) — highway on ramps will be complete nightmares as cars will stack up as cars will just stop thinking that’s a wise way to “merge”
“Late for Anniversary Dinner Mode” — will run 50 mph over regulated speed limits with frequent lane changes. Optional to include stop at Jared’s for a gift.
“LSD Mode” — will drive on the highway at 15 mph but think it’s going 85 mph
“Low gas mode” — will take the car as close to possible to running out of gas and will calculate walking distances to a gas station to freak out passengers
“Kid mode” — devices, snacks and live clown will be deployed to the back seat with the kids. Optionally, 20 questions game will available where the computer might pick obscure items like “dirt”, “needle” and my imaginary friend “stu” who I’ve never talked to you about.
“Auto car lock and protection mode” — when entering a socio-economic area different from the owner, car doors will lock and an arm will secure closest available purse.
“Moving a mattress mode” — single arm will deploy out window to secure bulky item on roof. Highway travel is required for this mode but at far reduced speeds.

Here’s to the future! As scary as it might be!

LEGO Education Releases WeDo 2.0 @ CES 2016

Sun, 10 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

As I explore platforms to teach my daughters hands on problem solving and programming — I’m intrigued by the recent release of LEGO WeDo 2.0 coming out of their LEGO Education department just announced at CES 2016. It’s a bit less expensive than the LEGO Mindstorm set and has a clearer angle towards education — more specifically 2nd to 4th graders. I had a great experience using MIT Scratch to teach my daughters class the beginning of programming and I’m looking to build upon that. I’m looking forward to its release for my 5-year old. Watch on YouTube After extensive research and vigorous discussion with my 9-year old this weekend — I’ve decided to get a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 kit for my daughters and I to tinker with. Additionally, my 9-year old wants to use it as a foundation for her Maker Faire project. There are so many super cool examples of projects out there and it really got us fired up. Will keep folks posted as we explore the world of Lego robotics! Watch on YouTube Watch on YouTube

Stupid Things That Would Happen If I Won Powerball

Sun, 10 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Powerball mania has taken over the country! The jackpot is currently at $900 million dollars. (For whatever reason, I’m reminded of that scene from Austin Powers) Now — lets do some math — after taxes, if you live in the state of California you could walk away with a lump sum of $418,500,000 or 30 payments a year of $22,500,000 for a total of $675,000,000. More money than a majority of folks would see in a lifetime unless you are Oprah.

I’m sure everyone is day dreaming of what to do with all of that money — but more importantly my mind ends up wandering about what stupid things that would happen if I won. Here we go —

Go into work naked — just because I can.
Write a book on the detailed strategies for winning lotteries.
Promise a big trip to a bunch of people and hate it because I actually didn’t like those people.
Probably buy a boat and then hire people to use it because I hate boats.
I would try to Facebook friend other rich people because we would have something to talk about.
Have a ski lift installed from my house in Danville to the top of Squaw
Build a Safeway as an extension of my house so I never have to go grocery shopping ever again
Convert to Judaism so that can have Phish play at my bar mitzvah I never had
I would buy Costco so that I’d never have to excuse myself to get past someone trying to feed their entire family via Costco samples.
I would hire the cast of “Full House” to work on my farm to care for my alpacas
Would buy two 17k Apple Watches — one for my arm and one for my ankle. Ya never know how often i might need to know the time as I tie my shoe.
Build a Scrooge McDuck money bin and then realize its super hard to swim in gold.
Buy many billboards on 101 that says “Renato is One Hella Cool Dude”
Buy the New England Patriots so you can fire Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. Then make the team play all their games in Manila, Philippines all season long.
Build a Lego Star Destroyer the size of an airplane.
Hire Steph curry to do his warm-up drills every morning as I drink coffee.
Hire a Starbucks barista to follow me around.
Hire Harrison Ford to drive me around in a car that looks like the Millennium Falcon.
Play basketball with Obama and then we take my ski lift to Squaw
Go to Las Vegas with the cast of The Hangover.
Hire Kramer from Seinfeld to be my neighbor.
Put caviar on my In and out burger.
Eliminate daylight saving time.

I’ve acquired my tickets because — well, because why not?

Good luck to everyone!

Observations of a BART Rider

Sat, 09 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve been commuting on Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) into the city for about 5+ years now. BART is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area. It connects San Francisco with cities in the East Bay and suburbs in northern San Mateo County. With an average of 422,490 weekday passengers, 211,288 Saturday passengers, and 158,855 Sunday passengers in September 2014,[7] BART is the fifth-busiest heavy rail rapid transit system in the United States. And with that, its full of joy.

I’ve probably had 1000+ trips over the past 5+ years and have a accumulated some observations and lessons learned about my favorite “silver chariot”. It’s been quite a journey.

BART smells are unique and confusing
Be prepared to get really close to passengers, really close
Somewhere to lean on is priceless when there isn’t a seat — find that wall or pole or whatever! If it’s a door, be ready for it to open — I actually fell out on the platform once.
There is usually one guy a week that brings his own folding chair on the train — at first you feel jealous but then you realize he looks like an idiot.
Getting a BART parking permit is like winning the lottery — I was on the wait list for 6+ years and started out as number 10,893. Seriously?
I now crave elevator updates at home — “This is the home authority. The stairs are still functioning.”
Bikers on Bart confuse me — first, how the hell are you getting that bike on this train now when I can’t even take a deep breath. Second, why didn’t you bike to where you were going!
The BART map comforts me — not sure why, it must be the colors and hope that those dash lines to San Jose will be filled in one of these days.
People can die on BART — yup, that has happened on my BART train and someone took his seat when they were done taking him away.
People barf on BART — yup, that has happened to me. Now close your eyes and imagine the hilarity on a completely full train.
BART toilets scare the poop out of me, which ironically make them more effective
It’s possible to park so far away from Bart that you forgot why you needed to get on BART — that’s happened to me, and then I lost my car but still remembered my stall number.
You will get angry at those that eat on Bart — yes, the woman who ordered double the sweet and sour chicken from Panda Express but couldn’t wait to get home. I’m going to barf on you.
Don’t be angry at the Asian family with the large florescent luggage ever taking up 8 seats on their way to the airport during rush hour. They are more afraid of you right now. And yes, the largest bag will have wheels and run people over as they get on the train.
91% of those getting on BART after midnight are so drunk they will miss their stop and need to Uber from Dublin home
Making the train as the doors are closing is the closest thing you get to being Indiana Jones but then you will realize that there is a train 3 minutes behind this one and you feel dumb.

Here’s to 1000+ more trips ahead!

CrossFit and Being Paleo(ish)

Thu, 07 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

About three year ago, I was 50 pounds heavier, was sick every few weeks, consumed about 6 diet cokes a day, was winded climbing the stairs at home and I didn’t have a visible neck. I still snore like a banshee on a cold day but ya can’t fix everything! I made the decision to start CrossFit and adopted Paleo(ish) — and I haven’t looked back. My primary motivation was the goal of “mastering” my body and fitness. I love the concept of constantly improving, “leveling up” and “mastering” things — be it technology, management, music, being a father, whatever. Plus, I surely wanted to be able to wear a t-shirt without thinking my “man boobs” might knock someone out or having my stomach start eating my shirt as I would just sit there. To be honest, I’m surprised I’ve been able to sustain my commitment to my fitness — it’s truly just part of my life now.

I started slow — one CrossFit class a week and started to cut out bread from my diet. Those first 8-12 weeks were super hard. It was such a humbling experience — I was one fat, out of shape old man. The one CrossFit class would crush me — I wouldn’t be able to move the entire week and it hurt to sit down on the toilet. As things progressed, I got strong and I was able to do more and more.

Here is a list of observations and lessons I’ve learned through my journey.

Baby steps. Start small and work your way up. Transforming your way of life doesn’t happen overnight or after listening to a Tony Robbins seminar.
Write down the things that motivate you and revisit that list every few weeks. That becomes your inner motivation to keep going.
Be pragmatic as you level up and know your body. Having been consistently going to my box for multiple years now, I’ve seen so many people cycle out — push themselves too hard and then hurt themselves. Its usually a 50/50 shot if they come back.
Don’t drink too much of the CrossFit cool aid — its fun but doing a WOD isn’t the only way to get a good workout in. Diversify with other activities.
There are no silver bullet supplements. Just be pragmatic about the things you consume that you think gives you an edge.
Tracking what you eat and your workouts is key to progress. I use an app called MyFitnessPal to track my food — its fairly popular and hooks up nicely to my FitBit Surge. The library of cataloged foods is quite good. Additionally, my box uses Wodify to keep track of personal records (PR’s).
Alcoholic drinks are the biggest waste of calories and you don’t realize it until you track your intake of them.
One of the best aspects of a CrossFit box is its community. I’ve met some great people at my box and find myself exploring other boxes when I travel.
Olympic lifting is hard and so much of it is technique, flexibility and practice. It so fun to try to get good at.
Partner workouts are the best, way harder to cheat.
CrossFit sneakers are essential for a good rope climb.
Wrist wraps are the best.
I hate double enders, muscle ups, snatches and anything involving me being upside down. That list will grow and you will love it.

Looking forward — I’m still the older, slower and fatter guy at my box but that’s what keeps me motivated to keep pressing hard. I have a long way to go and I’m up for the challenge. I’m going to try to do a WOD 4-5 times a week and combine it with other activities such as skiing, weightlifting, etc. I’m currently investigating jiu jitsu as an interesting martial arts to augment my fitness.

By the way, kudos too all the coaches at CrossFit San Ramon — they are awesome.

Snow In Tahoe!

Thu, 07 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

After a terrible, terrible winter season last year in Tahoe — it’s finally snowing again! Keep the rain/snow coming El Nino! The Mascardo family wants to carve some fresh tracks! I can’t wait to see my 5 year old girl get lost in a mound of powder! Sugar Bowl here we come! Watch on YouTube

My 2015 Reading List

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

My original goal was to read a book every two weeks and I was able to complete 29 books in 2015 with a bulk of my reading not starting until May 2015. I guess it really pays to have a 3 hour commute a day. I consumed the books in number of different way —

Reading via Kindle App on my iPad Mini or iPhone 6 Plus
Listening/Reading via Kindle App WhisperSync
Listening via Amazon Audible App on my iPhone 6 Plus
Listening via my Amazon Echo

Amazon WhisperSync was really a step up in terms of my ability to consume more content. It was so nice to be able to switch between listening, reading or a combination thereof depending on where I was. Additionally, I found that I could listen to a book at 1.5x to 2x the reading speed while still being able to absorb the content — effectively at 1/2 the audio book time. Sure, it was as if the chipmunks were reading to me but whatever.

I generally gravitated towards business, leadership, autobiographies or science fiction books. It seems that I ended up more on the non-fiction side of things but I did my best to alternate between genres.

Ok, let’s talk about some of my favorites — below are my top 5 non-fiction.

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson — Generally speaking, I enjoy Walter Isaacson’s writing and I totally enjoyed this book from the historical computer science perspective.
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone — This was a fun read because I’m such a big fan of the entire Amazon ecosystem and I’m intrigued by Jeff Bezos’s larger than life character.
Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins, Morten T. Hansen — Who doesn’t like Jim Collins books? I’m sure its desired reading for any MBA student. Very data driven and full of insight.
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene — this was somewhat of an “evil” book, full of devious techniques to wield power based on history. But you have to take it with a grain of salt just like anything else.
The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Stafford — I enjoyed the storytelling writing of this book. Different from other books on the topic, very enjoyable and full of insight.

Below are my top 4 fiction:

Ready Player One: A Novel by Ernest Cline — simply loved this book. So many great references from my generation. It will be impossible for them to make it a movie effectively.
The Martian by Andy Weir — I read this book before the movie came out and the book is 1000x better than the movie. The inner dialog of the main character in the book is so fun.
Wool by Hugh Howey — Post apocalyptic storytelling with very fun twists and turns.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel — Similar to above but the character development really stood out for me. Not sure why I gravitate towards there “world is ending” books.

Below is my complete list of books in the order that I read them:

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull
The Martian by Andy Weir
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson
Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry by David Robertson and Bill Breen
Future Crimes: Inside the Digital Underground and the Battle for Our Connected World by Marc Goodman
Wool by Hugh Howey
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin
A User’s Guide to the Universe: Surviving the Perils of Black Holes, Time Paradoxes, and Quantum Uncertainty by Dave Goldberg
Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age by W. Bernard Carlson
Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens Lost Stars by Claudia Gray and Phil Noto
Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
Ready Player One: A Novel by Ernest Cline
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See That Others Miss by Ron Adner
The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Stafford
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by P Lencioni
Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins, Morten T. Hansen
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
The Innovators Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change) by Clayton M. Christensen
Startupland: How Three Guys Risked Everything to Turn an Idea into a Global Business by Mikkel Svane, Carlye Adler
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries by Peter Sims

My goal is get over 40 for 2016 so please send me some good book recommendations! I’d love to hear them!

Where's Renato?

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Holy smokes — my last post was 12/3/2013! Where the hell have I been? To be honest, blogging has not been a huge priority for me since I’ve been so focused on building “things”. Most recently I’ve been helping companies like Atari, Rosetta Stone and Recurly (re)build their teams, realign technology stacks and launch new products. So much fun.

Alas, its 2016 and I’ve promised myself that I would blog more and share my many years of technology building experience with the world — or share my favorite poop joke. Haha. My conservative goal is to write one blog post a month that isn’t just a YouTube video link.

I think I can.

Stay tuned!

The Future is Now -- Amazon Prime Air

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:00:00 GMT

New Leap Motion Device -- I Want One

Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

if-you-go-back-back-a

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

“If you go back back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic—being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago. So engineering is, for all intents and purposes, magic, and who wouldn’t want to be a magician?”

—Elon Musk

Great DigitalGlobe Video

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Virtual Reality at work @ Disney

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Google Glasses

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

New York Giants -- Super Bowl XLVI Champions

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to the New York Giants — Super Bowl XLVI Champions!

Nike Invents A “Shoe” For Athletes With Prosthetic Limbs

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Nano Quadrotors

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

What Motivates Us?

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Pinoy Siri

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Starbucks Uses Augmented Reality

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Microsoft's Vision of the Future

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Augmented Reality Guitar

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

iPhone 4S Siri Integration Looks Awesome

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

… but are people going to use it? I can’t wait to try it out.

Loss of an Innovator

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Solowheel -- I want one

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

We’re one step closer to getting the “Jetson-like-walkways” everywhere. I want a Solowheel — It’s probably hard as hell to “drive” but I still want one.

I wonder if I can put a special tire on there for off road-ing?

MotiveCast in Fast Company

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

It’s always fun to run into your company while flipping through the latest industry rags. In the March 2011 Fast Company, MotiveCast is listed with the other winners of the PepsiCo10.

Also, here is a recent, non-solicited blog post by Jim Nichols— “Start-Up Watch Company of the Day: MotiveCast – cool, compelling, location based, mobile AR games” — thank you Jim.

/dev/null DB is Fast As Hell

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

MotiveCast one of the PepsiCo10

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to the entire MotiveCast team for being selected 1 of the the PepsiCo10 out of a pool of over 500+ startup. Nice job!

PURCHASE, N.Y. – (September 9, 2010) PepsiCo today announced the 10 start-up companies, which will make up the inaugural PepsiCo10, an innovative incubator program that matches technology, media and communications entrepreneurs with PepsiCo brands to activate pilot programs in digital media and social marketing.

“The PepsiCo10 are an inspiring group of entrepreneurs, who represent the best in emerging trends in technology, media and communications,” said B. Bonin Bough, Director of Digital and Social Media at PepsiCo. “With the inaugural PepsiCo10, we are creating a new conduit for digital R&D within PepsiCo and for the industry broadly—an important endeavor as we continue to seek innovative and meaningful ways to connect with our consumers and to transform communications into a business driver.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P\_Bt3qP6IQ8&feature=player\_embedded\]

Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world — from Memory Leak.

MotiveCast Top 20 in PepsiCo10 Competition

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I’m pleased to announce that MotiveCast was selected in the top 20 (out of close to 500 other startups) in the PepsiCo10 — the program Pepsi created to partner with the best start-ups in technology, media and communications.

We’re looking forward to the next round!

Find us in the video below.

Gooooo MotiveCast!

Press Release: PepsiCo Goes Innovation Hunting With 20 Tech, Media Start-Ups During Two-Day PepsiCo10 Summit

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Here is the official press release from PepsiCo on the PepsiCo10 competition. MotiveCast is listed under the Mobile Marketing category.

Gooooo MotiveCast!

