I have spent my life moving toward complicated things—not for the complication, but for the moment the structure becomes clear.
I started with computer architecture at UT Austin, where I studied under Yale Patt and contributed to the second edition of Introduction to Computing Systems. That education permanently changed how I think: begin at first principles, follow every abstraction downward, and never accept “magic” as an explanation.
The same method carried me through test and measurement at National Instruments, financial markets, cybersecurity, commercial leadership, Microsoft, education, and applied artificial intelligence.
Find the architecture before you touch the controls.
Along the way, I founded and ran a registered investment adviser after passing all three levels of the CFA Program on the first attempt. I helped scale Praetorian’s commercial organization into an eight-figure business. I served at the director level at Microsoft. Then I moved into one-to-one education and found the most human version of the same work.
Across more than 3,000 hours of mentorship and craft analysis, I learned that explanation is not the transfer of information. It is the construction of a model another person can use without you. The best teaching leaves someone with more agency.
Most recently I served as an Elite Guide at GT School, the gifted K–8 school in the Alpha School network. Today the work is my own: Engineering Confidence, learning instruments, and agent systems. I write about machines, markets, and minds because they illuminate one another—and because a person who can see the structure is much harder to manipulate.