My Personal README

I believe great products are the most effective way to push the world forward.

In an ideal world, we would build with as little process as possible. We would live in a world of self-organizing companies where information perfectly flows from one person to the next, allowing a single set of priorities to guide behaviors and ensure the right collective action is taken. Due to a variety of factors, we do not live in this world, so my aim is to find proxies that help get as close as possible.

Investing in communication helps me set a shared mission and establish principles to delegate decisions. As a leader, investing my time in coaching and team development helps me grow the talent that ultimately makes the team work. I have no preconceived notion that I can do any of this alone — Actually, I’m pretty clueless most of the time. With time and a willingness to ask questions, I hope to operate in service of the team (and I expect the same in return).

Principles for how I work

I believe building a culture is a bit like dating. You want to know what your manager and your team members value and prioritize. Then you can determine for yourself if those are aligned with what you want for your future self.

• Better Humans make Better Leaders - Last I checked, everyone on our team is a human. We each desire, dream, have families, worry, and feel every other emotion known on earth. By remembering what it means to be a good human, each of us can be our own best leader. Everyone has bad days. Everyone has that day where there is a sick family member creating excessive stress. Everyone has a day where they couldn’t sleep the night before. We’re human. And remember that we’re all human is necessary to succeed.
• You have to create - I enjoy working with people who build the future, and that starts with creating new things in your domain. Each person, no matter how senior or how junior, should be excited to build things and should be working on the skills to make that possible. In some fields, such as design, this is the baseline. This applies beyond those fields. For example, if you’re in business development, I expect you to constantly be iterating on your pitch deck to make it as impactful as possible.
• Be the expert in something - In building a democratized team where each person feels empowered to own their space, I expect people on the team to have a space they are truly an expert. This means I want you to own the process, the results, and the roadmap related to that area of knowledge. You won’t be fully alone here, but you need to value the culture of ambiguous situations, self-improvement, and simultaneously thinking short and long-term. Related to being an expert is having an opinion. We hired you on the team because you have the potential to become a world-class expert in your position and I expect you to share that regularly! We want you to be biased in bringing your opinions to situations based on your area of expertise.
• An obsession to be world-class - In my daily life, I seek to use the best of the best products/tools because I value always raising the bar on what is possible. I expect my team to do the same. If you’re working in customer success, I want to hear about how you only stay at a certain brand of boutique hotels because they put everything possible into providing best-in-class customer care. Or I want to hear how you have hundreds of applications on your phone because you want to try out every single one. (Side note: I wrote a few product I love here)
• Focus on asking the right question (Be curious) - Every world-changing idea started with a powerful question and I value working with people who are constantly questioning their work then defining and creating experiments to answer said questions.

My Blind Spots

No leader or person in an organization is perfect. In many years working on inclusive-focused products, one of the most important tools for removing exclusion is openly discussing your biases and blind spots. As a leader, I believe this is an important tool for building an effective team.

• I give thanks by showing results: I am motivated by hitting goals and creating things that push the world forward. Often times, I am so motivated by this that I do not celebrate my team when they do well because I personally find that showing results is the greatest thanks I could receive. I want you to know that I am not intentionally ignoring your accomplishments, I am celebrating the metrics success and automatically refocusing on the next challenge.
• I’m obsessive: When I find a problem or area that gets me excited, I obsess over it. I work a lot and view everything happening in life through that lens. This has a few side effects. First, in a good way, I can get a lot done because I am thinking about it constantly. But, second, that means I’ll work crazy hours. And finally, sometimes this can blind me from other areas. I promise you, I don’t expect you to always work insane hours, we all need a break and we get work done in different ways. I mention this as a blind spot because I want to openly call this out - I truly don’t care how long you work as long as you deliver on your goals.
• I’m a people pleaser: Historically, i’ve struggled challenging those around me because I have this deep desire to please people. Like, a burning deep desire. In the best case, this comes out in helping creating a great product that people love. In the worst case, this means I am not direct with those around me. As long as we’re all focused on building a delightful, stunning product experience, we can collectively please our customers.

My Promise

My promise is that regardless of all of this — I will care deeply about you, our team, and achieving our goals together. And I hope you can feel that every day.