Last updated: 2025.
About This Blog
- I started this blog in 2009 to write about technology, startups, product management, business strategy, books, and the occasional rabbit hole, from music to cognitive science. I’ve also experimented with email newsletters.
- I post less often now because time is scarce. I’ve also changed a lot since my more active years, so some older posts strike me as naive, but I keep them for now.
Professional Background
- I work at Waymo on AI that helps vehicles predict what other road users will do and respond well in high-stakes situations. Below are a few examples of the amazing things our robots can do.
- Before that, I spent about 3.5 years at Google on Search Ads, the ones billions of people see at the top of Google.com.
- Before Google, I was a founder. We built AHappyJob.com, a recruiting platform centered on teams and culture.
- Earlier, I worked at PandaDoc (a unicorn startup), Adobe, and Mozilla.
Professional Interests
- I love building products that improve lives—or better yet, save them. I’m excited about applying frontier AI to real-world problems in robotics and beyond.
- I’m fascinated by how to maximize human potential and well-being. That’s why I’m drawn to technologies that free people’s time for creative work (AI, robotics, and AVs!), augment human intelligence (“tools for thought”), foster creativity and entrepreneurship, and improve health and longevity.
Outside of Work
- Family. I’m a happily married father, living in the SF Bay Area. 🌁
- Interests. Since becoming a parent, I put family first, though I still make time for friends and daily early-morning workouts (strength and cardio). When I find the time, I revive old passions: music (I’m learning keys) and writing.
- Values. I believe in curiosity, lifelong learning, meaningful conversations, entrepreneurship, progress, innovation, science, art, excellence, cosmopolitanism, rationality, intellectual humility, and changing one’s mind.
- Origins. I’m an immigrant. I was born in the USSR (a not-so-fun fact), moved to the SF Bay Area in 2013, and fell in love with it.
- Books I’ve enjoyed lately:
- Nonfiction: The Creative Act, Outlive, Enlightenment Now, and A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
- Sci-fi: Project Hail Mary, The Martian, Exhalation, and Stories of Your Life and Others
- Other fiction: A Gentleman in Moscow and Siddhartha
- More on my bookshelf.
- Music I enjoy: Aphex Twin, Arc de Soleil, Jon Batiste, Kenny Burrell, Ludovico Einaudi, Brian Eno, Bill Evans, Bill Frisell, GoGo Penguin, Grant Green, Tommy Guerrero, Jon Hassell, Hermanos Gutiérrez, Jon Hopkins, Ahmad Jamal, Keith Jarrett, Khruangbin, Julian Lage, Brad Mehldau, Pat Metheny, Wes Montgomery, Oscar Peterson, Polyphia, Max Richter, Jimmy Smith, Svaneborg Kardyb, Thievery Corporation, Tycho, and Hans Zimmer. With vocals: The Beatles, Morcheeba, Queen, and Аквариум и БГ.
Say Hi
Email is the best way to reach me: max2c.com@gmail.com.
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