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Because leading and building in the real world is nothing like the tidy case studies or polished LinkedIn threads would have you believe. It’s messy, complex, and human. And because work is just one piece of a larger life we’re all trying to make sense of.

Dispatches from The Arena is for those who want candor over comfort, provocation over conformity, and honesty over platitudes. Here you’ll find writing about the gap between how we say work should happen and how it actually unfolds. Why smart teams make puzzling calls. What it really takes to ship something meaningful in a world optimized for predictability. And what leadership feels like when you’re in the arena—making the calls, not narrating them after the fact.

No frameworks. No hustle gospel. No humble-brags disguised as wisdom. Just dispatches—sometimes sharp, sometimes reflective—written by someone who’s been in the rooms where the hardest decisions get made, and who knows that our best thinking often happens in unexpected places.

Subscribe if you’re looking for thoughtful notes that cut across lanes, and if you believe—as I do—that the most meaningful insights come from connecting dots across the boardroom, the street, and everywhere in between.

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Real-world lessons and observations on growing teams, building products that matter, and shaping companies and cultures.

People

I’ve spent the last 20+ years of my life in the arena with product and engineering teams, creating, learning, failing, and succeeding with purpose. I write about leadership, innovation, scaling companies and culture. Advisor, optimist, Angeleno.