My Next Chapter

Three years ago, I joined a scrappy Series A startup named Commonstock, embarking on a journey full of twists and turns that I never could have anticipated. We navigated the sudden run on SVB (our bank at the time), the dramatic end of the ZIRP era, and waves of tech layoffs reshaping the industry.

Against these headwinds, we found a path forward when Yahoo Finance acquired Commonstock nearly two years ago. Transitioning overnight¹ from a tight-knit team of fewer than 20 people to becoming part of one of the internet’s oldest and most iconic companies was an experience I’ll never forget.

At Yahoo Finance, I’m incredibly proud of the work we accomplished — especially in launching social features² that encourage investors of all backgrounds to connect, learn, and grow together. Seeing a vibrant community begin to flourish on such an established platform reinforced my belief in the power of community-driven products.

But startup life has been calling me back, with the opportunity to build from the ground up, rapidly iterate, and directly impact users (and the business) at scale.

So today was my last day at Yahoo Finance. I’ll be taking a couple weeks off to reset, and then I’m excited to be joining the team at Whatnot! 🥳🎉

When I had the opportunity to chat with some of the awesome folks at Whatnot to discuss whether there was a mutual fit, it felt like the perfect intersection of my past experiences in e-commerce and my more recent passion for building consumer social applications. On top of that, everyone I talked with was extremely thoughtful and genuine, and I really appreciated the intentionality throughout the process.

Whatnot’s vision of creating the best community-driven marketplace resonates with me, and I’m looking forward to helping contribute to that vision. I’ll be joining the team focused on logistics and fulfillment, building tools that help sellers on the platform prepare and ship orders to their customers quickly and easily.

I’m grateful for everything I’ve learned and experienced at Yahoo Finance, and equally excited to jump back into the world of high-growth startups with Whatnot.³

Here’s to the next chapter!

Blogging From Anywhere

The simpler it is to write and publish content to your website, the more likely it is that you will. I don’t make the rules, that’s just human nature.

Most of the time I write on my MacBook, but there’s no technical reason preventing me from publishing from my iPad or iPhone, it just requires some setup the first time.

Today I picked up the new 13” iPad Pro and the matching Magic Keyboard, so I figured it was a great time to publish a little article from the new mobile setup with my first impressions of the new hardware and the apps I use to write on the go.

continue reading

Can we talk about the App Store?

There has been a lot of press around changes to the App Store lately.

First there was a US court decision that forced Apple into allowing apps to include an “alternate payment link”, and just yesterday they announced a sweeping set of changes coming to the EU App Store due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that is scheduled to come into effect in March.

Both of these legally mandated changes are being implemented in such a way as to do the absolute bare minimum required and make everyone who decides to use the new options pay for it.

continue reading

15" MacBook Air

Update: This post is out of date, as I decided to return the Air and keep my 16" M1 Pro MacBook Pro instead. When it came time to mail my trade-in, I couldn’t part with it, it’s still such an awesome machine. Maybe sometime in the future I’ll revisit the Air. I’m leaving the post up because it’s still accurate information, but I no longer have the machine.

I side-graded my 2021 16" MacBook Pro to the 15" MacBook Air. I’ve been doing a bit more travel lately, and I’m getting tired of lugging the bigger 16" beast around with me. The smaller machine is a tradeoff in a few areas compared to the Pro, but it shaves 1.4lbs (0.59kg) of weight off, is significantly thinner, and slightly smaller.

I haven’t had the opportunity to take a trip with it yet, but in some trial runs throwing it in my backpack, the difference is already feeling nice.

continue reading

My Home Office (2023)

It’s been about a year and a half since I wrote my last home office post and while much of it has stayed the same, I’ve updated and moved things around quite a bit and felt it was time to write about my current setup and share some new pictures.

I’ve been working remotely since mid-2016 – now in my eighth year. The majority of that time I was working for Bleacher Report/Turner Sports, then remotely for Apple¹ before joining a startup named Commonstock. After a little over a year at Commonstock, we were acquired by Yahoo² where I now work as a principal software engineer on the Yahoo Finance iOS app.

continue reading