MotiveCast @ Google I/O

Fri, 21 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Reality combines with Augmented Reality

Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Where 2.0 2010: Walter Scott, \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Seconds to Anywhere\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Failure Is an Option\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Below is an interesting Ted talk by James Cameron — James Cameron’s big-budget (and even bigger-grossing) films create unreal worlds all their own. In this personal talk, he reveals his childhood fascination with the fantastic — from reading science fiction to deep-sea diving — and how it ultimately drove the success of his blockbuster hits “Aliens,” “The Terminator,” “Titanic” and “Avatar.” (Recorded at TED2010, February 2010 in Long Beach, CA. Duration: 17:08)

I really enjoy his narration through his creative process and perspective on “failure”. Two elements that most don’t understand well enough.

[ted id=785]

Square is Cool

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Check out this new company called Square. It turns your iPhone into a point of sale device. iPhone’s, iTouch’s and the new iTablet (set to announce tomorrow) are natural fits for cost effective point of contact devices. Why pay high prices for a specialized point of contact device when you can just write an app?

What happened to SpaceBalls 2?

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This has to to be one of the funniest scenes in movie history. They don’t make comedies like they used to.

Where are the west coast shows?

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I really wish that Trey would venture out west more often — another season of no west coast shows.

TREY ANASTAIO & CLASSIC TAB TOURDATES

2/08 - Jefferson Theatre, Charlottesville, VA 2/09 - 9:30 Club, Washington, DC 2/11 - Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA 2/12 - House of Blues, Boston, MA 2/13 - Oakdale Theatre, Wallingford, CT 2/14 - Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank, NJ 2/16 - Terminal 5, New York, NY 2/18 - The Pabst Theater, Milwaukee, WI 2/19 - Riviera Theatre, Chicago, IL 2/20 - State Theatre, Minneapolis, MN 2/21 - Uptown Theatre, Kansas City, MO 2/23 - The Pageant, St. Louis, MO 2/25 - Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN 2/26 - The Fillmore, Charlotte, NC 2/27 - Tabernacle, Atlanta, GA 2/28 - Tennessee Theatre, Knoxville, TN

Augmented Reality Video Games

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Interesting TechCrunch post — is Augmented Reality the future or a fad? The only way to find out — build something. :-)

Bertrand Piccard's solar-powered adventure

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Very interesting TED Talk about Bertrand Piccard’s quest to travel through the night in solar powered plane.

[ted id=723]

No iPhone 3GS For Me!

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I have become dependent enough on my iPhone that even the most subtle upgrades in performance, disk and battery life is worth the money to upgrade. It’s really my primary mobile tool for so many things — these are my to 12 tasks I do on my iPhone (list is subject to change):

Email (Work and Personal)
Phone
Facebook
TweetDeck
Check my stocks
Check the weather
Check on sports scores
Listening to books on tape
Listening to podcasts
Watching podcasts, movies and television shows
Camera
Listening to music

Today, I tried to upgrade my older 16 GB 3G phone to the new 32 GB 3GS phone. I figured the performance and addition storage space alone would make it worth it — plus, since I’m working on an iPhone application, I would benefit from having the new gear. Well, to my dismay, I didn’t qualify for the discount and would have had to of payed $499 for the 32 GB 3GS. Insane.

I guess I’ll need to wait until March 2010 for me to qualify for an upgrade. By then, I’m hoping for a new iPhone model and a new wireless carrier.

Tribal Leadership -- Getting to Stage 5

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Interesting talk at TEDxUSC by David Logan on Tribal Leadership.

What stage is your team at?

[ted id=651]

DigitalGlobe is Web Squared

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Here is a recent blog post by John Battelle on his thought on DigitalGlobe after an interview with our co-founder, Walter Scott.

Phish @ Shoreline

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Phish played Shoreline Amphitheater 8/5/2009 and what a show it was. It was a blast from past — it had been several years since I had seen them last. They sounded great — the only unfortunate thing was I didn’t get a “Slave” and the show was sandwiched between two of my favorite venues — Red Rocks and the Gorge. Those setlists were awesome.

8/5/09 Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA [Setlist]

1: Golgi Apparatus, Halley’s Comet, Chalk Dust Torture, The Divided Sky*, When the Circus Comes, Time Turns Elastic, Ya Mar, Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan, Suzy Greenberg, David Bowie

2: Backwards Down the Number Line, Down With Disease > Limb By Limb, Oh Sweet Nothin’**, Cities -> Maze, Mike’s Song > Simple, Weekapaug Groove

E: Encore: Let Me Lie, Bold As Love

[gallery link=“file” orderby=“ID”]

Completed San Francisco 1/2 Marathon Today!

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This morning I completed the San Francisco 1/2 Marathon — I did the second half and it was my first. What an amazing experience! Here are things I gleamed from the experience:

Finding the right sneakers is critical!
Spandex is essential for long runs
Don’t just drink water if you plan to run more than 2 hours
Hills are your friend
Find someone or a team to train with — it will make the experience more enjoyable
Fat people can run too :-)

Now, I can work on my golf game since I won’t be training for another event, but maybe I need to be thinking about another event! :-)

Cool Apple Window Display

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Leo Laporte Blows up at Michael Arrington

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The video below is of Leo Laporte blowing up at Mike Arrington on the Gillmor Gang questioning a positive review because Leo got a free phone. Well, valid question if you ask me. For example, Leo’s audible.com ads on the TWIT podcasts have tuned into live banter between his collegues where they all love the service. I have no idea if that is real or an advertisement. Some transparency would be nice.

New Bing Advertisement

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I caught the ad below during the NBA Finals. Ironically, all the issues mentioned were why I hated MSN search. Is Bing actually a better search engine? The problem is that I’m happy enough with Google to not care.

WWDC 2009 Starts Tomorrow

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The good news — WWDC 2009 starts tomorrow.

The bad news — WWDC 2009 starts tomorrow. What new crap am I going to feel compelled to buy? I wish I was there.

Interesting Business Week Articles

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Here are a few articles from this week that I found interesting:

The Failed Promise of Innovation in the U.S. — During the past decade, innovation has stumbled. And that may help explain America’s economic woes
- RJM: Does true innovation need to move economies forward? Is there such a thing as spinning on useless innovation? It seems that Jim Collin’s new book seems to think so as well.
How Cloud Computing Will Change Business — IBM, Qualcomm, Nokia, and other majors, along with startups, are preparing to cash in on new technology. Not that it will be easy
- RJM: Nothing to revolutionary about this article but interesting how companies are realizing the importance of having information at your finger tips. Very good case studies from various companies.
Why We Tweet — We’re now big fans of Twitter. To those with eyebrows aloft, here’s how it happened
- RJM: The Welch family perspective on Tweeting. This is like my dad joining Facebook.

No Turning Back

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Well, there is no turning back now. I’m all signed up for the 2nd half of the San Francisco Half Marathon on July 26th. Let’s be clear here — I’ve lived a fairly sedentary lifestyle and getting this out of shape body to run 13.1 miles (21,097.5 meters) is big deal! Here are a few things I’ve learned with my training thus far …

Spandex is key
Stretching is key
Snacking along the way helps alot
Never run on an empty stomach
Hit the bathroom before a long run

I’ll let you know how the rest of my training goes. Good luck to me — I’ll need it!

Google I/O 2009

Fri, 29 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This was my first year at Google I/O and I have to say that it was well worth the $300.

Great developer vibe
Great sessions
Free Android Phone
Wave Developer preview accounts

This is starting to turn into a Apple’s WWDC conference. Nice job Google.

Steve Ballmer Announces Bing Internally

Fri, 29 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Below is the company wide email from Steve Ballmer about the upcoming release of Bing.

From: Steve Ballmer [mailto:Steve.Ballmer@microsoft.com] Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 11:30 AM To: Microsoft - All Employees (QBDG) Subject: Announcing Bing

Today, at the D Conference in Carlsbad, CA, I’m announcing the release of Bing, our new search engine. This is an important milestone for Microsoft as search is a critical business for us and Bing is a significant step forward in redefining search and expanding our share of the online advertising market. But Bing is just the start. We know this is a journey that will require a long-term commitment to hard work and investment in innovation in order to be successful.

We have always believed that search offers huge opportunities for innovation. Currently, only one in four searches succeeds on the first try. And while search is pretty good for navigating the Web, it’s not good at helping people use the Web to accomplish more complicated decision-based tasks.

With Bing, our goal is to do more than just make it easier for people to find information. Today, we’re delivering a powerful set of tools that will enable people to make faster, more informed decisions.

In short, Bing is a decision engine that goes beyond what people have come to think of as search—and what our competitors offer today.

A new search product requires a name that clearly signals the arrival of something unique. We chose Bing because it’s short, memorable, and symbolic of the moment when information and opportunity come together and a simple search becomes an engine for taking action.

Today, we’ll begin launching Bing internally so Microsoft employees can have an exclusive preview. You’ll find improvements that showcase innovative engineering work, including tools that automatically organize, refine, and anticipate searches. We’re also delivering strong innovation in shopping, local search, travel, and health—the areas where people want to use the Web to help them make decisions that are important to their lives.

Next week, Bing will go live outside Microsoft at bing.com. I urge you to let your friends and family know that we have created a powerful new search engine that brings fresh innovation to their Web experience.

To learn more about Bing, please join Online Services Division President Qi Lu and me in Café RedWest on June 11 at 9:00am Pacific Daylight Time for an employee Town Hall. The event will also be webcast through the Employee Town Hall website. If you have questions, please send them in advance to execqa@microsoft.com.

Steve

Good luck Microsoft — you have a long way to go.

Scient blasts from the Past

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

It’s been over a decade since my work experience at Scient and what a great experience it was.

Where is all the engineering talent?

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The national unemployment rate is 8.5% according to March 2009 report released by the Bureau of Labor. In the state of California, unemployment is at 10.5%. The amazing thing is that even under these conditions I find it very difficult to consistently find good software engineering talent. I had to think about why and came up with a few observations.

The recruiting process is inefficient — I get 6 -10 cold recruiter calls a day telling me that they have the perfect engineer for me regardless of the fact that they have no idea what my company does or what I’m looking for. They actually started randomly visiting the office now. I get at least 2 -3 random visits a month. I post a job on Monster.com, Dice.com or CraigsList.org and I get flooded with random resumes — almost too many for me to even go through. Once your network runs dry — it seems that using an expensive 3rd party recruiter is the only way to go. The means in which we connect hiring managers with perspective workers needs to get better.

Software engineers not prepared for the next generation of problems to solve — One of my areas of expertise is building platform teams and finding the talent to do so is difficult. Most software engineers have been cornered into using a set of technologies that are meant to make their lives easier by abstracting the lower level details. This results in many engineers that are experts of a framework but do not have the skills on their own to build their own software infrastructure. Cloud computing is bringing forth the problem — pushing software into a more centralized, mult-processor problem. Experience building complex multi-threaded software infrastucture is rare. Well, what about the introduction of multi-core processors? This changes the game at an even more fundamental level. What are we going to do with all the code that doesn’t take advantage of multi-processor hardware? Uh!

Is the US not producing enough engineering talent? — This topic seems to be under debate but I do know that 4/5 resumes I get are from non-US engineers. Nothing wrong with that — I’ve hired from all over the world and outsourced in all parts of the world. However, as a father, I hope that there are educational programs are in place to encourage kids to consider engineering diciplines.

The bottom line is that I guess life is good if you’re a good software engineer.

Google I/O Developer Conference

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I just signed up for the upcoming Google I/O Developer Conference @ Moscone Center May 27th and 28th. For $300 bucks how can you go wrong? Most conferences are well over $2000.

If you plan to attend, let me know and we’ll grab some drinks after the show.

My Life with a Kindle 2

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve had the Amazon Kindle 2 for just over a month now and its about time I jot down a few notes about my experience. Here are the things I like …

Compact — smaller than a standard hardcover book
Readability — very easy on the eyes
Wireless Access — this is killer for me. I get the New York Times everyday, every morning without having to step outside. Plus, I can download whatever newspaper, book or magazine where ever I might be. This is convenience.
Upload documents — I’m able to email the Kindle 2 documents that might want to read on the road. This is great because I kill less trees and my backpack is 1/3 the weight.
Battery life — I’ve had no problems with running low on juice — unlike my iPhone 3G.
Cheaper books — I like saving money
Ability to consume more information — there is something to be said about having that if I have more information at my finger tips, I’ll consume more of it. This seems to be true for me.
Eco-Friendly — not sure if they are made with some toxic plastic but I sure am using less paper

Here are things I don’t like:

Larger screen — I never use the keyboard at the bottom — make the screen bigger
Touchscreen — not sure how that would work with a digital ink screen but I still want it
Color screen
Give me blogs for free — they charge me money to read my favorite blog
Text-to-speech is over rated — I never use it. I prefer to listen to a podcast or Ted talk.

Overall, I’m a fan and would recommend it to others.

[slideshow id=3386706919797552504&w=426&h=320]

Where is everyone?

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Well, it’s been a while since I posted to my blog — this seems to happen when i start a new job. At the end of last year, I joined DigitalGlobe as their Director, Software Engineering running their office in Walnut Creek. DigitalGlobe is the world’s leading provider of high resolution commercial imagery and the only company operating a constellation of sub-meter commercial imaging satellites. You probably have recogized some of DigitalGlobe’s imagery within Google Earth and Google Maps. Here is a link of my old home in Connectitcut with some of our imagery. The lake labeled Candee’s Pond which resides on our property was actually renamed “Renato’s Lake” when I was 8 years old. I guess the town had not updated their records yet.

In more recent events, DigitalGlobe satellites captured the North Korean rocket launch in mid-flight. Here is a large image and here is a large overview image, both of them available on the company website.

I would tell write about what I’m working on but I would need to kill you. In all seriousness, its probably one of the most unique challenges I’ve ever faced building software and wow, is it cool stuff. You’ll hear more about it in the coming months.

Article: What to Do if Your Startup Is Failing?

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Here is a nice article from Business Week entitled “What to do if your start up is failing?”. Very nice, quick read.

The Daily Show on CNBC

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Starting a new adventure ...

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Alas, I’ve decided to move on from Abaca Technology and start a new adventure. It was a very difficult choice for me to leave but it was the right thing for me and my family to do. I have the utmost respect for the leadership team and the engineering team that I helped to re-build. They are in great position to execute on their engineering goals moving forward. And, what a ride is was!

Recruited by seasoned silicon valley entrepreneur Steve Kirsch and reported directly to CEO
Grew the customer base from 10,000 to protecting hundreds of millions of email boxes worldwide
Started with two resources and later became responsible for ~50% of the overall company within constrained start-up environment
Rebuilt engineering team from scratch after previous leadership meltdown
Managed highly regarded 24/7 support organization
Built 24/7 operations organization managing production IT and customer facing infrastructure
Owned road map and engineering of all product lines
Responsible for engineering deliveries resulting in key company wins
- Produced first external product effectiveness review [press release]
- Successfully deployed first 3000 user appliance [press release]
- Successfully attained official VMWare certification [press release]
- Successfully deployed first 12 million user customer [press release]
- Successfully deployed large scale trial leading to a deal of hundreds of millions users worldwide [press release]

I’m very happy with the traction we were able to gain during my time there despite the start-up conditions.

So, what’s my next thing? Same type of thing — building something new. Stay tuned …

Yahoo! Selects Abaca Technology

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Just this past week, Abaca Technology announced that they were selected by Yahoo! to help prevent spam, phishing, and other email-borne attacks. It’s only a matter of time before folks realize that Steve Kirsch has done it again. He has come up with one of the most unique and effective email security techniques on the market.

I can’t wait until they roll it out to the Yahoo! mailboxes in the US. Then maybe I would consider using my Yahoo! email account again.

Show Me the Amazon Kindle 2!

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I have a few personal goals that have lead me down the path of wanting an Amazon Kindle.

Use less paper (Save the environment)
Save money (Spend more wisely)
Read more books (Increase knowledge and create ideas)
Read more periodicals (Increase knowledge and create ideas)
Read more newspapers (Increase knowledge and create ideas)

The Kindle seems to have hit what I need out of an e-reader.

Relatively cheap for a new gadget.
Smaller than a stack of books. I’m tired of having a backpack mostly full of books and printed documents. It’s bad for the environment and for my back.
Great user interface for long reading sessions. I hate reading long documents on a monitor. Not only would I read books on it but longer work documents that I don’t want to print or read on my laptop.
Easy shopping for reading material through Amazon — a trusted online retailer.
Diverse reading material support. Books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, PDF’s, etc.
Cheaper books. Amazon sells most popular books for $9.99 or an average of 60% off of retail.
Less paper.
Free wireless updating

Now, I’m holding out for the Kindle 2 which is supposed to be release early 2009. I hope it comes out soon. I don’t want to buy another physical book — I’m out of shelf space.

