Short Bio

I was born in 1969, in Brooklyn, New York, where the majority of my Italian Catholic family resides, all clustered together a few blocks from one another, and with each family member being required to live with someone from the generation or two before them. (They just love that I moved all the way to the West Coast.) I was raised most of the time, however, in Scarsdale, just outside of the city, and, yes, home to the once-famous Scarsdale Diet Doctor. I graduated from Edgemont High School in 1987, and it scares the hell out of me to think any of my classmates may be reading this.

From 1987 to 1993, I attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While pursuing a Bachelors/Masters degree in Computer Science & Engineering, I spent two summers working for Digital Equipment Corporation — a company which older techies may remember before it dissolved into Compaq — in an artificial intelligence group that has long since been disbanded. (See my on-line resume for more details on that.) For a wide variety of reasons, I left Cambridge in the summer of 1993, prior to completing my thesis, to take a full-time job in California. Technically, this makes me a college dropout, even though the only thing that stands between me and a Bachelors and Masters degree is one thesis. (Details, details.) My personal feeling about it at this point, however, is that my work experience has allowed me to advance far more in the field than my thesis would have. Besides, Larry and Bill seem to be doing fine without their college education, so I figure I can probably manage with all but the piece of paper.

In 1993, I followed the same path as scores of other MIT alums and headed to the San Francisco Bay Area, to work for Oracle Corporation. Despite numerous threats and/or attempts to leave, I've managed to remain, and am pretty happy about what I do today. In the fall of 2000, I surrendered to the Bay Area crowds and housing fiascos, and followed my girlfriend to Seattle, where I now live, and continue to work for Oracle from home.