Hiring me to teach? The class has run for a corporate client through First Principles. I’ve taught full 16-week terms at MICA and Columbia, with sections of up to 70. I’ve run a 320-person workshop at Mind the Product. I’ll teach your curriculum or bring mine.
The class.
A hands-on AI workshop, 90 minutes or a half day, online or in person. In the 90-minute version, product managers bring a laptop and a free Claude account, and need no Claude experience: newcomers start from worked examples and a simple web page. Then everyone builds an AI assistant and writes its stop, pivot and invest statements. The First Principles run has no feedback to show yet.
DTCC · 2010–2016
I learned the call the expensive way. Early on, I worked on mainframes at DTCC, where one rushed change turned into SEC fines and a meeting with the CIO.
System Architect · 2014–2016
A VP named Tony Dolan fought for me behind closed doors. He called the mistake an investment. He was right.
Informed.co · 2018–2020
I co-founded a startup that stayed in stealth until it died, because we were scared to ship. At my first product leadership table, I had the right data and lost to the director of sales anyway. The better story won.
Each of those was a call: stop it, pivot it, or invest in it. Tony made his: invest. My startup never made one. The director of sales made mine. With building cheap, the calls pile up faster. I don’t consult on them. I teach product managers to make them before anyone falls in love with the build.
MICA · Part-Time Faculty, Product Management MPS (current). I designed and teach the Product Design and UX Capstone.
Columbia · Lecturer, M.S. Technology Management, 2023–2024. I designed and taught Technology Management and AI/ML.
Both: full 16-week terms, sections of up to 70. I wrote the syllabi, graded and ran the LMS myself.
Degree: BS in Computer Science. Both schools appointed me to teach in their master’s programs.
Partners: a corporate class through First Principles, master classes for IxDF and a live session for O’Reilly.
What I build: internal agents on open-source models, including a nutrition assistant, deck builders and copy editors.
Want to see me teach? Watch the 4:39 clip on Work, from an online webinar I hosted in 2024. It’s on metrics, not AI: there’s no recording of the AI workshop yet.
Mike, a learner in an earlier session, used the call on a start-up pilot to set its non-negotiable success criteria for kill, pivot or move forward. His words are on Work.
The catalogue entry, session entry and course record are on Work. Bios and a headshot are in the kit.