About
My career has been a meandering one. I got my start with photoshop and illustrator in the heydays of gaming forums, and then leveled up to Android ROM flashing and designing apps in college. When I graduated I moved to New York and got a job as a product designer at a health tech company, then wound my way through various early-stage startups, freelance gigs, and creative communities in NYC. I co-organized entrepreneurial community Japan NYC Startups and helped run a few conferences.
During these years I started blogging at Subpixel Space. Then and now, my subject matter has always been culture, technology, aesthetics and spirituality. As I met more likeminded writer-technologists, I dreamed of a space for serious research and thinking outside the university. Eventually this led to co-founding Other Internet, a consulting-research-writing collective that evolved into a nonprofit research institute. I worked in the crypto space for several years, consulting for crypto organizations and leading Other Internet research projects.
Aside from serving as president, my personal work at Other Internet has focused on the new sorts of institutions enabled by protocols and cryptocurrency networks. We've funded and conducted research on many topics: from internet-native institutions and digital governance, to the lore and memory networks of online communities. We've sponsored art residencies and young thinkers, and prototyped alternative education models.
Wherever my career has taken me, it's because I've allowed my own curiosities to be in the driver's seat. I love ideas and philosophy and good discussion.
Other Projects
Along with Tom Critchlow, I'm one of the creators of Quotebacks, an open-source tool for web-native quoting and conversation. We're not so good at maintaining it, but it's one of my favorite projects.
Engagements and Speaking
Research Engagements
I have directed and led many research programs and cultural projects at the intersection of emerging technology, emerging cultures, and philosophy, working alongside new institutions, philanthropic foundations, technology organizations, and venture funds. Projects in recent years include:
- Developing programming and strategy for a new arts and culture institution
- Conducting some of the first digital ethnographies of cryptonetworks
- Developing commercial theses in underthought technology ecosystems where significant cultural forces are at play
- Assessing and redesigning public goods funding programs and governance procedures of multi-billion dollar crypto protocols
- Supporting and mentoring junior researchers to produce great intellectual output
Speaking
I give talks for private organizations and at technology conferences and art festivals. My talks are generally research talks guided by my recent thinking, but can be customized on a theme at the request of clients. I've spoken at Business of Fashion Voices, FWB Fest, the Ljubljana Biennale, Pioneer Works, Protocol Berg, and more. For a full list, see the archive page.
