About

Fourteen years shipping software. Three exits. Teams from two to 80+, products from $0 to $50M ARR. I've been the CTO, the VP of Engineering, the technical product guy — usually the one architecting strategy on Monday and pushing production code on Friday. These days that means enterprise AI: fine-tuning open-source models, GraphRAG over corporate repositories, systems where the data never leaves the building.

I mentor early-stage AI companies at Techstars — All-Star, three years running. Give First isn't a slogan; it's how the whole thing works.

The job is the engine. It funds the route, and it's why every post on this blog cares about upload speed.

Six countries and counting. Not two-week tourist passes — months at a time, working US hours, with a Starlink in the luggage. I've flown across the planet to hand over a company we'd just sold. I've landed somewhere planning a three-day decompression stop and found the best city I've ever been to. A box jellyfish wrapped itself around my leg within hours of stepping onto one island, and I stayed anyway.

Where, exactly? That's what the rest of this site is for. I research places like an engineer — cost of living, internet, hospitals, visas — then I commit. The underrated spot, not the influencer hotspot.

The defining fact of my adult life isn't on the resume: I raised my kids as a full-time single parent for twenty years. Both launched now — one in college, one married with a kid of her own, which makes me a grandfather. A word I'm still getting used to typing.

The empty nest is real. This blog is partly what I'm doing about it: the chapter where I was needed at home every day is closed, and I'm out here working out — in real time — what the next twenty years are for.

This is not a highlight reel. I write the version I wished existed when I was running the numbers on a place: what it actually costs, what's overrated, where the friction is, who it's for and who it's not. Real prices. Real internet speeds. The jellyfish.

If a city is worse than the famous one next door, I'll say so. If it's better, I'll tell you before the crowds get there. Useful to the next person who actually wants to go — not just scroll.