Still Reading Wired Magazine

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In a day when newspapers are going out of business and reading material is mostly on the web, I have to throw some kudos to Wired Magazine. It’s the only magazine that I enjoy reading cover to cover. Here are two articles that I found interesting from a few months back …

As Seen on TV (Frank Rose) — The story of Hulu’s rise to Internet TV mover and shaker
“We Should Build Our Own” (Steven Levy) — Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web

Can't Get into iPhone Tech Talks

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve been trying to get into these iPhone Tech Talks with no success. Full! Meanwhile, I’m forced to hack it on my own which does not bother me to too much. If you happen to attend any of the talks, let me know what you thought of it. I’m curious to know how good the free content is.

Dear Renato Mascardo,

_Thank you for your interest in attending the iPhone Tech Talk being held in San Jose on 12 December 2008._Due to an overwhelming response, we have reached the maximum capacity for the venue and cannot confirm your registration. We will keep you informed of any future iPhone developer events scheduled in your area.

We appreciate and value your interest in developing for iPhone.

Regards, iPhone Developer Program

Find your Motivation

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

[Found on Lifehacker]

Pain Yields Innovation

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Here is a great little article from Wired Magazine about how economic turmoil breeds innovation.

“With the world’s economies apparently snowballing into a deep recession, it feels uncomfortably Pollyannish to see signs of hope. But for the bravest inventors and entrepreneurs, conditions are ideal to pounce on a business opportunity. In periods of economic turmoil, people are hungry and work cheap, and entrenched companies often concentrate on in-house cost-cutting instead of exploring new markets, which can explode with the next turn of the business cycle. When VCs from Foundation Capital met with their nervous investors recently, the partners advised them to stay the course rather than follow their peers into the bunkers. “Our strongest companies have the potential to be whales when the market opens up,” partner Paul Holland told the group. “This is the crucible that forges great companies.”

Pownce is Shutting Down

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

TechCrunch reported today that Pownce is shutting its doors. The famed Kevin Rose start up is shutting down December 15th and the engineers are joining Six Apart. In my inbox, I received the following note:

We are sad to announce that Pownce is shutting down on December 15, 2008. As of today, Pownce will no longer be accepting new users or new pro accounts.

To help with your transition, we have built an export tool so you can save your content. You can find the export tool at Settings > Export. Please export your content by December 15, 2008, as the site will not be accessible after this date.

Please visit our new home to find out more: http://www.sixapart.com/pownce

Our thanks go out to everyone who contributed to the Pownce community,

The Pownce Crew

What is amazing is how Twitter is just running away with the micro-blogging space regardless of the performance issues and lack of features everyone has been clamoring for. I’m still very bullish on the micro-blogging space and am very curious to see how the space plays out. There is still lots of growth to be had.

Cyber-Monday Nails Victoria's Secret!

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

It’s Cyber-Monday and Victoria’s Secret can’t keep up!

(Insert all the funny puns)

I’ve been trying to buy a few things … uh … for my mother and have not been able to check out. The real questions are …

How much time is wasted by employees shopping online at work?
How much money is being lost as their site is down?

Ouch! Well, at least their “site is down” image is better than Twitter’s whale.

Gmail Video for the Holidays

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Just a few weeks ago, Google announced Gmail Voice and Video chat embedded into Gmail. You simply download a client onto your computer and you’re off! Here are a few of my observations:

Setup was simple and if you have a Mac with an embedded camera, it’s even simpler!
Having it embedded in my Gmail client makes a world of difference. I’m much more likely to use the tool given the fact that I use Gmail all the time. Plus, it’s my primary contact management tool.
Quality is good. Compared to Skype and Yahoo IM, I think its better.

A video conference is a much more robust form of communication comparied to instant messaging or email. It makes a world of difference when it comes to managing remote teams or just trying to connect with family. This afternoon I walked my not-so-computer-savy dad through the setup and we had a cross-continental video conference with my family in Connecticut. My 2 year old daughter enjoyed it alot, especially when my dad raised our dog Patton up to the camera.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What makes a good Entrepreneur?

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

What makes a successful entreprenur? What does it mean to hire for entreprenurial qualities?

There probably is not a hard answer to these questions but there sure are a lot of opinions. I’ve had the opportunity to mentor under the most successful entreprenurs in the industry and tried to come up with the top 5 list of characteritics that make up a successful entreprenur. I tried to stay away from the obvious ones like confidence, hard work, risk taker, sense of vision, etc and focus on the ones that were insightful for me.

Here we go …

Ability to suspend conventional thinking — conventional thinking surrounds us and it takes a certain personality to “swim against the current” while all the other fish laugh at you. Not only does it surround you but society will enforce conventional thinking and beat down your idea. It’s funny that this often can be percieved as a lack of common sense. Just imagine, what people said to Walt Disney in the beginning. “The crazy guy is drawing cartoons in his basement.”
Hunger and Drive — this is more of a generic trait but it was important enough to keep on my list. People can’t just get a degree in “Entreprenurial” thinking and be successful. There is something deep down that motivates you to work 20 hour days. It’s different for everything but personal motivation is key.
Raw execution skills — some would say that start ups are 10% idea and 90% execution. Every entrepreueur that I have worked with has the ability to just get things done. Whatever it takes —even McGuyver style! The real trick here is being able to balance the execution skills with visionary thinking.
Ability to learn from failure — as the old saying goes, “Just rub some dirt on it”. Failure and learning from failure is just part of the process. You try something, pick yourself up, figure out what you did wrong and try again.
Luck — And most important of all, luck! Sometimes it just a matter of being at the right place at the right time.

Please let me know your thoughts. I would love to hear what is on your list.

Suspend Conventional Thought

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Sometimes the dumbest concepts can turn into huge ideas. Don’t let conventional thought hold you back and be open to different thinking.

Satellite Radio is Priceless!

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Sirius XM Radio rolled out their new combined line up of channels this morning. I was an XM Radio customer before and inherited the Sirius channels. Highlights for me include:

Howard Stern — Yes, I grew up listening to him in New York
NFL Radio
Elvis Radio
Jam Band Radio
Grateful Dead Radio

I can’t imagine commuting without satellite radio. It’s like over the air TV versus Cable TV.

However, their business is getting beaten down pretty badly. Just yesterday, Sirius XM Radio reported a $4.88 billion net loss for the third quarter. Subscriber growth is slowing due to the economy and they are facing $1 billion in debt which comes up next year! Yikes! Last I checked, there was an “issue” with our credit markets. Their stock is hobbling along at $0.25 a share. The satellite-radio company said it ended the third quarter with 18.9 million subscribers. That’s lower than than I expected and growth has been slowing over the past 4 quarters!

I will be very curious to see what happens to the service over the next few years.

Good service but bad business.

Don't Forget to Vote

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Brightstorm Raises $6 Million

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Techcrunch is reporting today that Brightstorm raised $6 million dollars in an A round. It’s a bit of a crowded space but I like the general direction of the idea. If they can continue to get top notch teachers and are able to convey their teaching style, that’s sure to help differentiate their value proposition.

Plus, I know they have good teachers because I know one of them. She’s a rock star (below).

[brightcove vid=1759867284&exp3=1659825169&surl=http://c.brightcove.com/services&pubid=1659847081&w=486&h=412\]

Can we talk about the issues please?

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Google Chrome Is Fast

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Alright, Google Chrome has come out and everyone is talking about it. I must say that it is really fast. I almost made it my official browser but some of the web sites were not rendering properly. Important buttons were missing from the Google Groups pages.

What is interesting is that some of the Google Application pages are displaying with some enhanced visuals such as box bolding or shading. What if Google were to provide “enhanced features” if you viewed any Google Application through Chrome. Would that be considered an unfair competitive advantage? I’m so dependent on a few Google Applications that I would do that.

Maybe Google is slowing becoming the evil empire …

By the way, where is the Mac version dammit!?!

Google Picasa Name Tags

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Just recently, Google Picasa was updated with a new client and web interface. Unfortunately, they hate Mac users so I stopped using the client in lieu of Apple iPhoto with the Picasa upload client. Good enough.

The coolest new feature is their support for Name Tags. Basically, they scan through your photos, do some sort of face recognition and group faces that are similar. After that, you’re able to tag the similar faces all at once.

Why do I think this is interesting?

It provides you with different lens on the same data. I love that as an innovative concept. Instead of just viewing the photos by event or chronological order, the photos can be viewed by the most important element, the people.

View all photos of …
View all photos with the following people …
Create slide show with the following people …
Share photos with the people tagged …

Best of all, its integrated with their GMail contacts which I just standardized to being my primary rolodex.

The scanning took about an hour on my 750+ MB collection of photos and it did a pretty good job. The tagging is super easy and view the photos grouped by person is very cool.

It is very cool. You should try it out.

Inversion of Control and New Architectures

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Here is nice, compact article by Martin Fowler on the Inversion of Control pattern. I’m revisiting the Spring Framework after stepping away from it for a while.

It’s always important when building a new products to learn from the “pains” of previous projects. Reminds me of those poor suckers that implemented the full J2EE 1.0 stack back in the day. Wait, I was one of them. *doh*

Anyway, what’s interesting is it seems that most new architectures are straying away from the Java stack. According to the case studies at Highscalability.com, most of the new architectures are LAMP, Ruby on Rails or Django based. I don’t have practical experience on these platforms so I can’t tell you why but folks seem to tell me its a ton easier and quicker to develop. My biggest fears are …

Long Term Manageability. Well, this is a problem for any architecture but its seems that Java keeps things together cleaner.
Performance. Java has a big head start in this area.

For a startup, these would seem like secondary concerns. It’s probably a good thing when you start having these problems and by then you can throw tons of VC money at it.

Java verses LAMP verses Ruby on Rails Django

I’m still torn.

McCain == Bush

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Good Quote for Founders and Start-ups

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Below is an except from a speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1967, on the subject of ending the Vietnam war, delivered at Riverside Church in New York City:

“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood-it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1967

Passionate speeches can resonate differently depending on context and person listening. In this case, the quote resonated with how I build my teams, run my products, drive start ups and push towards positive outcomes.

How many times have you had drinks with friends and he said “I had that idea years ago, I just never did anything with it”. Some would say that start ups are 10% ingenuity and 90% execution. Founders need to understand the “fierce ugency of now” or else never gain traction, never gather momentum and flat out fail.

I need to get this quote framed and put up in my office.

Google GMail is Down

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Google’s GMail has been down for most of the afternoon for me. I find this hugely surprising given the level of service I have received in the past. I wonder what is going on …

Barack Obama in Berlin

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Quick comments live from F8

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The Facebook F8 conference is underway and its quite the collection of folks. There is twittering, blogging, live video streaming all happening at the same time. It was a bit insane. More people were looking down at their laptops typing than actually watching the speaker talk. Here are just a couple of thoughts I had during the keynote:

Regardless of his net worth, Zuckerberg is a terrible public speaker
They need to hire someone that can scroll through slides properly
There are now 90 million Facebook users
2/3 of the users are international
Their approach on internationalization is right on and they are releasing the tool to all application developers. That’s exciting if Facebook can continue to push into international markets.
400,000 developers
New profiles isn’t that awesome and there were obvious issues with the rollout
Facebook Connect demos were exciting — Digg, Citysearch, Sixapart
Lots of guiding principles for application develpment — no more spammy apps
New developer website released
New verification and great apps program released — makes a ton of sense

Overall, very cool.

Cannot upgrade iPhone to 2.0 Firmware

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I just tried to upgrade to the new iPhone 2.0 but couldn’t. There are reports that its “bricking” older generation iPhones. I’m wondering if they took it down to fix some bugs.

Oh well, I’ll just try again later.

iPhone Apps Coming out Soon!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Remember that old web based Flash game called “The Penguin Swing”? It sure did waste a few hours of my life back in the day. Well, they have come out with a Viking version for the iPhone leveraging the tilt-sensing abilities of your iPhone or iTouch. Ok, so its stupid but there are some interesting things to gleam from this.

iPhone Apps is due out this week and I believe this will be more interesting than watching those Apple idiots line up for a new iPhone. (Can you believe the service pricing?)
Wii is to gaming as the iPhone is to mobile apps — Just like the Wii, the iPhone should introduce some interesting application leveraging the unique features of the iPhone.

I’m still putting my thoughts together for a more robust post about the iPhone development environment but my first reaction is that they did a great job. Barring of course the criticism of the lack of API’s such as background tasks, it should be enough to get going with the majoring of iPhone applications. xCode and all of its supporting tools is really well bundled together including the slick iPhone emulator.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the iPhone Apps store release this week. It should be interesting.

Registered for Facebook F8 '08

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve taken a moment to sign up for F8 ‘08. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend last year because of a business trip to Europe but this time I’m in town. A number of my friends and ex-coworkers will be in attendance representing their new companies. It will be interesting to see what they unveil this year to try to top last year.

If you’re going to be attending the event, let me know and we can meet up.

Are we still using sandbags?

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

As I watch the devastating floods in the mid-west, I can’t help but ask myself, are we still using sandbags in the year 2008? Have we not been able to innovate and come up with a better approach to blocking water during a flood situation?

Below is a photo from the “Great Flood of 1965”. Notice the highly inefficient use of sandbags. If the photo was not black and white, you might think this was a photo from our most recent floods. Keep in mind that this is over forty years ago.

Wikipedia tell me that the sandbag has been used since the 1700’s.

Com’on guys! Can’t we think of a better way to do this? Billions and billions of dollars of property damage and countless lives are at stake here. How about quick hardening foam or lightweight plastic barriers?

I’m not sure what the answer is. This is not my area of expertise but I do know that its sad that we’re still using a technique from the 1700’s.

Post a comment if you have heard of any interesting alternatives.

Facebook Gives Me Love On My Birthday

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I would like to personally thank Facebook for making me feel special on my birthday. I received over 50+ Happy Birthday notifications via Facebook. Some were friends, others were acquaintances that I had not spoken to in years and a few from complete strangers.

Facebook Killer Feature: Providing users at least one happy birthday wish on their birthday above and beyond the Happy Birthday card from Southwest Airlines (How do they remember every year!?!).

Go find me a restaurant ...

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Here is an interesting little company called UrbanSpoon which at the core of it looks like a variant of Yelp. They provide community based restaurant recommendation and reviews. Recently, they released an iPhone application that will randomly find you a restaurant based on your geographic location. Or, what could be described as location based Yelp.

What’s interesting about this?

iPhone SDK is not your everyday web application. It provides a rich UI, very cool accelerometer action, access to location information and much more.
Location based applications are now going to hit the forefront as the new iPhone 2.0 has built in GPS. We’ll be seeing some interesting location based mashups and re-spins of existing ideas.

I’m still fully formulating my opinion on Google Android verses Apple’s iPhone SDK, but at first glance i’m more in favor of the iPhone SDK.

I better brush up on my Objective-C.

Dipity Timeline Widget

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

As I was poking around the Google YouTube API researching a side project, I stumbled upon this cool timeline widget by Dipity. There seems to be an endless amount of these “widget companies” that are worth much more than the name of their space leads you to believe (Slide, RockYou, etc).

Dipity caught my attention only because they came up with a very cool use of the YouTube API. However, they also came up with a very interactive widget that, if done properly, could be as compelling as Slide’s slide show widget. Basically, they allow you to create a timeline of anything and share them with the world. Here is a link to the Apple Timeline. Even cooler, they allow various views on the same timeline and allow multiple people edit the timeline.

Their biggest problem is going to be performance. I’m running Firefox 3 on a pretty beefy Ubuntu box and the rendering stinks. They’ll need to figure this out.

Bottom line, a compelling startup can be as simple as a different way to visualize something. It will be interesting to see if they are able to gain traction.

My thoughts on Yahoo/Microsoft ...

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

My opinion is that I’m tired of reading about this damm Micro-hoo non-merger and the misadventures of captain Wang Yang. (Did anyone notice that Jerry is appropriately titled “Captain Yahoo” on the corporate website.)

Please end the insanity and bring this story to a conclusion. Millions of trees, gallons of ink and countless blogger hours can be saved by ending this mess.

Please!

Leadership team bio ...

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

As with any startup, you never get the time to do the little things. I’ve been with Abaca Technology as their Director of Engineering for more than six months already and I just got a chance to write my bio for the leadership page. I think my focus has been in the right area because we’re making some serious progress. These are exciting times. If only I could talk about it more openly.

Renato J. Mascardo Director of Engineering

Renato brings over a decade of experience leading engineering organizations with proven success inspiring large engineering teams to high levels of quality, productivity and innovation. Renato has extensive experience taking to market enterprise software, application lifecycle management, SaaS, commerce and mobile products. He has been involved with startups throughout his career and driving ideas to market.

