My first career was software. I was one of Microsoft’s first web developers, and spent years leading teams that built everything from server software to consumer photo tools — until 2005, when I left to figure out what else I was. The answer, it turned out, involved a camera and an unreasonable number of doughnuts.
For the next decade I worked as a food photographer and writer. I shot for magazines and cookbooks, taught food photography and styling workshops from Seattle to the south of France, and wrote seven books of my own — six cookbooks and one on food photography. My blogs from that era, Still Life With and Cook & Eat, live on in the archives here, comments and all.
Then software came back for me. In 2013 I co-founded Project 529, a platform that registers bikes and reunites stolen ones with their owners. I spent thirteen years building it — the last six as CEO — long enough to watch it recover stolen bikes every single day and help drive bike theft in Vancouver down by more than 60%. This spring I retired from 529, leaving it in the capable hands of the team.
It turns out my retirement looks a lot like starting three new things: sospoke, which keeps a startup’s newsletter, blog, and social going when no founder has time to; tendril, a calmer, kinder social network for women; and Waytripper, which helps you find multi-day walks like the Camino — the kind that end with a hot dinner and a real bed. A publishing tool, a social space, and a long-walk finder: I build what I know.
I’m in Denver through next February, and after that, wherever. I still make doughnuts.