About

Some folks would say I’m a good example of the American Dream.

Raised by a single mom on the lower middle-class side of a Long Island town, my life could have gone in many directions. You see, my dad pretty much completely left the picture within my 1st year, leaving my mom to work two jobs as a hairdresser and waitress to make ends meet (she still works as a hairdresser at age 74, God bless her).

Early on, she instilled in me the sense that no one hands you anything in life (particularly where I grew up)…you had to work hard and earn it. Luckily, she/we had a strong community of friends, extended family and neighbors to help out…my first lesson in the importance of how working together, supporting each and doing the right thing can produce great results for everyone involved.

I’ve been fortunate enough to attend two great universities – UPenn (Wharton) for college and Northwestern (Kellogg) for my MBA. I’ve had a pretty diverse set of work experiences.  Right out of college, I was part of an executive training program at Macy’s where I got to manage two teams of unionized sales and ops folks, most of which had been doing their jobs longer than I had been alive…challenging, but a great learning experience re: relating to and motivating people. After business school, I worked for the esteemed Boston Consulting Group, advising Fortune 500 CEOs and boards on strategic and operational decisions for their companies. I left to co-found a company that helped youth sports teams and leagues create websites and collect registrations on the Internet. We merged our company with a few similar companies, and that helped form Active Network. I was COO at Active for 12 years, until we took the company public. At the end, I was CEO when we sold the company to a large PE firm for $1B. I was very fortunate to work for 2 guys that were uniquely great at very different things, which provided an invaluable learning experience all around.  It was an amazing up-and-down journey, but as they say – “Alls Well That Ends Well”.  Since then, I co-founded and currently help run Cursive Labs (a startup studio) and Spoutable (a leading monetization platform for websites).  I live in La Jolla CA with my amazing wife, 4 (usually) incredible kids, our dopey Golden Retriever and overly-friendly cat.

I think all my experiences give me a pretty unique perspective on the world. I’ve lived in a household where we could have been on food stamps at any point (should my mom have chosen that route…instead, she doubled down and worked twice as hard). And I myself started working at an early age. I’ve seen and experienced other families that struggled with unemployment, money problems, addiction, crime, and violence.  I know how unemployment impacts families and communities. I’ve also worked with some of the brightest and most successful business people around.  Know what its like to be part of “the 1%”. And seen how the right community support, programs, and resources can help anyone in this country succeed (and a lack of those resources can lead to dramatically different results).

In the end, what I value most in our political leaders (and fellow citizens) is objectivity. The ability to look at a challenge and come up with an approach for what’s really best for the country as a whole…not only their party, direct supporters or themselves. To be open-minded enough to find broadly beneficial solutions, but still have enough conviction to make hard decisions and trade-offs.  And to balance the long-term implications of our decisions and policies with the short-term impact.

In my opinion, America is still the greatest country on earth, and offers the most people the best opportunity for prosperity and freedom. Many aspects of that way of life are in serious jeopardy if we don’t fix our broken and dysfunctional federal political system. The solution is very simple; making it happen is very hard.

And that’s what this blog is about…