Professional Interests

I think of my work in terms of themes and areas of interest. But, if you want, you can view my résumé.

Messaging & Communication — Between my experience work on the WeChat and and later Facebook Messenger product teams, I've worked on products used by over a billion people.

Music software — In 2010, I started a company called Etude to bring beautiful, interactive sheet music to the iPad. Got in one of Apple's iPad ads. Sold to Steinway & Sons, where I grew their first music technology team. Built out a commercial music store with publisher partners. Somehow got a patent for the convoluted data conversion and sanitization process used in preparing its content.

Interactive Explanations & Civic Hacking — Made a few mashups, one exploring inequality and mass transit in the Bay Area, as well as one on evictions. Recieved a grant from the Knight Foundation to prototype a mobile game about planning mass transit using real census data, but it turned out kinda weird.

MOOCs — Got obsessed with massive open online courses for a while and binged on them. Became a product manager at Udacity, where the team I led invented a new kind of tool for authoring MOOCs.

Quantified Self — There's a lot of potential in technology to make us more mindful of our actions, habits, and how we lead our lives. Consulted on two of the Nike+ apps. One of these days, I'll get around to releasing some of the tools I've built for myself.

Other — In college, I grew a business selling Mac apps, the most popular of which was a notebook app called ShoveBox. It got a 4-mice review in Macworld and paid the bills. Wish I'd picked a better-advised name for that product. I've also been a guest instructor at Hack Reactor for a while, worked on GIS apps for the army as a kid, and consulted for a bunch of random startups.