Building This, On Purpose

This site exists for one reason: to think in public about the systems I spend my professional life inside of — data, automation, media, and the civic questions that increasingly sit downstream of all three.

It isn’t a highlight reel, and it isn’t a running log of my day-to-day. Plenty of good writing already exists in both of those formats; neither is what I’m building here. What I want instead is a body of work that holds up on its own a year from now — analysis and argument, not a diary. If a post is here, it’s because I think the idea itself is worth your time, independent of who wrote it or what day it happened to be written.

The throughline across most of what I’ll publish: I work in programmatic media, which means I spend my time inside targeting systems, automated decision-making, and data pipelines that most people never see the inner workings of. That vantage point is useful for more than just my day job — it’s also a decent lens for looking at how similar systems get deployed in public life, from ad tech to civic infrastructure. That’s the territory I plan to cover here: how automated systems actually work, where they get oversold, and what accountability should look like when a system — corporate or public — starts making decisions that affect real people.

I’d rather publish less, and have each piece actually hold an idea, than treat this as a running commentary track on my life. If that’s the kind of writing you’re here for, I’m glad to have you.

Pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er.