The Definitive Podcast…about me

I love talking about myself but honestly, this recent interview with friend and fellow developer, Chris Natsuume,  is so long that I wasn’t even sure my family would listen to it. (My part starts about 1/3 of the way into the podcast.)

However, if you have ANY questions about the numerous zigs and zags it takes to run a small business, you may find it interesting.  There is a lot of ground to cover. I’ve founded three small software companies and developed product on technology platforms ranging from Apple II and PC MSDOS to Android-Tango and Amazon Echo.

A couple of highlights from the podcast:

  • I went to graduate school when Marshall McLuhan was all the rage. My dissertation, about how we process information differently depending on the medium, is still very relevant. Turns out the results of that study, especially how we understand and remember audio-only content, is informing our design of stories and games for voice assistants like Alexa and Siri.
  • Naturally Chris wanted to know about my biggest failure. That’s easy. It’s was during the Great Recession of 2009. I was caught completely flatfooted by the free falling economy. The bank called in the company credit line, and it was only with a large personal cash infusion (basically our retirement savings), that we were able to save the company.  That is not something I recommend doing, by the way, but luckily it worked out…by the skin of our teeth!
  • And everyone always wants to know what it was like to work with Google on their new Augmented Reality Tango platform. I talk about the process and resulting product, Crayola Color Blaster. (We are launching a new version of the game next week!)
  • Finally, Chris is a dad and asked about what it was like to raise kids 30 years ago compared to today and how the ubiquity of screens impact their relationship to technology. Good discussion about kids and new technology.

So hopefully there might be a few nuggets in there, if you have the time to listen. Thanks, Chris, for your generous spirit and lovely comments. Please enjoy!

P.S. My son, Eli, whom I mention in the podcast…the one who watched too much TV and became a TV executive? He actually did listen to the podcast and had one comment…”I’m not 40 yet!” I’m correcting the record here. He’s actually 39.