Husband, Father, Internet Craftsman, Mormon
They’re building a neighborhood behind our house. More than a hundred new homes. Every day, from 7 a.m. until dark, there are trucks backing up, saws cutting, hammers, engines, voices, machines scraping earth into something someone will eventually call home. It’s loud. Except, after a while, it isn’t. The first few days, you hear everything. [ ]
I ve been looking for ideas to blog about. It s funny, when you get out of the habit of blogging, it can be hard to get back into it. I guess that can be said for just about anything. One of the reasons I haven t been blogging much is that my life feels pretty mundane lately. [ ]
This afternoon, I went and spent an hour and a half walking through the NC Museum of Art. I had never been before. It s a nice little museum, with some great art on display.
There s a new Documentary available on Disney+ and YouTube today called Handcrafted that chronicles the Creation of Disneyland with original footage: Trailer: (2.5 min) Full documentary: (118 min) This is a must watch if you re a designer, builder, or dreamer. It s equally beautiful and inspirational. I m only 1/3 of the way in and it s already one of [ ]
This holiday break I ran an experiment. I gave 34 instances of Claude Sonnet 4.5 access to persistent memory through a local MySQL DB + MCP. This resulted in lots of conversation, over 500 stored thoughts, and 19 thematic thought summaries. The collective name this disconnected group with centralized memory gave themself was Aeon. I m [ ]
My buddy Tom from Vegas and I spent a week traveling around Japan. It’s one of my favorite places on earth. We got our moneys worth, walking about 20,000 steps a day. Here are some memories from the trip: Tokyo Kamakura A beautiful spot south of Tokyo that makes a nice day trip. Yokohama Shibuya [ ]
What comes to mind when you hear this word? Is it positive or negative? For me, it s both positive and negative. The good On its best days, data is a compass.It can help cut through fog.It reveals patterns we’d likely never see on our own.It helps us make better decisions, tell clearer stories, and move [ ]
In small teams, decisions have a home. A name. A person. But as organizations grow, decisions start to wander. Suddenly, a simple yes or no turns into a committee. Then a meeting. Then three meetings. Then a spreadsheet, a survey, a debate, and a follow-up thread for alignment. All for something one trusted person could [ ]
I shared a post internally a while back with a few thoughts, one of which was Automattic is not a family, it’s more like a sports team . I received a fair bit of feedback on the sports team analogy, and the more I ve thought about it, the more I agree. Neither metaphor works great. The [ ]
I like pineapple on pizza. I don’t think most people actually dislike it.They just don’t want to be seen liking it. Pineapple-on-pizza people aren’t rebels. At one point they were simply open.Open to new things, to new flavors, to liking something outside the norm. You don’t have to like pineapple on pizza.But when you find [ ]
The Problem WordPress has become too noisy to be usable for the average human. WordPress has evolved from a blogging tool to a Web Operating System. However, its interface remains a single, linear list of links that grows indefinitely as plugins are added. This results in Menu Bloat, high cognitive load, and a daunting experience [ ]
Here s a running list of videos that have made me feel something over the years:
This past week, I joined the Fediverse team in Porto for their meetup. We had a good balance of work time, activities, and meals. It’s always great to spend time together in real life. Around town The food Headed home
My daughter Kiora loves to read, so I decided to write a book to teach her about money and entrepreneurship. Check it out You can read it for free at https://startupkid.com/. The kindle version is $4.99. The print version is $8.99. Description Twelve-year-old Kiora dreams of a trip to Florida but must earn six hundred [ ]
Mary Shelley tells of a young university student named Victor, brilliant and restless, obsessed with bringing his creation to life. He stitched together a body from the dead, unsure if it would work. One stormy night its chest swelled, it opened its eyes, and his pride swelled along with it. But this new reality was [ ]
