Ventures
Actionworks: Education company that builds entrepreneurship and innovation programs for the U.S. Department of State, Intel, the University of Texas, and dozens more. Building with AI since 2019.
Minimum Viable Video: Cohort-based course on creating videos to get customers, connections, and capital.
Coaching: I help founders, engineers, and tech workers have more success with business and video.
(Previously) 3 Day Startup: 10-year CEO journey scaling an entrepreneurship bootcamp to 50 countries.
Personal
- My fiancé and I (and her ridiculous cats) split our time between Austin, TX and Savannah, GA
- Interests: LLMs, Formula 1, Mexican food, Alvvays, Nolan films, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman’s theory of reality, Longhorn football
- I’m 5 years deep into writing a from-the-trenches newsletter of stories and tips on entrepreneurship, AI, and video
- I’ve had a hell of a lot easier time building companies than figuring out vulnerability; that came with Personal Boards of Directors
I manage a mysterious health condition—maybe you’ll be the one to diagnose it?RESOLVED!
Contact
DM me on X or email me at my name at actionworks dot co (not dot com).
Blog
-
Not Every Utterance is Sacred
Humans have always found strange ways to make big decisions. In the 6th century BCE, people seeking answers to life’s big questions traveled to a remote mountainside in Greece to speak with a woman seated above a crack in the earth. She inhaled vapors that rose from the stone, slipped into a trance, and began to mutter. A team of temple priests—men trained in ritual and rhetoric—stood nearby to translate her broken words into something the rest of society could use.
-
The Ballmer Method for Prompting
In the late 2000s, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer always came off a bit unhinged. Sweaty and loud, he became a meme while ranting about Microsoft’s future. There’s an apocryphal story about how Steve figured out something important, that ended up being a prescient take about an AI-first world. I think about this story once a week; I hope it is equally impactful for you in how you use AI.
-
Why Experts Are the Worst Teachers
About twenty years ago, I developed a repetitive stress injury from playing guitar. I was in a band, and I had to quit. The pressure I had to apply to the fretboard created a tendon issue that just wouldn’t go away. But I wasn’t ready to walk away from music entirely. If I couldn’t play guitar, I figured I’d get into electronic music. So I bought a copy of Reason, a program used by music producers to make beats.
-
The Last Moat
At AI Innovation Week in Mexico, we explored a counterintuitive idea: As AI makes public knowledge cheap, relationships and unspoken knowledge rise in value. This piece explores that concept through the lens of a hedge fund manager’s rogue approach to the Enron collapse.
-
Mexico Stories and Observations
I just wrapped up AI Innovation Week at IPADE—Mexico’s most prestigious business school—across their Mexico City and Monterey campuses. The formal recap is on my work site. But here on the personal website, I share the things that caught my attention during my time south of the border. Read on for the interesting and unusual, from the witchraft market to the grandma who tried to seduce me.
-
A Simple Rule for Managing Complexity: The Double Cushion
My favorite business school professor made good money managing extreme complexity: he oversaw consulting gigs involving multimillion dollar real estate purchases, factory operations with thousands of employees, and complicated mergers. He seemed to be able to see around corners.