Prior to joining Abaca, Renato was a senior engineering manager at Hewlett-Packard’s hyper growth software division (formerly Mercury Interactive). There he helped build two successful engineering teams and helped push the two products into Gartner’s magic quadrant. Before Hewlett-Packard, Renato was a technical leader for Borland Software where he architected and developed full application lifecycle management solutions for their biggest customers. Prior to joining Borland Software, Renato was a technical leader at Scient. There he was involved in building the first generation of large scale web applications including Sephora.com and Powerspring.com. Also, while at Scient he founded the mobile computing consulting practice while wireless technologies were still in its infancy and was one of the co-founding members of a product based company spin out.

Renato holds a B.A. degree in Computer Science from the University of Richmond in Richmond, VA.

Apptio comes out from hiding ...

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A number of my old team members from the Mercury Diagnostics product line, which was eventually folded into HP Software went off and founded Apptio. They describe themselves as:

Apptio is the leading provider of on demand IT Cost Transparency solutions. Apptio’s IT Cost Transparency solutions provide greater visibility into the cost, utilization and operations of IT products and services so that businesses can identify ways to reduce IT costs , make better IT decisions and benefit from more proactive IT demand management. Capabilities include template driven IT cost modeling, interactive reporting and analytics, and business facing IT demand management.

I got a few IM’s today when their website went live with real content. A very compelling idea if they can execute on it. Based on the research I was doing at my previous product line, there is huge demand for this kind of software depending on the maturity of the IT organization. These guys are hunting for some big fish.

Now, take a look at their leadership team. It’s stacked! I predict these guys will get bought in a couple of years.

Apple Store Down for Announcements?

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

It seems the Apple store is down for what I’m assuming to be updates that will come out of the WWDC announcement this morning. I’m no crazy Apple fanatic but you have to hand it to Steve Job’s ability orchestrate a marketing event. He’s very good at what he does.

Let’s see what he says …

Twitter Isn't So Bad

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Ok, so I admit that I didn’t really understand Twitter when it came out. It seemed pretty dumb. Well, after playing around with it for the past two weeks, I’ve come to appreciate the unified communication aspect of the platform. You really need to look beyond the guy who tweets, “I’m sitting on couch eating dinner”.

The SMS Integration works well from a push and pull point of view.
The Facebook Twitter Application allows my Tweets update my Facebook status that is part of my news feed.
My Twitter feed is available is RSS while lets me easily put it where ever I want.
Much easier to write compared to a blog entry

The platform enables quick, easy and broad communication. It reminds me of the unified communication platforms (that have been around for a while) in a nice Web 2.0 box. Let’s see if they can get back the scalability issues.

So, if you have nothing else to do, subscribe to my Twitter feed.

http://www.twitter.com/rmascardo

WWDC Starts Tomorrow

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference 2008 starts tomorrow and the freak Apple fans are running up the rumors about the 3G iPhone, iPhone embedded GPS. iPhone with video conferencing or Mac Fusion. And of course, everyone is afraid that Twitter will go down which means people will need to actually call each other. Sucks. I don’t want to talk to anyone.

Well, let’s see what Steve has in store for us tomorrow! I’ll probably end up buying it. Dammit!

CNN Breaking News! Wait ...

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I received this email/text message from my CNN Breaking News Alert @ 3:15am this morning. Seriously, they woke someone up at 3:15am to send this? In California, we knew that 3 months ago. Or should I react, “Haha, now you know how I feel!“

*reply-to*		*newseditor@mail.cnn.com*
to		*TEXTBREAKINGNEWS@ema3lsv06.turner.com*
*date*		*Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 3:15 AM*
*subject*		*CNN Breaking News*

— The AAA’s national gas price average has reached $4 a gallon for the first time in history.

One CNN Center Atlanta, GA 30303 (c) & (r) 2008 Cable News Network

OLPC Is Pretty Cool for 1.0

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Today, I spent time setting up the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) that my father bought as part of the “Buy a Laptop for Child and Get a Laptop Free” program that was offered back in late 2007. I have to say that the laptop is pretty damm cool. It’s running Linux (Fedora 7 from what I can tell) and has a number of very cool educational applications bundled ranging from putting music together to an application that lets to learn basic programming logic.

One of the cooler features of the laptop is a “Neighborhood view” that lets you identify other OLPC’s near by and activities that you might do together. I actually found another OLPC running somewhere near mean (It has not response to my chat yet).

Nicholas Negroponte might get alot of negative feedback about the OLPC project but I can see how this would be useful in a under developed areas.

I’m sure that Molly will enjoy it and when she’s tired with it, I’m going to get another chance to hack at it.

Seriously, John McCain?

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Twitter Technical Problems No Joke

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I’m not a huge Twitter fan but have been playing around with their SMS/Twitter/Facebook integration which is pretty cool. I guess all of the blogs about how terrible their infrastructure is seem to be at least pointed in the right direction. They went down this afternoon and I believe are still down.

Then it got really serious.

Oh well, who needs good software? Bah!

Oil Prices Keep Going Up! Woo-hoo!

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The price of oil per oarrel have reached record levels. Last Friday, the Nymex Crude Future hit $118.52 a barrel. The prices at the pump are acting accordingly. The Safeway down the street from me has 89 octane @ $3.95 a gallon.

My first reaction was “Oh crap, this isn’t going to be good for anyone”.

My second reaction was, “Go baby, Go!”. I want to see the market force innovation to happen around transportation and energy consumption. I want to see more fuel efficient cars, more alternate energy cars, better public transportation options and a reduced dependence on oil.

Just last week, the Department of Transportation is requiring auto makers to meet a 35.7 miles- per-gallon fuel standard for cars by 2015, while light trucks will have to meet a standard of 28.6 mpg. The response ,,,

Auto makers called the rule tough, but said they will comply. “Four and a half percent over this period is very aggressive,” said Edward Cohen, vice president of government relations at Honda North America. “This is requiring two to three times the normal technology improvement than what we have historically had.”

Give me a flipping break you wimp! This is what you need to do, make it happen. It’s not like this is a surprise!

That’s why free market economies are so great. As the prices of oil go up, the consumer will demand more fuel efficient cars and put pressure on governments to beef up public transportation (Maybe we’ll get the BART to go all the way around the bay).

And another byproduct could be more folks moving closer to big cities. In Business Week this week, there was an article entitled “Good-Bye Cheap Oil. So Long, Suburbia?”.

Cheap oil is what made suburbia possible. But we’ll run into problems with spot shortages. As we get into trouble with these supplies, our economy will suffer. Major instabilities in the system will present themselves much sooner than we are led to believe. And by that I mean the way we produce food, the way we conduct commerce, and the way we move around.

Let’s see what happens. In the meantime, go oil go!

Corporate verses Startup Experience

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

It’s been over five months since leaving HP and re-joining the ranks of the startups and it has been quite the shift in experiences. The startup experience is something that better fits my speed and style. They are such a great way to learn how to run a business. Also, get ready to get your hands dirty. My current position spans so many different responsibilities:

Director of Engineering — that’s what I was hired for
Senior Product Manager — actually not too much of a stretch from what I was hired for
Director of Support — added to my responsibilities after 6 weeks
Director of Operations — added to responsibilities after 8 weeks
Infrastructure Architect — What kind of production environment do I need to support the predicted growth?
Application Architect
Software Engineer — “I would rather be coding”
Support Engineer
QA Engineer
Webmaster — someone has to it and I would rather my engineers working on features
Technical Writer
Manager
And more …

There are folks that are more suited towards corporate environments and those that are more suited towards startup environments. For example, the leadership team at Mercury Interactive were all well suited towards startups and thats probably why many of those folk have since joined startups or started their own.

And then I think of my old boss at HP, that guy was built to work at HP and he’ll probably work there for the next 20 years. Nothing wrong with that.

I highly recommend startups to anyone that wants to make his mark on the world. And, is willing to incur some risk and comments like “You’re starting what? That will never work.”

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"I Like to Build Things\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

This past weekend I was playing golf with some random folks and one of them asked me what I did. I had to think about that for a moment because spewing out some random company doesn’t mean much to people. My response was “I Like to Build Things”.

Successful Software Companies
High Quality, Award Winning Software Products
Highly Productive Engineering Teams
Professional Support and Operations Teams
Customer Value
Happy Customers
Fun Places To Work
Careers

And what really gets me excited is building someone totally different, that someone has not done before.

I thought that was a bit of a unique way of answers the same old question.

iLike Is Pretty Cool

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A friend of mine at work and and I were chatting this morning about the classic problem of discovering new music. Low and behold, Web 2.0 to the rescue! Introducing iLike! iLike proclaims to have the following services.

- social music discovery Discover and share playlists, new music that matches your tastes, and concerts by your favorite artists. The iLike Sidebar* scans your music library, recommends new music, and helps you connect musically with your friends and the broader iLike community. (*Windows Media Player support now available.)
- artist services platform - Post Once, Publish Everywhere To learn more about iLike’s free suite of services to help artists build viral fan communities on Facebook and beyond, visit www.iLike.com/forartists. Also, see which leading artists use iLike Artist Services to reach their fans.
- iLike on facebook Add music to your profile, discover concerts by your favorite artists, and see what music and concerts your friends like.
- artist community Where ordinary listeners pick the hits. 1,000 radio partners. Take a quick tour of GarageBand.
- broadcaster community Personal broadcasting made simple.

I have to say the concept seems right on. I have a terrible time discovering new music and socializing around music. The toolbar is kick butt. Unfortunately, I was only able to try it on my laptop which doesn’t have my music collection on it but it really integrated well.

The funny thing is that the only person in my gmail account that is a member of iLike is my friend Joe who is the co-founder of Flixster. And, at the bottom on each of the pages there is a strange advertisement for Flixster. I guess they have some sort of partnership in place.

According to Crunchbase, the company was valued at $53.2 million in 2006 and then got a bunch of money from Ticketmaster.com (owned by IAC). (That’s probably the connection back to Flixster because it was reported that Flixster was in deep acquisition discussions with IAC a while back.) Also, take note of the amazing leadership team in place:

Overall. thumbs up. Let’s see if I can find some new music!

Twine Time!

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Alas, I finally got my beta login into Twine. I can’t wait to give it a whirl. Let’s see what the so called “Web 3.0” has in store for us.

I’ll let you know what I find.

Did Techcrunch use my Screenshot?

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I pretty sure that TechCrunch snagged my screenshot of the “HP Upline is down”.

TechCrunch screenshot:

Renato.Mascardo.com Post Screenshot:

Com’on! Don’t I get any credit? I spent alot of time resizing my browser to get that right. :-)

(Just Kidding)

Ebay may sell off Skype (Duh!)

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

TechCrunch is reporting that Ebay is considering selling off Skype.

One word: Duh!

Someone get the new CEO a carrot for recognizing the obvious. What the hell were they thinking when they bought Skype in the first place?

What happened to customer service?

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Ever since I took over Support responsibilities at my software startup, I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes for good customer service and support.

This past weekend, my wife and I got away and stayed at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay. This was our first weekend away since our daughter was born. The Ritz-Carlton brand is well known for its commitment to service. Their credo is:

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel is a place where the genuine care and comfort of our guests is our highest mission.

We pledge to provide the finest personal service and facilities for our guests who will always enjoy a warm, relaxed, yet refined ambience.

The Ritz-Carlton experience enlivens the senses, instills well-being. and fulfills even the unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests

Our stay was amazing and they lived up to their credo of providing the highest level of customer service. The entire experience made me ask the question, What the heck has happened to proper customer service for everything else?

Look around …

“Self checkout” lines at Safeway — Good luck getting anyone’s help unless they think you just stole a can of tuna because you didn’t put it into the “bagging area”.
Home Depot — Good luck trying to find someone.
Costco — You can get 50 pounds of mayonnaise but forget about asking someone what to do with it.
Airline Industry — Awful.
Any internet commerce — What customer service?

Is proper customer service reserved only for high end goods and services? At the end of the day, it’s sad. We have all been accustomed to zero or awful customer service for just about everything. Will that change?

All start-ups need to take advantage of this and go above and beyond to keep all of their customers.

Post if you have any thoughts on the topic.

HP Upline Still Unavailable!

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

HP Upline has been down since Wednesday 4/16 for me and its still down. The HP Upline team was nice enough to send me this note:

Dear HP Upline Service subscriber,

On Thursday, April 17th, HP suspended operation of the HP Upline Service. We fully anticipate that suspension of the Upline Service will be temporary and short in duration, and will notify you when the Upline Service is operational again.

Please accept our sincere apology for this unanticipated interruption of your access to the Upline Service. We appreciate your patience as we launch this new service, and are working hard to minimize inconvenience caused by this service interruption.

We truly value your early adoption of the Upline Service and will be providing the following to you: your subscription will remain in effect but we will be refunding your entire subscription fee. We will be refunding this amount to the credit card or other account you used to subscribe to the Upline Service.

Again, thank you for your patience, and we look forward to providing you with the HP Upline Service.

Sincerely,

The HP Upline Team

I have to say that this is one major screw up. Someone should get fired for this one. I’m responsible for operations at my current software start-up and if the CEO spends a bunch of money on a release, and the service just falls over and the infrastructure is in such a bad state that I’m forced to provide refunds for everyone, my resignation would be on his desk first thing Monday morning. Com’on! How can Web 2.0 start-up’s do it and one of the biggest software/hardware companies can’t do it. How bad can it be? You would think you could just throw hardware at the problem. They have plenty of that laying around.

Of course, I don’t know the details and I’m not sure what happened but I do know that I’m one unsatisfied paying customer.

HP Upline down for 2 days!

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I recently jumped on the online storage band wagon and signed up for HP Upline. My thought process was that “it’s HP, I can trust these guys”. Plus, I could no longer wait for Google to come out with GDrive. Well, I’m 8GB into the 2TB of data and suddenly, the service has been down for the last 2 days. The support person simply said, “Yes, its down and we’re not sure when its coming back up”.

Amazing. 2 days. I know that backup isn’t quite “critical services” but 2 days is ridiculous. Whatever happened to 99.999% uptime?

The service needs to be called HP Downline.

Simplicity, integration and value

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

This week’s top Digg item is a story called Google Drive Killer Coming From MIT features a start up out of MIT called Dropbox. Basically, it provides a way to store and share files online. I have say that their offering is pretty compelling, or at least the video of the demo is compelling. Why do I like it?

Clear value proposition — read the comments from the digg post and you’ll see the instant appeal
Killer integration — the integration between the web, windows and mac files systems is done really well based on the video. That clearly differentiates it from all the other online storage companies.
Simplicity — very cool basic sharing capabilities are very powerful without some stupid grand vision of being the next Facebook

The interesting question is how they plan to monetize their creation. I’m not sure I would pay for it. And, will advertising revenue be enough for a business that can be infrastructure intensive? I would love to see what their business model looks like …

University of Richmond? Where is that?

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

On cold days, I wear my University of Richmond sweatshirt that says “Richmond” on the front of it. I would say that most folks in the bay area think that it has something to do with Richmond, CA. No one knows anything about the University of Richmond out here on the west coast except for a few runs the basketball team has done in the NCAA tournament.

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised to find the University of Richmond Business School ranked #20 in Business Week’s top 50 Undergraduate Business Schools. Also included in the list are the big guys such as Wharton, Stern, Sloan and Haas. (I graduated with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Business Administration) Despite its small size, it’s nice to see Richmond getting recognized with the big guys.

Go spiders!

Steve Kirsch on Fox Business

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Here is an older video piece of Steve Kirsch talking about Abaca Technology on Fox Business from this past December. The technique in which Abaca’s technology blocks spam tends to be difficult for folks to grasp and it seems that the anchor wasn’t quite getting it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2FZ7tFBnOQ]

HP stock tanks after I leave ...

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I can’t help but continue to track the HP stock even though I sold off all my vested options at its peak at the end of 2007. Note, my last day at HP was January 2nd and notice the instantaneous market reaction! Since then, the stock has tried but has not been able to recover.

The downside, I missed out on the ~1.4% yearly pay raise that many HP Software folks received or so I was told when I was inundated with IM’s about it . Please note that the average inflation for 2007 was 2.85%.

The irony is that my old boss called me a few weeks ago about poaching engineers (which by the way I do not do). Are you sure its me? My attitude has always been as an engineering manager is if you build a great place to work, people don’t want to leave.

But, its probably easier to find someone to blame. Touche!

Where am I working now?

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Did you know that 95% of email sent out in 2007 was SPAM?

****For some reason, a number of folks think that I left HP for Google which is not the case. Google would be a great place to work but I needed something smaller. Something that would allow me to get the experience and connections needed for me to start my own business down the line. Plus, find a leadership team that can take my experience to the next level.

I’ve taken the Director of Engineering position at Abaca Technology Corp. based out of San Jose. Abaca was founded by Steve Kirsch, one really famous and successful guy in the valley. You can read more about him on his website or his Wikipedia page. His accomplishments speak for themselves.

