About me

Last updated May. 28, 2019

• Born and raised in the midwest (STL).
• Learned to code hacking on TI-83+ calculators.
• Built software for and ran several HvZ games.
• Studied mechanical engineering @University of Missouri.
• Research focus in engineering software and optimization.
• Built a side business on the Facebook platform.
• Now (2016-), living in San Mateo, CA.
• Now (2011-), co-founder @Zapier, making automation accessible for everyone.

More interesting stuff

• Y Combinator podcast interview on scaling remote product teams.
• Interview on finding Zapier's product market fit.
• Interview on designing a remote culture.
• Scaling Zapier's product org beyond one team.
• How Zapier got its name.
• Why the Zapier color is orange (#ff4a00).
• A UX analysis of credit card UI forms.
• An LXML parser exploit I found and documented.

Archive

This stuff is quite old and probably less interesting :)

• Something I observed about the random walk that led me to Zapier.
• Documentation for a process I've used for how to give a talk.
• Reverse engineered TI's “TestGuard” to build a workaround (“SafeGuard”).
• Won a community bounty for reverse engineering some HTC dialer software.
• KnoopVsZombies — an open source Humans vs Zombies game engine which powers Mizzou HvZ, Truman HvZ and BSU HvZ.
• Startup PR Generator a parody startup weekend project.
• GraphMon a side project for Facebook platform monitoring.
• A personal growth essay on introversion.
• My frustrations with systems that don't play well together.
• Pioneer DVR harddrive recovery tools I built.
• AIMwhois my first web app.