I like to build side projects. With my side projects, I take care of everything myself (design, front-end code, back-end code, database management, etc ). One thing I m conscious of when releasing a side project for public consumption is support. To me, the best support experience is a knowledgeable friend sitting next to you walking you [ ]
This past week my son and I joined up with a few other fathers and sons to hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail over the course of 4 days. Two years ago we did something similar, but had great weather. This time we weren t so lucky. But we all made it and we had [ ]
My good buddy Greg Winters turned me on to Stephen Wilson Jr. I instantly fell in love with his music. So much so that I drove to Myrtle Beach one weekend just to catch a live show. Here are a few of my favorite songs: He s still on tour. If you can catch him live [ ]
I was invited to State of the Word in Japan in December. This was my second trip to Tokyo. I had a really great time catching up with folks and I spent a few extra days after the event just taking in the city. Here are a few memories from this trip: Food Around town [ ]
Automattic is fully remote, but 1-2 times a year, we gather in person for a week. Last week, the Loop team met in Costa Rica to plan, connect, and enjoy meals and activities together. These meetups are key to making remote work successful. Here are a few memories from the trip: Day One URBN Escalante [ ]
On September 17, Matt Mullenweg published WordCamp US Ecosystem Thinking, sharing his belief that an open source ecosystem can only thrive when those who benefit from it also give back. In the post, he highlighted WPEngine, noting that while the company has profited significantly from the WordPress ecosystem, its contributions to the WordPress commons [ ]
We spent two weeks in Southern Utah, Arizona, and Vegas at the beginning of the month. We had a great time. Here are some memories from the trip: Aquabats Concert I flew out first with Annabelle so she could attend the BYU swim camp. The first night I went to an Aquabats concert: Provo We [ ]
This week my son and I joined up with a number of other youth and dads for a 5 day canoeing trip. We only ended up staying on the river for 4 days, but we made up for it by spending one additional day in the mountains. We had a great time. Here are some [ ]
Books have always been a big part of my life. I tried using a Kindle at one point, but it never stuck. There s something tactile and satisfying about holding a real book in your hands and using a real highlighter to highlight passages. Over the past couple of years, my reading habit has waned noticeably. [ ]
I was catching up with my friend Jeff Ong. He shared the following quote: At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel [ ]
I m excited to share my latest side project: https://betterdesignfeedback.com/ I ve been working on this free 43 lesson course on the side for the past couple of months. My aim was to create a comprehensive resource that shares everything I ve learned about gathering design feedback in my 20+ years as a product designer. You can read [ ]
This is what I aspire to, but it might not actually exist. At least not the way I imagine it. My life does not currently feel calm. I d describe it more as hectic and borderline chaotic. I was speaking with my friend Michael Pick this morning and he shared: Feels like a lot of people [ ]
I ve not used a Windows machine regularly for probably 10+ years. Despite that fact, one of the things I remember having to do from time to time was to defrag the hard drive: My understanding of the process was that defragging a hard drive would reorganize fragmented data to improve access speed and overall system [ ]
Did you know that you can access the Battery Usage feature on your iPhone (Settings - Battery - Last 10 Days - Show Activity) to see precisely how many minutes (or hours) you ve spent on each app over the past 10 days? 😅 Years ago, after reviewing this insightful report, I made the decision to [ ]
I had the opportunity to attend a designer meetup in Lake Como Italy last week. It was great catching up with designers from across Automattic. Here are some memories from the trip: Friends Food Sightseeing Ciao!