Abaca Technology Corporation is an innovator in email protection and messaging security. Abaca’s patent-pending technology, ReceiverNet™, offers an advanced approach in the fight against spam — providing unprecedented levels of accuracy and guaranteeing 99 percent spam filtration. Abaca has created a portfolio of innovative products and services based upon this core technology, thereby assuring users unparalleled messaging protection from spam, as well as viruses and phishing attacks.

The question becomes, why did I join an anti-spam company? Well, this was my reasoning …

It’s time to get back to a real startup environment
An opportunity to work with Steve Kirsch
An opportunity to build another engineering team from scratch
An opportunity to be part of a company being built from the bottom up
An opportunity to bring real value to a space that doesn’t quite solve the problem.

The way I see it, the leadership team kicks butt, the product is truly “innovative” and I’m build one kick ass execution engine. Only time will tell, but I’m pretty bullish.

More details to come …

NY Giants Win Superbowl!

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Can you believe it? As a long time New York Giants fan, I cannot believe it myself. 0-2 start, Shocky breaks his leg, Coughlin couldn’t connect with his players, Eli couldn’t stop turning the ball over and the list of mid-season issues goes on and on. A regular list of issues if you’re a frustrated Giants fan, however all of those issues fades into the background as the Giants win the Superbowl!

Congratulations to the New York Giants and condolences to the Boston New England Patriots.

When is the first Yankees/Red Sox game?

Funny Web 2.0 Bubble Video

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 00:00:00 GMT

… and very much inline with my thoughts on the craziness going on right now.

Moving on from HP Software

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This month I put in my two weeks notice from Hewlett-Packard. Below is the original blog post when I decided to join Mercury Interactive (at the time). It’s amazing how the time goes by.

3/1/2004

Announcement: Sarah and I are excited to announce that we are moving to Bellevue, Washington just outside of Seattle. I have accepted an offer with Mercury Interactive in the J2EE Performance Management R&D product group. The work will directly work on the J2EE Deep Diagnostic tool involving development team management, Java systems programming (BCEL), Java performance tuning (Garbage collector and virtual machine optimization) and J2EE performance tuning. Mercury Interactive is the global leader in Business Technology Optimization (BTO).

Sarah (the most amazing wife ever) is willing to drop everything to support me in my career move and I can’t thank her enough for that. This was a very hard decision for Sarah and myself because of how fond we are of the Bay Area and the proximity of our friends and family. Hopefully, Sarah and I will be back in the bay area when we can actually afford a decent piece of real estate. Get ready to plan those trips up to visit! Meanwhile, let the next chapter of the Mascardo family begin! Stay tuned to Mascardo.com for more information!

As I contemplated this move, a few question came to mind. What have I been doing for the last 4 years?

Diagnostics Product Line
- Relocated my family to Seattle, Washington
- Went from manging two people to managing all day-to-day operations with the Diagnostics product (15 – 20 team members)
- Doubled the capacity of the organization during my time with local and offshore resources
- Managed release of the Mercury Profiler – Mercury’s 1st development focused tool
- End-to-end responsibility for 8 releases (3 Major) including complete re-write of enterprise grade server
- Managed re-architecture of Java Probe, .Net Probe, Diagnostics Server, user interface and persistence mechanism
- Helped to reach Gartner “Magic Quadrant” market leadership for the Diagnostic Product
- Managed integrations across Business Availability Center, Load Runner and Performance Center
- Successfully initiated and implemented the Scrum methodology across the product
- Initiated and managed Mercury relationship with the Java Community Process
Project and Portfolio Management Product Line
- Relocated back to the Bay Area From Seattle by R&D VP to resolve major product and team issues with the Project and Portfolio Management product
- Built the team from scratch to manage the software platform and operations (20 - 25 team members)
- Responsible for building a development team in Shanghai, China (5 – 8 Team Members)
- Worked with Product Management and Customers to define Strategy of PPM Platform
- Responsible for international product roll out (Support for 8+ languages and language multi-tenancy) growing the international market from 5% to 40%
- Responsible for cross product initiatives such as business intelligence solution, unified platform and integration infrastructure
- Helped manage organization through Hewlett-Packard acquisition (formerly Mercury Interactive) and was first product released after acquisition
- Helped to continue Gartner “Magic Quadrant” market leadership for the Project and Portfolio Management product
Highly involved in HP Environmental initiatives including contributing to HP’s involvement on the Green Grid consortium
Overall, had the opportunity to work with and manage some of the best in the industry

Why did I want to leave?

My HP employee number has the same number of digits than my social security number — HP is a gigantic company and that just doesn’t suit my style right now.
HP Software is a nimble organization surrounded by large company process — I spent most of my time at HP working against the processes in place. It will be interesting to see if HP Software can run like a software company and not like a hardware company
Lack of top down attention to the people — I had an HP/Mercury debrief session with other director’s and I asked the simple question of “As we acquire all of these software companies, what are doing to ease them into the culture and make sure we keep the best talent.” The response I got was in line with “If you don’t want to work here, then leave.” An unfortunate answer and against my general belief that managers need to fight for “A Players”.
Lack of HR support — I was told from my HR representative that her span of control is 1 to 3000.
Lack of innovation — I’m partly to blame for this because I was responsible for an engineering section, but I just found it harder to innovate with such a large organization. The environment and culture did not foster the proper elements to create meaningful innovation. Put it this way, its difficult to compare the innovation environment and culture at Google to HP Software.

Don’t get me wrong, HP Software is going like gang busters right now. It’s just not what I want right now.

So, what am I doing next?

I’ll save the answer to this for my next blog entry. It’s a related field but very different.

Will I stop censoring my blog?

Yes

Earthquake!

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Earthquake! Tonight a 5.6 magnitude eartquake hit the bay area 9 miles outside of San Jose. My wife and I were discussing finances on the couch when all of the sudden, the couch started to shake. I never heard the “loud thunder” that everyone talks about but I definitely felt the shaking. It lasted about 15 seconds and only one thing fell. My daughter slept through it and when we went to check on her, she waved us away like we were disturbing her beauty sleep. My neighborhood stayed pretty quite and not one car alarm went off. I hope our build machines in Cupertino are ok. We have a release to QA tomorrow! At the end of the day, the worse part of it was the the news update interrupted the beginning of “The Biggest Loser”. Here are a few posted new stories:

Google's OpenSocial (or \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Maka-Maka\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\") Coming Soon

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

TechCrunch had an interesting post today about Google’s new project called OpenSocial (or what TechCrunch previously called “Maka-Maka”). Michael writes,

The new project, called OpenSocial (URL will go live on Thursday), goes well beyond what we’ve previously reported. It is a set of common APIs that application developers can use to create applications that work on any social networks (called “hosts”) that choose to participate.

Amazing if they can do it but I’m really interested in understand a bit more about how it works. This is going to make is really easy to plug into these social networking sites. Watch out Facebook.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the details …

Bloomberg Article on HP Software

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Below is an interesting article on the HP’s Software strategy. I bolded a few interesting comments.

Hewlett-Packard Banks on Software, Faces Hurdles (Update2) By Connie Guglielmo

Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) — Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd, who revived the company by outselling Dell Inc. in personal computers, is close to a payoff in a more- lucrative product: software.

Hurd sliced more than $3 billion in costs to undercut Dell on PC prices even as he poured $6.5 billion into software acquisitions. He nabbed his sixth company last month in two years after winning a bidding war for Opsware Inc., the software maker started by Internet pioneer Marc Andreessen.

The spending, and Hurd’s decision in 2005 to stop giving programs away to computer buyers, may help triple profit in software to $253 million this year. Software, a money-losing unit when Hurd took over in April 2005, delivered a higher profit margin than the printing unit for the first time last quarter.

“We’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg here in terms of what the software business can become,” says UBS AG’s Benjamin Reitzes, ranked the second-best computer analyst by Institutional Investor magazine. He rates the shares “buy.” “It’s still a little small, but there’s the potential.”

Software, though only 2.2 percent of revenue, is the Palo Alto, California-based company’s fastest-growing division. RBC Capital Markets analyst Thomas Curlin says Hurd may make a bid for BEA Systems Inc., the maker of programs that connect server computers and the subject of a $6.7 billion hostile offer from software company Oracle Corp. Hewlett-Packard and San Jose, California-based BEA declined to comment.

Research Spending

Hurd’s takeovers brought Hewlett-Packard, the world’s biggest PC and printer maker, a new title last year: sixth- largest software maker after No. 1 Microsoft Corp. and No. 2 International Business Machines Corp. Hewlett-Packard, which also trails fifth-ranked Symantec Corp., now spends more of its research budget on software than hardware.

Even enthusiastic investors say Hurd faces risks.

“They are late to the game,” says Chuck Jones, who helps oversee $17 billion, including Hewlett-Packard shares, at Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management in San Francisco. “They’ve paid at the high end of valuations and they have to put together multiple software companies, technology bases and divergent employees, especially on the engineering side.”

Hewlett-Packard’s biggest buy was the $4.5 billion purchase in 2006 of Mercury Interactive Corp., the top seller of software that tests programming code.

More acquisitions are coming, says Tom Hogan, recruited from Vignette Corp. in February 2006 to find deals and run the software group. “My view is go bigger,” he says. “Build it yourself if you can; if you can’t, go get the market leader and don’t mess around.”

Earnings Cushion

After deciding it would take 18 months to copy Opsware’s technology for managing data centers, Hewlett-Packard beat nine suitors by offering $14.25 a share, or $1.6 billion. The bid was 39 percent more than Opsware’s $10.28 stock price on July 20.

Hewlett-Packard fell 26 cents to $51.60 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has gained 25 percent this year.

Software may help Hurd cushion earnings as PC makers Acer Inc. and Lenovo Group Ltd. cut prices to lure buyers and as Hewlett-Packard trims printer prices to widen its lead over Lexmark International Inc.

Profit from software may jump from $85 million in 2006 and reach $497 million next year, according to Credit Suisse analyst Robert Semple in New York. Sales may rise 65 percent to $2.14 billion in the year ending this month.

Before the purchases, Hewlett-Packard trailed rival IBM in offering software to improve security, test systems and manage servers that run networks and Web sites.

IBM Battle

If Hurd, 50, can wrest customers from IBM and digest his takeovers, software can return profit margins of 20 percent or more, analysts say. That tops the 5.8 percent to 16 percent Hurd culled from the PCs, printers and servers that make up most of Hewlett-Packard’s earnings.

“Hurd’s strategy to move aggressively into software appears to me to be on target,” says Stanley Nabi, vice chairman of Silvercrest Asset Management Group, which owns 1.1 million Hewlett-Packard shares. “If IBM had not moved into software and services over the past 15 years or so, it would very likely not be in existence today.”

Software is typically more profitable than hardware, which prompted IBM to build up that product line in the past decade, UBS’s Reitzes says. Software makers do most of their spending on the initial development, updating programs for little cost while charging a premium for their products. Hardware makers’ manufacturing costs usually stay fixed.

Software Background

Hurd, who ran the database software unit at automated teller machine maker NCR Corp., is focusing on software to manage storage devices, servers and data centers. Customers are spending to simplify operations and protect files from hackers.

By October 2008, Hurd says, Hewlett-Packard’s revenue will rise 4 percent to 6 percent, after topping $100 billion this year. Sales of printers and PCs will gain 4 percent to 6 percent.

For software, Hurd has promised a 10 percent to 15 percent jump in sales and margins of 18 percent to 22 percent, more than four times the margin forecast for the PC division.

To contact the reporter on this story: Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at cguglielmo1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 24, 2007 16:07 EDT

Welcome to the Semantic Web!

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Below is a very nice primer video of Tim Berners Lee on the concept of the Semantic Web. It seems that folks are “a buzz” since the recent announcement of Twine at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. I was supposed to attend the conference but was unable to due to last minute strategy meetings.

Also, here is an interesting blog post from the New York Times titled, “What I Meant to Say was Semantic Web”.

I have no opinion yet on the Semantic Web other than I need to dig into it a bit more. More to follow …

Censoring My Blog

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

It seems that my personal blog has gained a bit more traction than I wanted it to and has started to run around my office. I guess I can’t really call it a “personal blog” since its just out there on the internet. Plus, you would be surprised how much traffic a little blog can make with the right content. In order to prevent the continued mis-interpretation of my thoughts, I’ve temporarily taken down a few postings and will be toning down my commentary.

Stay tuned. More information to follow …

Is the iPhone for real?

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

On Friday, I was finally able to get my personal phone number back from Hewlett-Packard. I got the number way back in the day when I lived in San Francisco and I’m proud of my 415 area code, not to mention the hell I would go through if I decided to change the number. When I first started at Mercury Interactive (the company acquired by HP) I moved my number under the corporate account to make billing easy. Well, now I suffer from “Oh crap, HP IT is terrible!” and was afraid it would take me months to get my number back. Plus, I’m tired of my wicked cool Motorola Razr (but it must be cool since they spell like Web 2.0 company). HP swapped out my awesome Blackberry for a Razr because I’m sure I was being too productive. At the time, I thought it would be a good thing. Finally, unconnected! Now, crap, I’m unconnected! You should see me try to type an email on a normal cellular keypad.

Unfortunately, HP has a terrible line of mobile phones despite their amazing reputation with hardware. Yes, HP has mobile phones. You can find them under “Handhelds and Calculators” on the website. Ok, that’s problem number one. Forget about mobile and media coming together, HP is waiting for mobile and graphing calculators to finally come together.

Ok, now that I have my number back, what phone do I get? The following phones are in the running:

My basic requirements are the following:

At&t Phone (I like their coverage)
Qwerty keyboard
Email support (Gmail and imap is fine)
Web Access

I can’t believe that I’m considering the iPhone but it seems to be an amazing device. Is it a contender or a pretender? Here are my pro’s:

No $50 data plan fee that Blackberry devices require (only$20 bucks)
Awesome user interface
Awesome web browser
Google Maps integration

Here are my cons:

High Flipping Cost for yet another Apple device
Fat fingers will hate the keypad
3rd party applications still not officially supported
No 3G
It’s overrated
People laughing at me for buying an iPhone
Current iPhone becomes a “classic” in two months
Price drop in two months

The question is … is the iPhone for real? Now that the early adopters have already stood in line in their “Apple Chicks are Hot” t-shirts, will the regular phone user care? Will the phone become as pervasive as the iPod for MP3 players? I guess time will only tell and I’ll need to bite the bullet and make a decision.

Please help me out. If you have phone suggestions or have an opinion please let me know.

Should Engineering Managers Stop Coding?

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

For those of you that have worked with me know, I have a sign above my monitors that says, “I’d Rather Be Coding”. At the core of it, I entered into the world of software because I enjoying coding. There is nothing like digging into a problem and finding an elegant software solution at the other end. However, the other day I received advice from one of my peers that engineering managers need to stop coding in order to be good at their job and get to the next level. It made me stop and think. Should engineering managers stop coding in order to move forward with their career?

I entered into management partly because of my drive to actually get things done. I tell the engineering managers that work for me, “Without engineering managers, nothing would get done.” Engineers managers need to be good at project management, project execution, program manager, technical design, technical development, strategic thinking, people skills (defining a vision and engaging the people) and negotiation skills. This list doesn’t even include the soft skills like multi-tasking, basic management skills, etc. So, when is an engineering manager supposed to get time to code? Or better put, is it important enough to prioritize in the laundry list of “things to do”?

One of my biggest fears is becoming simply a project manager (no offense to the great project managers out there). I project manage because its a means for me to produce results. There isn’t a day when I wished to have Microsoft Project open on my desktop. Actually, I can honestly say that I hate the tool. However, I’ve seen engineering managers that were really “ubber” project managers. They let go of the technology and were unable to jump into technical strategic thinking. Caught in a hole.

I think there lies the trick. Good engineering managers (Director level and above) need to “stay connected to the technology”, re-focus on the people and make the leap to strategic thinking, leaving behind core execution tasks to be delegated to younger managers. The phase “stay connected to the technology” becomes subjective depending on the person. Maybe its coding or being involved in design reviews or reading blogs or simply doing a code review every now and then. The best engineering managers I’ve worked with were able to efficiently “stay connected to the technology”.

That being said, the environment that you work plays a role in this equation. For example, working at place like Hewlett-Packard offers enough layers that there is probably someone to delegate “the technology” to, however at a startup there is no avoiding it. It’s all hands on deck which means closing Outlook and opening up IntelliJ. At a startup, engineering managers are overhead unless you’re the co-founder.

