Hi! A bit about me:
Generally, my interests are quite broad but a lot of what I like to think about lies at the intersection of AI, engineering, writing, design, and knowledge tools.
- Recent work: I started and built most of Holloway, a small startup that has rebuilt the digital book publishing process with dozens of in-depth, web-based guides in entrepreneurship, creativity, and personal growth. We also publish print books. I love to talk to authors, experts, and anyone who cares about sharing high-value knowledge.
- Writing: I've written and edited few popular guides (2M+ readers), including The Art of Command Line (with 140K+ stars one of the top 40 most popular GitHub repos of all time), equity compensation, and AWS (was recognized as an "AWS Hero"). I’ve also edited (and published) about a dozen books by other authors.
- Coding: Have loved programming since I was a kid. Was a founding engineer and engineering leader at several startups in AI, SaaS, and web search (some failed, some successful). Wide range of backend eng, distributed sysems, devops/cloud, full stack web/React/TypeScript/JS/Node, Python, Java, C/C++, and yes, also older esoteric things like Lisp and Prolog.
- Tech: I’ve worked on conversational AI systems since early days with the original Siri team at SRI. I’ve built search engines with prominent ex-Google engineers. I have a broad interest in the theory, the practice, and the human elements of software engineering, and the history of software and AI.
- Math and science: When younger, I thought I would be a professor and did my graduate work in math at Berkeley. Even before that, I majored in physics, math, and computer science.
- Inspiration: I believe the purpose of technology is to improve our collective knowledge and intelligence and to solve human problems. The technologist I most admire is Doug Engelbart. His work is as relevant today as it was 50 years ago. By sharing a vision of what was possible, he shaped how we use software for decades. I feel privileged to have met him a few times.
- Random: I like to learn a few things about many topics and many things about a few topics. My interests include good books of all kinds, current culture and politics but in historical context, philosophy, psychology, startups and entrepreneurship, AI (both old school and latest gen AI explosion), product design, typography, software engineering, obscure programming languages, logic and foundations of mathematics, mental and physical health (and their interactions), fitness and nutrition, trail running and wilderness backpacking, natural history (especially of the California mountains and deserts), fingerstyle guitar, 15th-18th century lute music, early American blues, Brazilian Portuguese, truth, kindness, and some other arcana.
Find me:
Please say hello if you think you should! I'd be glad to hear from you if we share interests. If you're trying to reach me, note I sometimes fall behind on messages. I don't mind reminders and more detail or context in a message helps. :)