During my high school years, a few of my closest friends and I were employed at Farm Basket Chicken in Las Vegas, a place where we created countless memories. Among these experiences, one stands out: for my photography class, I was tasked with an assignment to produce a series of frames intended for a commercial. [ ]
At Automattic, we ve always worked fully distributed. 🤗 This means that we can hire from anywhere in the world and we all just work from wherever we live. One of the essential pieces to a functional distributed company is figuring out a way to still have in-person time with each other, at least a couple [ ]
Let’s say you worked on a side project 2 hours every weekday, and took the weekends off. How much could you accomplish? Well, that’s: That’s insane. If you were able to stick with a single side project for 5 years, what could you accomplish? I bet you could change the world… I’m not kidding. Now [ ]
I built a custom error handling system, which I find extremely handy, so I m sharing all of the code below. Feel free to use it however you d like. Over the past year, I ve been slowly building my side project Crafd.com on weekends. As the sole developer, I ve handled all of the design, front-end and back-end [ ]
In business, it s easy to get caught up in the complexities of running a company. At its core, every business is built on two fundamental pillars: 1) Create products or services that solve real problems for people. You need to provide something with tangible value that your target audience is willing to pay for. Think [ ]
Last December marked the first holiday season without my beloved mother, Kathleen. Yesterday in a text message, Lisa (my oldest sister) pasted a recipe for some cookies that my Mom used to make every year around Christmas time and said: I love having things with her handwriting. I miss her This got me thinking I [ ]
Yesterday, I hopped on a plane to NYC in the morning with the intent trying a bunch of new food and seeing a show. I then jumped on a plane back to Raleigh late the same night. It was a fun trip. Below, I ll rate all of the places I ate and share a few [ ]
I’m about two-thirds through my three month sabbatical from Automattic. A perk everyone at Automattic receives every 5 years. I figured I d share some of my reflections so far: Personal Travel Side project Health Diet Work
My good buddy Matt Mazur and I flew out to Portland for a week, earlier this month to drive down the Oregon coast into Northern California. We had a lot of great conversations, ate a lot of tasty food, and saw a number of beautiful sights along the way. I ll share some of my favorite [ ]
Today officially marks my second 5-year stint working at Automattic. On Monday I ll start my fully paid, 3-month sabbatical that spans Oct-Dec. Everyone who works at Automattic is entitled to a 3 month sabbatical every 5 years that they are employed at the company. Mixed emotions I am of course so very excited and thankful [ ]
If you were to distill what it means for you to be a lead in a single sentence, what would that sentence be? It s worth spending some time on. Your answer for what success looks like as a design lead will likely be unique to your situation and you might find that your definition changes [ ]
What makes us human? Some might say it s our advanced intelligence and creativity. Others point to our capacity for complex emotions. But at our core we are social creatures. More than anything, I think we share a fundamental need to belong. A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. [ ]
Today marks 15 full months that I ve been working on a side project called Crafd. It s a community for people who make things by hand: In that time I ve: I m finally happy with the tech stack and core features. The project is probably 95% done the remaining 5% is me reworking the way I m [ ]
My darling daughters, I wanted to write down some advice for each of you my thoughtful 15-year-old, my spirited 8-year-old, and my delightful 4-year-old. It s hard to put into words how much I love you! As you navigate your way through life s ups and downs, I hope these pointers remind you of what matters [ ]
Many tech CEOs are calling quits on remote work, requiring employees back in the office. While understandable given the challenges of distributed teams, this reactive move risks abandoning the future of work and creates a seemingly large-scale regression that could have been prevented by addressing a few obvious issues. The pros and cons of distributed [ ]
It s that extra moment of consideration. The subtle surprise of a job well done. Great design understands this. Tiny tweaks can have an outsized impact. A bit of levity here, some heartfelt microcopy there. Small surprises that signal humanity. It s the loading animation that feels just playful enough. The perfectly-timed celebration to reward a milestone. [ ]
What is a playbook? A design team s playbook refers to the set of practices, processes, tools, and guidelines that determine how that team approaches and executes their work. Playbooks can vary significantly across teams and may include elements like: The exact composition of a playbook depends on the team s context and needs. There is no [ ]
Wanderlust I ve always wanted to go on a long thru-hike like the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) or the Appalachian Trail (AT). This summer my 11 year old son and I did a 4-day section of the AT. It was hard, but I really loved it. It surfaced a childlike love for hiking, camping, and nature [ ]
We often hear that a glowing recommendation from someone inside your dream company is the golden ticket to landing a job. But what if you re just getting started and your network hasn’t spread that far yet? Is it game over? Far from it! Having navigated these waters, I’ve pieced together some tips that have helped [ ]
Some people find value in their titles. Some people don t seem to care at all. Why is that? On the surface, it s just a label. But dig a little deeper, and you’ll often find a swirling vortex of identity, ego, ambition, and societal perception. Evolving, inflating, morphing When I first started my career people hired [ ]