Manager Software Projects is about Balance

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This afternoon, we had our weekly staff meeting. The first half of the meeting was a debrief of our team leads experience in a week long Agile training class. The basic message that I got was the “Agile was cool but too hard for us to implement”. They broke down all of the elements of Agile and walked through the pro’s and con’s. As we all know from Frederick Moore’s “Mythical Man Month”, that there is no process silver bullet. Yet, why do I continue to encounter engineering managers pushing Agile without even knowing the team or the problems. A team software process is not something that can be picked up off a bookshelf. It will ebb and flow depending on the dynamics of the team. For example …

Is the team large or small?
What level of expertise are the engineers?
Is the team co-located in a single area?
Is the team at professional level that they have the tools in place to support the process?
Is the team dealing with a lot of legacy code?

The software process you choose is about having the right balance. Do you need to follow Scrum or Extreme Programming to the exact tee in order to gain its benefits? I don’t think so. I tend to think of software processes as a list of best practices. Depending on the dynamics of the team, you can pick and choose best practices to find the optimal productivity and predictability.

The second half of the meeting we had a gentlemen from our support team talk about the state of the world. One of the messages that came forth was how we exceeded all expectations in regards to customer responsiveness and R&D involvement. My first thought was that of pride, but then I realized that maybe this isn’t a good thing. What cost did this extra support come from? In my mind, engineering organizations can be too responsive to the needs of customers. This continuous “feature for feature, fire fighting” takes away from the a development organizations ability to execute on more strategic and/or innovative investments. It’s the role of the director to find the right balance.

This balance also applies to other areas such as …

Quality — an engineering director should was not rely on the pure numbers coming from QA and needs to understand the “true quality” of a product. A delicate balancing act must be played to fix the right number of bugs to that make the customers happy but not spend 4 man months on lower priority defects.
Risk — a project with no risk, is an inefficient project. There needs to be a fine balance of all of the risks to guide the project to a successful delivery.
Pain — teams need to be pushed to perform at 200% of their capacity. I often tell my new managers that its ok to feel uncomfortable at work (You know what I mean). It means that you are pushing yourself and learning. A good engineering director balances the team past their comfort zone without leading them onto a death march. Sometimes, incurring pain in some areas makes another area better.

And yes, V8 for all engineering managers!

Resume on Scribd

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Here is a link to my resume on Scribd.com. Scribd.com is the “YouTube of Documents”. In general, I like the paradigm of the “YouTube of X”. YouTube’s value was how easy it made to watch and share videos. Now, Scribd has created its own Flash player but this time for documents.

The funny part is that 80% of the “Most liked documents All Time” have to do with sex. Oh well, I guess it hasn’t crossed the chasm yet.

Also, send me a note if you know how to embed the Scripd documents into Wordpress. I was not able to figure that out.

HP PPM in Gartner Magic Quadrant

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Just this past June, HP’s Project and Portfolio Management product made the “Upper Right” of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant. I must say that I nice to be working on a product that dominates its space. Here is the full report.

Enterprise Software Startups Are Difficult

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve gone through several cycles of trying to get a startups going. The most recent attempts have been trying to get an enterprise software product to market since that has been a bulk of my experience. I have to say that I wouldn’t recommend focusing on enterprise software for the following reasons:

Cost and Time To Market — Enterprise products typically take many engineers a nontrivial amount of time to build. The extra costs usually force teams to immediately go for funding.
Difficult to build without a design partner — Even as we model the bleeding edge features of the current enterprise product I’m working on at HP, we have a design partner walking us through every step of the way. For startups, it’s difficult get good design partners unless you have a relationship already in place.
Difficult to take to the market — Depending on who you are targeting in the IT department, its difficult to get onto their calendar. Taking the product to market typically requires building a sales force and big dollars

In the time I unsuccessfully tried to take two enterprise software startup ideas to market, my friends successfully took several consumer startups to market. Over beers last night in San Francisco, my friend said that he’s launching a consumer focused startup this weekend based on the Facebook application platform. He’s been coding day and night for two weeks . Amazing.

So, its time to shift focus away from enterprise software and look at consumer options. Basically, they are

Easier and cheaper to develop
Require no design partners because you typically already identify with the problem
Less difficult to take to market

The question becomes, can you come up with a consumer facing product that adds value to the user rather than just providing another time waster.

It’s a good question and I plan to find out.

Google is becoming my Web Operation System

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

It may seem from my blog that I am this Google zealot and I am not. I am a fan of “things that add value”. Over the past few months, I’ve noticed that Google has slowly started to take over my desktop. I’m using more and more web based Google applications and my Microsoft OS is starting to get jealous. Here are the list of Google applications I use:

Google Search — Duh
Google Personal Homepage
GMail
Google Reader
Google Synchronizer
Google Toolbar
Google Groups
Google News
Google Maps
Google Calendar
Google Photos
Google Finance
YouTube

Here are list of applications I wish were better:

Google Desktop — “Stinks”
Blogger — Wordpress has more robust features
Linkedin — No one uses Orkut

Here are a list of applications I wish Google would come out with:

Better Contact Management within GMail
Google Drive —Just give me a way to map a drive from my OS

I guess this is why Google is trading at $500.

New Boss Wants Resume?

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Everyone has gone through it, transitioning into a new boss. This is happening to me at work. My boss has taken on huge responsibilities running the overall division within the company. He’s the right guy for the job and I’m glad he was selected.

He decided to appoint an internal candidate for the position and now I need to learn how to work with the new manager. I was proactive and proposed a meeting over lunch just to make introductions. His response was, “I’m busy getting ramped up. Send me your resume and we can go from there.” I’m sure that the new guy is very busy digesting all the information and the note was probably a “delegation approach” of dealing with the situation. However, this message didn’t reside well with myself and another manager that received it. It’s like reseting whatever hard work and achievements done in the past year.

It’s amazing how even the smallest management actions can send the wrong message to your team. Asking me to prepare a resume tells me that 1) he doesn’t have the time to get to know me and 2) I’m being re-evaluated all over again. Why not go through the effort at a new company?

Transitioning into a new manager is always hard. Plus, they always say that folks stay or leave a company because of their manager.

So, this little note has resulted in the following:

I had not updated my resume in 6 years and now I have a polished updated version for all to see.
I had sent my resume for review to my wife who is are recruiter in the bay area. She immediately sent it to another mutual friend who wants to connect me with 3 recuiters in charge of startups
I had sent a copy to another engineering manager friend of mine review that as asked that I phone screen with his company.
It has opened my eyes that it might be less effort to interview at a new company.

Management Lesson learned: At the end of the day, motivation and communication are essential elements to manage. Don’t forget the importance of spending one-on-one time with your current or future staff no matter how busy you are. Your success will be dependent on the success of your staff. Even the little action items can send the wrong message to your team.

In my case, its a horse race. I’m trying to understand my new manager and I have an updated resume floating out there. Let’s see which of these options can capture my attention first.

HP expands into IT governance space

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Below is a recent article that I stumbled upon on the product that I am currently working on. It’s well written and some very interesting data points about the size of the space and opportunity. Here are a few interesting pieces:

Fueled by multiple business drivers, IT governance has gone from something of an afterthought to a booming business. Research company Research and Markets expects the IT governance market to grow from $126.3 million in 2003 to $1.8 billion by 2009, and the IT governance management space to expand from $408 million in 2003 to $2.7 billion by 2009.
Analyst company IDC, which groups IT governance and IT compliance together, expects that overall market to grow from about $6 billion this year to $11 billion in 2010.

It’s nice managing a product with such a bright future!

HP Expands into IT Governance Space May 11, 2007

By Chris Preimesberger

When Hewlett-Packard bought Mercury Interactive for $4.5 billion in July 2006, company officials had their sights set squarely on the IT governance space.

The purchase has given the Palo Alto, Calif., company a new $2 billion software business, according to officials, and made it a player in an industry sector that analysts expect will explode in size over the next three years.

Together, HP’s OpenView enterprise management software portfolio and Mercury product lines give HP “end-to-end management of the entire IT life cycle,” HP President and CEO Mark Hurd said at the time of the acquisition. “This allows our customers to use IT as a business enabler, rather than serving as an obstacle.”

Fueled by multiple business drivers, IT governance has gone from something of an afterthought to a booming business. Research company Research and Markets expects the IT governance market to grow from $126.3 million in 2003 to $1.8 billion by 2009, and the IT governance management space to expand from $408 million in 2003 to $2.7 billion by 2009.

Analyst company IDC, which groups IT governance and IT compliance together, expects that overall market to grow from about $6 billion this year to $11 billion in 2010.

And with the growing importance of IT governance comes greater attention from vendors looking to add those capabilities to their offerings.

HP is among the latest companies to join the IT governance ranks and, thanks to the Mercury deal, has become one of the sector’s power brokers. Other players include CA, which pegs its IT governance business at about $2.5 billion; IBM, with its Tivoli system management software; and BMC Software, which says its business service management offerings also provide IT governance-type products and services.

All four companies offer ways for enterprises to take stock of their IT systems, set policies on how best to use that capability and automate as many of the processes as possible. “[CA and BMC] are focusing their efforts on helping customers understand how to apply their business service management and solutions with prepackaged automated workflows,” said analyst Rich Ptak, of Ptak, Noel & Associates.

The demand for IT governance capabilities comes at a time when companies are looking for ways to better link their IT infrastructures and business needs, according to industry observers. Companies are running 24/7 front-facing Web sites, focusing more on data center operations, and trying to find ways to reduce monthly power bills associated with power and cooling of all that hardware.

In addition, new government regulations, both foreign and domestic—such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the United States and Basel II in Europe—require enterprises to maintain control of all company data for years at a time for e-discovery and litigation purposes, analysts and vendors say.

“We have a really simple definition of IT governance: Making fact-based decisions between IT and its customers about where IT is going to spend its money,” Carl Landers, senior vice president of marketing at CA, in Islandia, N.Y., told eWeek. “The ‘governance’ is about significant investment in IT by the enterprise.”

About a decade ago, as the technology sector grew rapidly with the rise of the Internet, companies used to “throw as much money at IT as they could” to solve business problems and serve customers, Landers said.

Not anymore.

“After the collapse, a lot of IT investment started to be questioned. That was when we saw the rise of IT governance. Companies said, ‘Look, we’re not going to be spending that much more on IT, so let’s make sure it’s in the right place,” Landers said. “They’re still saying that today.”

CA has had IT governance products and services for more than 10 years, Landers said. Its package of products and services, CA

Clarity, includes software that gives managers real-time controls and custom views of a company’s IT portfolio, financials, business relationships and risk assessments.

Clarity also allows managers to map IT costs to services consumed and provides a systematic approach to managing risk and controls, Landers said. The software runs on Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Windows and Linux environments.

“We’ve been in this business, if you can call it that, for quite a long time, and it’s really not a case of ‘should we do it or not’ for IT organizations. It’s really a matter of ‘how are we doing it,’ ‘how can it be done better’ and ‘is it being done effectively,’” Landers said.

For its part, HP is aggressively ramping up its IT governance business. The company in November rolled out Project and Portfolio Management Center 7.0, an IT governance product based in large part on what HP gained from Mercury. In March, HP announced an upgraded version of the software, Version 7.1.

Jan Sondergaard, who came to HP from Mercury in the merger and who now is vice president of products at HP, said Project and Portfolio Management Center tackles more than just IT governance.

“We didn’t want to call it ‘HP ITG,’ because we thought that was too limiting,” Sondergaard said. “P&P 7.1 reflects our view that IT resource management also includes data and application optimization, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and other management initiatives, to name a few. Our center is designed for global use, unlike others.”

Project and Portfolio Management Center 7.1 “sits between IT and the business in order to optimize the business result within IT,” Sondergaard said.

HP to Acquire Opsware Inc.

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

HP today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to purchase Opsware Inc. (Nasdaq: OPSW), a market-leading data center automation software company, through a cash tender offer for $14.25 per share, or an enterprise value (net of existing cash and debt) of approximately $1.6 billion on a fully diluted basis. [Press Release]

Very interesting news this morning hit my HP inbox and the newswire. Another big acquisition by HP to follow up with the Mercury acquisition (where I came from) that closed earlier this year. HP is getting very aggressive with their software business. It will be interesting to see how Opsware gets integrated in to the mix. At first glance, there seems to be some product overlap but I’m far from being an Opsware expert.

The funny thing is that a few of my old engineers that left for a startup that got acquired by Opsware earlier this year. Now, we are working for the same company again. All roads lead to HP.

More details to follow …

Companies Going Carbon Neutral

Mon, 28 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The latest buzz for companies these days is going “Carbon Neutral”. Yahoo, Salesforce.com, and others have announced their commitment to become carbon neutral. Basically, the idea is that if you’re going to be producing carbon dioxide, offset the production by engaging in efforts that reduce carbon dioxide. The David Suzuki Foundation describes as follows:

Climate change is a serious problem, caused primarily by the carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels like oil, coal, and gas. But there are things we can do about it - like choosing to go carbon neutral.

Going carbon neutral is an easy way to take responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions we create every time we drive our cars, take a plane, or turn on our computers. It’s based on the principle that, since climate change is a global problem, an emission reduction made elsewhere has the same positive effect as one made locally.

Here’s how it works: if you add polluting emissions to the atmosphere, you can effectively subtract them by purchasing ‘carbon offsets’. Carbon offsets are simply credits for emission reductions achieved by projects elsewhere, such as wind farms, solar installations, or energy efficiency projects. By purchasing these credits, you can apply them to your own emissions and reduce your net climate impact.

The concept of “carbon offsets” has created an industry in itself. The CarbonNeutral Company is one of the world’s leading carbon offset and climate consulting businesses, set up in the early 1990s . Their website outlines the following core services:

Carbon offset: We source and supply carbon offsets from worldwide technology and forestry projects. Our portfolio includes all types of offset (VER, CER etc) acrredited to a range of standards (Gold Standard, VCS etc). The final choice of offset is determined by a client brief. Over the past decade, we have purchased credits from over 170 projects covering 5 continents, and current projects range from an award-winning solar lighting system in rural India, to large scale wind farm in New Zealand.

Climate-Consulting: measurement, reduction, strategy: Our team of people have unique mix of backgrounds and skills in consulting, retail, IT, carbon trading, aviation, transport, finance, construction, marketing. We can provide the resources to help clients to understand their carbon risk, and work through a reduction, avoidance and offset programme to meet agreed commercial objectives.

Marketing services: Communication is part of our DNA. We’re able to partner with clients and their agencies to convert climate change activity into compelling propositions, programmes and materials. In-depth knowledge of international developments within the carbon and environmental market informs our ideas, and projects have included communications strategy workshops, original research, film proposals, e-communications tools, staff incentives and promotional launch items.

The concept of having corporations go carbon neutral seems like a great step forward. Given our current dependencies on fossil fuels and the limitations of current technologies, we won’t see companies eliminate carbon in our lifetime but this pushes companies into the right direction.

Over the next few years, the investment in sustainable technologies will explode and we’ll see a huge jump in innovation. In the meantime, don’t forget to plant a tree.

Conan O'Brian Goes to ILM

Mon, 14 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I really got a kick out of this clip from Conan O’Brian. He was in San Francisco a few weeks back and visited the ILM campus. It reminded me of those clips when the “for me to poop on” dog went to the Star Wars movie openings. Very funny stuff.

Google Search History is Evil!

Sun, 13 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I finally got around to checking out the “Search History” link at the top of my Google homepage and I soon found out that Google has been checking me out since February 7th, 2006. On that day, I searched for the following items.

This just seems so evil that there is a trail of all of my searches sitting someplace on the Google servers. The Google Help includes this description of Search History:

With Web History, you’ll be able to:

_View and manage your web activity._You know that great web site you saw online and now can’t find? From now on, you can. With Web History, you can view and search across the full text of the pages you’ve visited, including Google searches, web pages, images, videos and news stories. You can also manage your web activity and remove items from your web history at any time.

_Get the search results most relevant to you._Web History helps deliver more personalized search results based on what you’ve searched for on Google and which sites you’ve visited. You might not notice a big impact on your search results early on, but they should steadily improve over time as you use Web History.

_Follow interesting trends in your web activity_Which sites do you visit frequently? How many searches did you do between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.? Web History can tell you about these and other interesting trends on your web activity.

So, what interesting trends did I find out about myself from the Google Search History? Well …

The number #1 top site for me is Wikipedia
I search the least on Tuesdays
For some unknown reason, I search twice as much in March as compared to any other month
9:00pm is when I do the most number of searches
For some reason, Google recommends me 3 Avril Lavigne fan sites.
And last but not least, based on my searches Google has recommended that I watch the video “The Decline of Belly Dancing in Egypt” *boggle*

It’s amazing to me that this is my “digital bread trail” through the “the cloud”. This content could be used in so many different ways, good and bad. I’m not surprised if this becomes a common forensic tool for criminal investigations. I do understand that I “accepted” the gathering of this data somewhere along the lines but I didn’t think they were going to correlate it to my account!

