I am lucky

I was very lucky to grow up in the small seaside city of Newport, Rhode Island, and am very lucky that I've been able to move back here full time over the last few years. This is a town that is complex, quaint, charming, and worldly for a place of its size. We have a thriving sailing and marine industry, a thriving tourism industry, a long history of naval and military innovation, and a surprisingly large community of artisans, artists and craftspeople.

I'm very lucky to have grown up working as a carpenter and then on boats, including years as a deckhand and then boat captain. I'm so lucky that the year I graduated from college I worked for one cold winter in a shipyard grinding boat bottoms and fixing boats. I'm lucky that I learned early that I prefer making a living with my brain rather than my hands, but also that I did make a living with my hands and I know how hard it is.

I'm lucky that my History degree taught me the importance of, well, History. And gave me context in the world, and an understanding of how things are connected and related globally both in a moment and throughout history.

I'm lucky that my two fine arts degrees have taught me to be unafraid to create things from nothing, and to develop a vision, and to see that vision fulfilled. I'm incredibly lucky to have gone to graduate school at the moment I did, when the Internet was new and the web was invented. I was lucky to study with people who had grand, expansive, and world-changing vision. And that some of those visions came true.

I was so lucky that when I left graduate school, I was able to start my first company, and that I was able to recruit an incredible team of founders, and that we were successful raising angel and venture funding.

Professionally I've been lucky to be part of 14 acquisitions, on both the buy and sell side of those acquisitions. I've worked at huge companies like Microsoft and big companies like Pandora/SiriusXM. I've worked at mid-sized companies like Bark and MediaMath. I've worked at late stage startups like Yieldmo and TRAFFIQ. I've founded Questori, Rare Crowds, Bluestreak, 9th Square and Waterworks Interactive.

Starting a company is like getting a PHD in a very deep vertical subject. You learn a huge amount about a domain, about a specific set of business and technology issues, you meet a lot of customers and experts in your vertical area, and you make a ton of friends.

Working at a big company has its own rewards too. You learn about scale, and you learn about how very small product/feature changes can lead to huge revenue changes. You learn how to be judicious when risking losing revenue, and how to be bold when it comes to new areas where you can build revenue.

I was lucky enough to start Bluestreak, an ad tech company back before the DotCom bubble burst. Lucky because we got to be the first to do lots of things. Like the first ads with Video and Audio in them. The first ads that could host an in-ad transaction. The first expanding ads. Some of that was genius, but mostly it was due to timing - it was obvious that digital advertising was going to include video and audio ads. We just got to it first. But we also invented a lot of things that became whole sectors of the industry. Rich Media. Multi-touch attribution. Tag management. Many others.

At Microsoft I was lucky to be able to be part of the team that invented Programmatic Advertising, and Real-Time Bidding. I was lucky to get to work with some of the best developers and scientists and economists in the world. I was lucky to get to write the Ad Tech Strategy for the company, and to watch as the business grew from hundreds of millions to about $5B in revenue.

At Mediamath I was lucky to be able to work for one of the largest independent programmatic buying platforms, and to watch the business scale up. I was lucky to work there before the team had to learn much harder lessons about predatory investors who work against their own interests.

At Pandora I was lucky to help grow ad revenue significantly while we were losing monthly active users. I was lucky to work at a company with a stellar culture and team. I was lucky to be able to help build an advertising platform business that transformed the company, and ultimately led to our acquisition by SiriusXM.

At Yieldmo I was lucky to be able to work on an incredible, innovative platform that powers privacy-centric performance optimization without needing any PII.

At Bark I was lucky to work for a company transitioning from the largest subscription box business to a full e-commerce platform. I was lucky to be able to focus on our mission of making dogs happy. And to work with an incredible team and for a company with an amazing culture.

I'm lucky to have an amazing wife who is smarter than me, and who pushes me personally and professionally. And who loves me. And finally, I'm grateful and lucky to have raised four kids, and a few unlikely strays who came along and fleshed out the family in unexpected and wonderful ways.