Thinking
A few beliefs that shape how I build and lead.
Most people use AI as ask-a-question, get-an-answer. I'm building toward AI that knows your ongoing context: your team, your goals, your training history, your past decisions. It uses that context to make your own thinking more durable, retrievable, and grounded.
The key technical insight shared by Lead and Fitness AI is that AI gets dramatically more useful with persistent, structured context. Not one-off conversations, but accumulated state that compounds over time.
The "second mind" takes all the notes, reflections, and journal entries that would normally just sit there, hard to scroll through, hard to find the important parts. It processes them into meaningful takeaways. It helps reflect at the end of each day and think about the most important things to do. It grounds thinking in frameworks that have resonated in the past but that you don't tend to reach for day-to-day.
The AI doesn't think for you; it makes sure your best thinking doesn't get lost.
At CalArts, technology was utilitarian toward the creation of art. Yet off-the-shelf tools didn't exist for my artistic goals, so toolmaking became a creative act in itself, which led to a sense of craft in computer programming.
Engineers in Silicon Valley may or may not think of themselves as artists, but every time you press compile or push a PR to main, you are engaging in an act of creativity. As a manager, I stay tuned in to the ups and downs of what a creative person goes through. Some days the flow is just not there, which is totally fine. Other days a tempest is being unleashed, and it must be harnessed in a way that is as gratifying for the individual as it is valuable for the company.
CalArts contained a kaleidoscopic array of people, from the most sober, analytical mathematician to the most eccentric performance artist. That experience shapes how I see and interact with people to this day. The tech world is often stereotyped as a monoculture, but I interact with people as people, and find the same array of idiosyncrasies in each colleague as I did in art school.
The three-legged stool. A healthy career sits on three legs: what you enjoy, what you're best at, and what the company needs. As a leader, it's my job to provide the business with what it needs. As a human being, I take responsibility for providing my employees with a good experience and a growth opportunity. When all three align, people do their best work.
Growth by stretching. Inherited from a CEO who told me "the only way to grow is to stretch beyond where you're comfortable." I actively apply this. Putting a mobile developer on an ML evaluation system, or giving a quality engineer ownership of data schemas. I see growth opportunities people might not be considering for themselves.
Open lines. I meet regularly with everyone in my organization, not just direct reports. This is a significant time investment that pays dividends in strong relationships and team identity, evidenced by very low attrition. These meetings are also my opportunity to directly coach managers I'm developing.
Performance philosophy. Assess performance based on results, not project assignment. Who worked on which project is a staffing decision made by managers. It should not be a performance differentiator. I advocate for people who did essential work, even when that work was less visible.