I have nothing to hide in my search history but beware Google users! I didn’t see a “Delete History” button any place on the UI. :-)

09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

Sat, 05 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Just like a child having a temper tantrum, the users of digg.com fell to the ground and slammed their hands and feet in anger. There was a online revolt this past week on the very popular news site in response to the site yielding to the Motion Picture Association of America.

The above hex code is used for HD DVD decoding and when combined with the right tools, can be used to create copies of HD DVD’s. Obviously, the Motion Picture Association of America didn’t like that it was posted and ordered web sites to remove it and cited that it was their intellectual property. Well, Digg.com heard the request and pulled the story. Then, all hell broke loose! Everyone was posting the hex code as stories and others were digging the stories faster than they could pull them down. It was awesome. The front page looked like a war zone of these stupid hex codes. Jay Adelson posted the following response.

Hey all,

I just wanted to explain what some of you have been noticing around some stories that have been submitted to Digg on the HD DVD encryption key being cracked.

This has all come up in the past 24 hours, mostly connected to the HD-DVD hack that has been circulating online, having been posted to Digg as well as numerous other popular news and information websites. We’ve been notified by the owners of this intellectual property that they believe the posting of the encryption key infringes their intellectual property rights. In order to respect these rights and to comply with the law, we have removed postings of the key that have been brought to our attention.

Whether you agree or disagree with the policies of the intellectual property holders and consortiums, in order for Digg to survive, it must abide by the law. Digg’s Terms of Use, and the terms of use of most popular sites, are required by law to include policies against the infringement of intellectual property. This helps protect Digg from claims of infringement and being shut down due to the posting of infringing material by others.

Our goal is always to maintain a purely democratic system for the submission and sharing of information - and we want Digg to continue to be a great resource for finding the best content. However, in order for that to happen, we all need to work together to protect Digg from exposure to lawsuits that could very quickly shut us down.

Thanks for your understanding,

Jay

Well, that seemed to anger folks even more and the chaos continued. It was truly fun to watch the site become helpless to its users. All of the top stories had to do with this hex code. Later that day, Kevin Rose responded.

Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…

In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Digg on,

Kevin

Lesson learned, if the Motion Picture Association of America calls, pretend that you didn’t get their message.

IBM to Fire 150,000 Employees?

Sat, 05 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I’m pretty new to the world of hyper-large corporate companies. Hewlett-Packard is the largest company that I have worked for with about ~150,000 employees worldwide. I joke that my HP employee number has more digits than the social security number.

Well, there was an article posted on Slashdot today that outlines Palmino’s (CEO) LEAN plan to reduce upwards of 150,000 employees or 40% of the US workforce. I was shocked by these numbers. First of all, I had no idea that IBM has a total of 350,000 employees worldwide. How in the world do you manage an organization with that many employees? Can anything really get done? Second, 40% of the US workforce? That’s amazing. The article states,

LEAN is about offshoring and outsourcing at a rate never seen before at IBM. For two years Big Blue has been ramping up its operations in India and China with what I have been told is the ultimate goal of laying off at least one American worker for every overseas hire. The BIG PLAN is to continue until at least half of Global Services, or about 150,000 workers, have been cut from the U.S. division. Last week’s LEAN meetings were quite specifically to find and identify common and repetitive work now being done that could be automated or moved offshore, and to find work Global Services is doing that it should not be doing at all. This latter part is with the idea that once extraneous work is eliminated, it will be easier to move the rest offshore.

My engineering team is currently building out a team in China to offshore a bulk of the non-innovative work. Previously, we had offshored much of our work to Israel where there was a large R&D location. However, how the hell do you effectively manage offshoring the work of 150,000 employees while still maintaining any momentum. This seems impossible to me.

Well, we’ll need to wait and see how the layoffs go. If you’re working for IBM Global Services, I would get tidy up your desk for a quick departure.

Sam Wo's on Conan O'Brian!

Sat, 05 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Back in the day during the dot com boom, my wife and I were living in San Francisco and working long hours at a technology consulting firm called Scient. After a long day of coding, our co-workers and I would stumble out the office usually past 10pm and headed towards Chinatown. The normal first stop was the Buddha Bar, a local hole in the wall bar, for a few drinks. The next stop was Sam Wo’s restaurant for an order of flat noodles. This was one of the few places still open past midnight in Chinatown and perfect food after a couple of drinks.

To my surprise, Conan O’Brian had a very funny skit about Sam Wo’s, Check it out …

Update: It seems that the folks at NBC have pulled the video from YouTube. You can find it here on the NBC website. It’s about half way down on the list of clips.

15 Startup Commandments (from Startupping.com)

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I really enjoyed this post on startupping.com on the 15 Startup Commandments.

Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.

Stealth startups suck. You’re not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.

If you don’t have scaling problems, you’re not growing fast enough.

If you’re successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you’re in that position, and hope that you’re smart enough to not fall for it.

People will tell you they know more than you do. If that’s really the case, you shouldn’t be doing your startup.

Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.

Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.

The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).

You don’t need business development people. If you’re successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you’re not spending any effort trying to get them.

You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.

Starting a company will teach you what it’s like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.

Your startup isn’t succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What’s it going to be?

If you don’t pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?

Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.

You’re doing a web app, right? This isn’t the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor’s most polished software application.

I specifically enjoyed item #1. As entrepreneurs go through the “conceptual idea finding” phase of starting a business, its so easy to find something interesting and easily discredit the idea with even the slightest hint of competition. Or, they find nothing out there and quickly think that “it can’t be a good idea if no one is doing it”. Six months later, a company that was doing the idea is highlighted in business section of the local newspaper and you proclaim “there goes another one of my ideas”.

How do you know when to commit? When do you have enough data to jump into it? This is the question I have not been able to answer. I’ve struggled with trying to jump off that that successful corporate life boat and onto the unstable, risky business starter.

For me, the easiest part of all of this is executing. I’ll beat any other software product in a horse race any day and I’ve done that with the products I’ve worked on.

Oh well. Maybe a shot of Whiskey and swift kick in the ass if all I need.

Borland to Relocate Corporate Headquarters to Austin

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Borland Software announced this week that it will be relocating its corporate headquarters to Austin, Texas.

Cupertino, Calif. - Apr 16, 2007 : Borland Software Corporation (NASDAQ: BORL, www.borland.com), the global leader in Open Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), today announced that it will relocate its corporate headquarters from Cupertino, California to Austin, Texas. The company plans to expand its existing Austin R&D center with the relocation of the finance, human resources, facilities, IT and sales operations functions. As part of this announcement, Tod Nielsen, President and CEO, Erik Prusch, CFO and Jonathan Schoonmaker, SVP of Human Resources will be relocating.

As a former Borland employee, I’ve continued to follow this once legendary software company. It’s quite a shame to see one of the first silicon valley software companies move its headquarters elsewhere. The company continues to try to position itself for an acquisition with the spin off it development tools group as Codegear. There was even a time in which I thought Borland was making moves to be like Mercury Interactive. I think they even had a similar slogan to Business Technology Optimization (BTO) that Mercury popularized and HP Software took over.

Oh well. At least there is plenty of room in Texas for them.

Loopster is Useless

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

If you can’t beat them, aggregate them! Loopster.com is a new social networking website that helps you manage all of your social networking website accounts. Here is excerpt from their website,

Loopster was founded on the idea that managing relationships online is often a tedious chore. Back when your friends were defined by the people you see every day we never had to worry about this. If something happened in someone’s life they told you. Now that social networking has moved to the internet a hole has developed because people are choosing to just put that information online in a number of different places most often with no indication that anything has happened. With the number of places a person can go to maintain their information increasing every passing month, the number of places we each need to go to keep up with the pulse of our social groups is rapidly increasing. Here at Loopster we our aim is to make it easier to know when something is happening in the lives of people you care about.

Well, I gave the website a whirl this evening and found it utterly useless for the following reasons:

Even though I am a member of many social networking sites, I only care about one or two of them. How much value is this website adding to me when I only have two of them. Plus, those two social networking sites already have features to quickly check on the update history of folks you’re connected to.
Not enough features. If you’re going to aggregate my contacts from multiple networks, at least show me some interesting cross network information.
Performance Blows. The fetching of contacts seemed to take forever. It was long enough that I just stopped importing from some of the accounts.

Hopefully, the website will get better. Or, its just part of a long line of stupid web 2.0 companies and will just go away. It’s a coin flip. Either way, I’m sure they got a bunch of VC money to figure it out.

God, I need to stop writing about these social networking sites. Next post, the thrilling side of enterprise software!

Reunion.com Raises $25 Million

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Reunion.com raises $25 million dollar. In an article from Red Herring,

Amid all the widgets, mashups, video sharing, and complicated software applications angling for attention at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco Monday, there was a much more traditional social networking site―Reunion.com―that walked in with $25 million in new funding from Oak Ventures Partners.

Later in the article it mentions how they are different from all the other social sites,

With its original $1.4 million in seed funding and a business model that asks users to pay for certain premium features, Reunion has steadily added profits over its five-year existence. Mr. Tinsley said the site already has 28 million users, and it’s adding around 1 million more users each month.

Please raise your hand if you think this is absurd. What the hell are they going to do with $25 million dollars? I’m very curious to know what these “premium features” are they they expect to get folks to pay for and how awesome they must be. I’m thinking features like automatically Google-ing your name to pre-populate your profile or allowing you add people to your network that have not been born yet.

Do you hear that roar? It’s the sound of the bubble getting bigger.

Web 2.0 Conference Lacks Value

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I was able to take day to attend the O’Reilly Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco this Monday. Overall, not only did the conference lack value but it also highlighted how entire Web 2.0 phenomenon lacks some grounding with reality. It’s was as if everyone in that conference didn’t experience the .com bubble bursting just a few years earlier. There was a lot of talk about “concepts” and “theories”, but very little talking about how it adds value to the market.

Here is a list of a few highlights and lowlights:

I attended a session on Wiki’s by the CEO of Mindtouch and was convinced that he didn’t even know how to use his product. When asked to demonstrate his product, he tried to highlight some text and just start typing.
There was a live “twitter” going on during the conference just in case you wanted to tell all the conference attendees that you were in the bathroom.
In a session on called “Architectual Patterns and Models for the new Internet” by a Technical Evangelist from Adobe, I was convinced that the same architectural challenges face us in the “new internet” as compared to the “old internet”. I think this would be obvious to anyone actually building software rather an just evangelizing about it.
In the same session by Adobe, the speaker proclaimed the first use of Adobe Apollo to create a presentation. The presentation was buggy, mis-sized and at one point he had to go back to using the regular presentation tool. Uh. Is this valuable use of that technology?
During the keynotes, I was convinced that Jeff Bezos was going to punch Tim O’Reilly after asking a few controversial questions.
One of the most absurd scenes at that conference was Justin of Justin.tv and Robert Scoble of Scobleizer sitting outside of the keynotes hall with camera’s strapped on their heads blogging to their fans about they have camera’s strapped to their heads. Com’on! How crazy does that sound?

Now, I did come down with the flu mid-way through the show. I’m hoping that clouded my sense of reality and the Web 2.0 hype has some realists behind it.

Social Networking Is Everywhere

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Earlier this week, Mozilla Labs announced that they will be embedding social networking in the Mozilla browser (sucks for Flock but they must has seen that coming).

Enter “The Coop”, a Mozilla Labs project to experiment with adding social tools to the web browser. We want to create a fun and easy way to share links with your friends, and to browse the set of links that friends have shared with you. We also want to make it easy to “subscribe” to a friend in order to make it easy to keep track of the pictures, movies, blog posts and status information that they might be posting on a variety of services. There’s a project page that describes The Coop in a bit more detail, and also has some mockups of how it might look (my favorite is the idea for a view that shows a stream of recently shared material.)

Social Networking is truly becoming a commodity like the “shopping cart” did during the .com boom. Everyone and their uncle is coming out with something related with social networking. Today, TechCrunch posted that the Rolling Stones magazine would be creating a new social networking site. Start up’s are going to need more than just eye balls these days to attract some attention. I’m sure we’ll continue to see more established businesses rolling out social networking features to keep their users better engaged.

Joost Is Pretty Cool

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Hello Renato,

The waiting’s over! Since we received your application to join the Joost _beta test program, we’ve been very busy fine-tuning it for you._So here’s some good news: we’re now ready to expand our beta test program, and we’re delighted to invite you to join us.

I finally got my beta account on Joost and was able to spend some time on it today. I must say that its a pretty sweet experience. The setup was painless and mature enough that anyone could do it in three clicks with no problem. The UI has this very “Web 2.0 Tivo” like experience to it. Of course, there are no edges in any of the windows and its fairly intuitive. The client is optimized for running in full screen mode. For me, this is a bit of a pain. I would prefer all the features even available in the windowed mode. In most cases, I might flip on Joost and watch it as I’m doing something else.

Much of the buzz I heard about Joost was around how similar they made the UI to actually using a TV. They came pretty close. So close, that they even have the fading white dot when you turn it off. The video steaming was smooth. Sometimes it would take a while if you’re moving to a new channel but it still comes up pretty quickly. Turning on and off the service is super responsive. I guess thats the benefits of a P2P client downloading the data in the background. At times, the service got a bit patchy, but I’m assuming that because its only a beta. Sometimes the feeds would drop out and start from the beginning.

One of the cool features is their widget functionality. Just like on a Mac, you can place widgets on the “TV Screen” that do things such as chat, stream RSS feeds, etc. The available widgets are pretty limited but I’m sure this will grow over time. They can really start exploit those “TV-Web-Convergence” features everyone has been talking about for years.

What I didn’t see was the ability for user to upload content. I wonder if they will just relay on agreements with the content owners.

Good job Joost.

Conversation with Russ Daniels (CTO of HP Software)

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

One of the benefits of working for HP includes access to high power software executives. This past week I had an opportunity to have lunch with Russ Daniels, the CTO of HP Software. Or more specifically,

Russ Daniels is vice president and chief technology officer of the Strategy and Technology Office within HP’s software business, where he sets and coordinates the technology strategy across HP’s software portfolio of solutions for the Adaptive Enterprise – HP’s vision of an organization in which business and IT are synchronized to capitalize on change.

Russ happens to be my “HP Buddy”. The “HP Buddy Program” is a way for newly acquired Mercury employees to better assimilate to the “HP Way”. Seemingly useful in theory, yet practically hasn’t translated very well. Russ on the other hand, seems to understand very well the gap between theory and practicality. I found him to be smart, very down to early and genuinely interested in driving through technical issues. Our conversation went right into topics such as effectively managing central architecture in a large organizations, approaches to integrate large products and trends in the market. He had a couple funny quotes:

“Whenever you think you know how big HP is, its twice that size.” — Very funny and very true. I think my HP employee number has more digits then my social security number.
“The culture of HP is bureaucratic, yet lacks process.”

I’m looking forward to seeing him take a larger role in the new HP Software engineering organization.

I Don't Understand Twitter

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

“Dude, check my twitter out. I’ve just updated it and it says that I’m telling you about Twitter. Now, I just updated it again that I’m done.”

Twitter is the latest buzzword around this “Web 2.0” stuff and I don’t understand it. It allows users to “Micro-Blog”. A “Micro-blog” is a message less than 140 characters that gets posted to Twitter for all to see. Some examples of messages I’m seeing right now include,

“Reviewing kids’ report cards and ITBS test results.”
“Ready to call it a day”
“Watching Rocky IV. Man, this was a cheeseball movie.”

Other interesting features include, email notification of messages, twitting from an instant messaging client and twitting from a mobile phone. Either I must be getting old or I have enough other “Web 2.0” products to waste me free time. Or, the likely reason is that I’m not the target demographic. I can see pockets of friends or early teenagers getting into this. It will be interesting to see if Twitter can continue through the hype or if we look back on “Web 2.0” and laugh that folks invested in this.

Jott Could Save My Life

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I live about 42 miles from the Mercury Interactive software campus and it will get further when we move to the HP offices in Cupertino in June. It takes me about 45 minutes to get to the office in the morning and about 1 hour and 15 minutes to get home in the evening. For most folks, this commute would be suicide but its not so bad for me. I grew up in Connecticut and an 1.5 hour commute into New York City was common. It leaves me time to catch up on audio books, podcasts and the news. Most importantly, I use to the time plan my day in the morning and unwind my brain in the evening. I have come up with my best ideas during this time.

One of the bad habits that I’ve picked up on this commute is trying to type out mental action items on my Blackberry. Yes, I know, this is stupid and I could get into an accident. Well, Jott.com to the rescue! Jott.com allows users to call a number and record the thought. The message will be transcribed and it can be sent to yourself or to any contact you have uploaded to their system. I love the idea because its ultra simple, easy to use and actually useful! It goes to show you that the most simple problems can turn into valuable business ideas.

However, as i write this, my message is stuck “Waiting for transcription”. Oh well, I guess even good ideas get stuck with poor execution.

Competition for Largest Yahoo Mailbox

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Today, Yahoo has announced that it will provide its Yahoo mail accounts unlimited storage. The media is reporting this move in preparation for the release of the iPhone while others say that its simply a move against the Google. Either way, I’m now starting a competition to find the largest Yahoo email boxes out there. I thought I emailed quite a bit and I have barely filled 10% of my allocated 2.8 Gmail space. Please email me (rmascardo@mascardo.com) screen shots of your Yahoo mail capacity and I’ll post the largest one! I want to see some large attachments flying around now! Let’s see some “All You Can Eat”ing!

How much money do I need to start an enterprise software company?

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I stumbled upon an interesting article from earlier this year while surfing the web for venture capital links. There were a few points that I found very interesting.

“Hardly a week goes by without a reminder of the ongoing vendor consolidation. Larger software companies have emerged as a new tier of active consolidators, including IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Computer Associates International and Sun Microsystems. As these larger companies bulk up—either by acquisition or internal development—smaller software companies are finding fewer niches to fill.”

HP Software is a prime example of this enterprise consolidation. The acquisition of Mercury Interactive back in late last year truly made HP Software a serious player. The internal product managers touted the breath of offering that only a few others could compete with.

“A critical requirement for start-ups is that they’ve identified an area where pain is extreme, so extreme that a company is willing to deal with a start-up and willing to pay money for it,” said David Skok, a partner at venture capital firm Matrix Partners. “No question, it’s tough.”

This is probably one of the reasons its so hard to enter the enterprise software space. Enterprises won’t talk to you unless you fill a burning hole so big that they will deal with a startup. Plus, once you get in, you better bend over backwards to make things work. This seems so different compared to opening a consumer focused Web 2.0 company. What kind of burning pain did MySpace fill?

“The amount of money required to start a hosted-software venture may be higher than a traditional software company. Salesforce.com, for example, required about $65 million in venture funding before it went public, according to Trinity Ventures. Rangaswami noted that payments to hosted-software companies tend to be spread out over time, rather than pay out upfront. Matrix Partners’ Skok said companies that sell on-premise software—rather than hosted software—need about $30 million to $35 million, in general, to get started, which is consistent with years past.”

Really? I guess I can see the additional cost in hardware, bandwidth and delayed revenue stream. However, aren’t coding cycles longer, support costs high and implementation costs higher with “Shrink Wrap” products? Plus, isn’t the distinction between “hosted software” verses “shrink wrap” software blurring? I know that many of the Mercury products were being offered in both models. Why not offer both? I do believe that much of software is going towards software-as-a-service but large enterprise software may be the last to go that way (despite taunts by Google to move into this direction).

Don't Forget About Trillian

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Just as I post about Meebo, I realized I turned my back on Trillian by Cerulean Studios. Trillian was of the first centralized instant messanging tools that supported all of the major IM standards. I’ve been a committed user of the tool for several years now. It seems that they have a new project called Trillian Astra which seems to be their super charged answer to companies like Meebo. Some of the cool features include:

Web Based Client
Integration with MySpace IM and Google Talk
Realtime status available on the web
New Message windows

Even cooler is the video below that describes the web based UI that can be kept open after you close the browser. Maybe they’ll see my blog post and give me a tester account. It’s very cool stuff.

Flixster is unethical?

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The co-founders of Flixster happen to be my friends and I couldn’t help but notice the post on Slashdot today about them. Flixster is a social networking site focused around movie reviews. The Slashdot post questions the ethics behind a feature Flixster has for getting friends on board. Basically, within Flixster you can input your email username/password and have Flixster gather the contacts for invitations to be sent.

I don’t get it. I do believe that other, larger, social networking sites like Facebook and Plaxo do the same thing. Why did Flixster get isolated as the bad guy? If you ask me, this post is lame. The interesting thing is does Flixster 1) benefit from the exposure, 2) become the poster child for this sort of email harvesting, 3) become the butt of vigilante Slashdot hackers, or 4) Flixster who?.

Is that Meebo in your pocket or are you happy to see me?

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

If you’re like me, you have a American Online, Yahoo, MSN and ICQ instant messaging accounts and have contacts on each that you still maintain. My contacts are grouped by the software product I was working on at the time. I find it funny that my American Online account was established so long ago, I remember picking the name because I thought it could help me impress the ladies online. Uh, yeah. “Croatoa” is such a hot name. Gosh, I was a dork.

So, how does one still use all of these accounts while working for an organization that prevents the use of these applications? (I am, of course, not at all referring to my current company Hewlett-Packard because that would be a breach of some sort of dumb IT policy.) Meebo to the rescue! Meebo is instant messaging from within the browser. There is no client to install and worries about ports needing to be open since it runs over HTTP. It’s similar to GMail chat features but across the different IM vendors and a better user experience. Definetly worth checking out.

Meebo also offers Meebome which is any easy way to embed instant messaging on websites. It’s another way to have folks instantly contact you and one step close to being justin from Justin.tv. Did I mention I think he’s an idiot?

Island Odyssey Launches Beta

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This past week Island Odyssey went live with its beta site. Normally, I would not have noticed but my brother-in-law happens to be the “Chief of Staff” for the company. Island Odyssey combines the Web 2.0 social networking with travel agencies. In a recent article in the Oregon Daily Herald,

Island Odyssey is a networking site similar to Facebook that also integrates a travel agency, allowing people to book and pay for trips on the same site. Users can also view their friends’ plans on the site through a feature similar to Facebook’s “news feed.”

“Island Odyssey is the first combination of a social network and a travel portal - essentially a Facebook mixed with an Expedia, so you can see where all your friends are traveling to,” said Zachary Lieberman, founder and chief officer at Island Odyssey. “We feel like we’re going to be a completely new market.”

Ya know, even though I poo poo most social networking sites just coming to market, I like the idea. I like the idea for a number of reasons.

It’s an innovative twist on an established business. It’s not like they are starting a social networking site for travels and their primary revenue would be advertising. They are offering a service along with the community. Moving forward, I believe social networking will become more of a feature rather than a primary business like Facebook or MySpace. With platforms like Ning being released, it will easier for these networks to establish themselves.
It has an innovative marketing approach by actually hiring folks on college campuses to help promote the business and accelerate growth.
I think there is a need in the market. I know that I had a hard time trying to book trip with my friends for any events like spring break, bachelor parties, etc.
Tommy Leahy is “Chief of Staff”

On the technology side, I think they need some work. They lack the features of most other social networking sites and lack the interesting features I would expect by combining social networking and travel. Plus, the random stack trace here and there doesn’t help. However, it’s only a beta.

Justin.tv is Stupid

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

As I write this, Justin.tv has been streaming for 4 days, 23 hours and21 minutes. Yes, some moron named Justin has strapped a TV camera on his head and is streaming it on the internet for all to see, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He even posts his cell phone the web site just in case you wanted to warn him of some hottie checking him out.

The really funny part is from a recent post on TechCrunch about how folks are pranking poor Justin.

When a bunch of geeks live their life online, it’s tempting to do things to disrupt those lives and watch the fun from the comfort of your computer. So it’s no surprise that some fairly funny pranks have already been played on four day old Justin.tv.

The best so far? Wednesday at 1:40 AM someone spoofed the caller id of the Justin.tv official cell phone number (which is listed on the Justin.tv site), called the San Francisco police department and reported a stabbing in the North Beach apartment.

Check out the hilarious clip on the TechCrunch post.

Someone Send me a Joost Invitiation

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Just the other day, I recieved the following email from the Joost website.

Hi Renato Mascardo,

This is just to let you know that we haven’t forgotten your request to try Joost. We’re now speeding up the process of adding testers and we’ll shortly be inviting everyone who has signed up to try Joost.

This includes you, so expect an invite within the next couple of weeks - in the meantime, thanks for bearing with us - we appreciate it.

See you soon on Joost!

The Joost Team

Joost is the hyper-hot start by the co-founders of Skype and KaZaa (Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis) trying to change the way we watch TV. They have built a peer-to-peer based system that is supposed to be even smoother to use than the Flashed based players that made YouTube so successful. I got the email right around the same time I read the article about NBC Universal getting nto the online television game.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - News Corp. and NBC Universal said on Thursday they will launch a free online video site this summer, featuring full-length movies and television shows in a challenge to Google Inc.’s YouTube.

This space is getting crowded and those getting on the bus have serious content filled luggage. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

So, for anyone with a spare Joost invitation. Please pass it along.

Introducing the iRack!

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

What I thought started out as a parody of all of the Apple iCrap, went it a very funny direction. Hilarious.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM_MkWgbt3k]

Eric Clapton @ HP Pavillion

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Let’s take a time out from business and technology. Eric Clapton was at the HP Pavilion this past Sunday and what an amazing show. It’s was a evening of hot chops and cool blues. The setlist was the following (Thank you Where’s Eric):

01. Tell The Truth 02. Key To The Highway 03. Got to Get Better in A Little While 04. Little Wing 05. Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad

Sit Down Set 06. Driftin’ (EC Solo) 07. Outside Woman Blues 08. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out 09. Running On Faith

10. Motherless Children 11. Little Queen of Spades 12. Further On Up The Road 13. Wonderful Tonight 14. Layla

Encore 15. Cocaine 16. Crossroads (with Robert Cray)

I snapped a couple of shots below.

Google Notebook is My Friend

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I downloaded Google Notebook a few months back and only got around to using it recently.

Google Notebook makes web research of all kinds – from planning a vacation to researching a school paper to buying a car – easier and more efficient by enabling you to clip and gather information even while you’re browsing the web. And since Google Notebook lives in your browser, you won’t be left with a scattered collection of notes, Word docs, and browser bookmarks to sort through; all your web findings will be gathering into one organized, easy accessible location that you can access from any computer.

I must say that I find it very useful and use it quite a bit while researching on the web or just noting interesting things I see. Specifically, I like that 1) all the data is stored centrally so that I can get my data from any computer even when I clip from different browsers and 2) there is a convenient Firefox plug in for quick access. I highly recommend it.

Politics Impacted by the Web 2.0

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The world of politics is being impacted by viral nature of Web 2.0. This past week, a non authorized pro-Barak Obama video hit YouTube and quickly picked up 100,000 hits in two days. The video is a mix up of the classic “1984” Apple ad that has Hilary Clinton playing the role of “Big Brother”. There are even interesting subtle updates to the ad which includes the woman throwing the hammer wearing an iPod. Obama’s campaign claims it had nothing to do with the video.

We don’t know much about the author but we do know that the new mechanisms of Web 2.0 (I hate that term) will have a profound impact on the upcoming elections. I’m sure that we’ll see more examples like this in the coming months.

Do your curtains match your drapes?

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In this month’s Business 2.0, there is an article about an innovative new company tackling the age old problem to folks that dye their hair. Betty Beauty is introducing the first safe color specially formulated for the hair down there. The articles describes how the co-founder thought of the idea while observing patrons of a hair salon walk out with little bags of the hair coloring so that they can keep the “up stairs” the same color as the “down stairs”. I’m brining up this company for a number of reasons:

It’s an amazing example of founding a company on simple life observations. There are start up ideas all around us. We just need to pay attention.
Reminded me a of “Blue Ocean” strategy. Insteading of trying to take on the “bloody” hair coloring market, it’s tackling a space with probably no competitors.
I never knew that it was important to have “safe coloring” for the hair down there. I’m scared now.
I wanted to post a blog with as many references to the hair down there without actually saying what is it.

Microsoft Aquiries TellMe

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

It was announced today that Microsoft will aquire TellMe networks. Most interestingly, I have read that it could fetch 800+ million dollars which would represent the 4th largest acquisition in the history of Microsoft. Whoa! Microsoft is busting into the voice platform business in a big way. I remember playing with the technology back in 2000 and it was hot stuff back then. I’m very curious to see what Microsoft does with the technology and how (if) it changes our general user experience with the operating system. This could have very interesting impact across the Microsoft products.

REDMOND, Wash. - March 14, 2007 - Microsoft Corp. today announced it will acquire Tellme Networks, Inc., a leading provider of voice services for everyday life, including nationwide directory assistance, enterprise customer service and voice-enabled mobile search. Microsoft and Tellme share a vision around the potential of speech as a way to enable access to information, locate other people and enhance business processes, any time and from any device. Combining Tellme’s talented people and expertise in high-volume voice services with Microsoft’s platform, resources and worldwide customer reach will inspire new and innovative solutions.

Would you read a newspaper online?

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I recently discovered the the New York Times Reader while listening to Leo Laporte’s podcast on my drive home from work. It’s a very cool newspaper reader built on Windows Presentation Foundation. Surprisingly, the user experience is terrific and made me think that I could actually read a newspaper online. Since its built on the new .Net 3.0 runtime, it took a bit of time to download and install but after that it runs quite nicely. The text was easy to read and it surprising seemed like I was reading an actual newspaper. It probably works really well on a tablet PC.

For a limited time, the tool is offered for free but its very clear that they will be charging for the service soon. The following letter pops up when you register:

Dear Times Reader Beta Testers,

We want to thank you for your input during this free beta period. You and your fellow beta testers have been a great help in the development of Times Reader.

This note is to let you know that the beta period will be ending in two weeks. Times Reader will launch as a subscription service on March 27. It will cost $14.95 a month or $165 a year and will include access to TimesSelect and Premium Crosswords. Times Reader will be free to home delivery subscribers, including 7-day, weekend, Sunday only, weekday only, Book Review only, Large Type Weekly subscribers, and those who receive the special education rate.

Now, even though I liked the tool I don’t think I liked it enough to pay $14.95 a month. I would still prefer Google News, Slashdot, Digg and a random assortment of good blogs.

You Flushed the Keys Down the Toilet?

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This afternoon I was having an exit interview with an engineer on my team leaving the company. He is a very talented engineer and I’m very disappointed to see him go. Now, during the meeting my phone fell out of my pants and I heard my wife’s voice on the other line. I seriously thought I had hit the call button in my pants and dialed my wife by mistake. My pants make more phone calls than I do. My wife and I exchange salutations and then she tries to explaine to me that she flushed her car keys down the toilet. My immediate out loud response was,

“You droppe d your keys in the toilet? What? Then you flushed the toilet? Why did you do that? Did you go #1 or #2?”

The poor engineer sitting there probably didn’t know what hit him. In reality, all the timing was right just like on of those physics projects where one thing bumps the next thing in succession. She stood up, autoflushed, keys dropped and right at the “chug chug” of the toilet, the keys hit the bottom of the bowl. “Nothing but net”. In my mind, like a Scrubs episode, I had pictured the keys sitting like a sword in the dirt (Ala Brave Heart). My wife looking and saying, “We can get another set”. Flush!

Lesson learned, “The autoflush is not your friend.” For anyone who works in the San Ramon sewage treatment facility, its a BMW key and a house key. Let me know if you find them.

World of Warcraft is the next Golf?

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The other day I was having lunch with a few friends of mine and stumbled upon an interesting conversation. One person had mentioned that every Thursday night he gets together with several other VP and Directory level software engineering managers to play World of Warcraft. Amazingly, he also says that he has connected with other software “power players” through World of Warcraft. Really? Is World of Warcraft becoming the next business networking tool like golf?

For those of you that don’t know, World of Warcraft is massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It is considered one of the most successful MMORPG’s ever created. There are over 8 million users world wide and some of them are using it as a networking tool. Can you imagine being in a business dinner and saying, “I have a Level 59 Undead Warlock on the Doomhammer server. Let’s get together Saturday, we can kill a few humans and I’ll tell you about my idea over TeamSpeak.” Crazy. I would still prefer to chase after that little white ball rather than kill humans together online.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a 51 Orc Hunter on Doomhammer which I play from time to time.

/laugh

I Can't Believe I'm Blogging

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Well, it’s finally happened. I’m throwing my hat into the ring and starting a blog. If you asked me six months ago, I would have laughed at you and said “Blogs are dumb and why would I add to already full internet! There’s no room!” I’m not sure what happened but I found myself reading more and more blogs. The information I found on blogs became just as useful as the articles I would read on any major website. Then it hit me. One mans garbage is another man’s treasure. The crap I’m dribbling out could someday become useful for someone. For example, with this blog entry it could someday be used in a term paper titles, “When Blogging Jumped The Shark”.

Let’s see what happens. I give it 3 - 6 months before I get bored and jump to the next thing. Maybe I’ll start a podcast or something. In the meantime, I hope to fill this blog with at much crap and I can think of in the areas of technology, business, entrepreneurship, family and humor.