About
If you're reading this, you probably don't know me.
Perhaps you do.
Regardless, here's a bit about who I am and how I got here:
Where I started
I went to the University of Arizona on a full ride and majored in Business Economics:
- My favorite classes were around game theory, economics of strategy, and entrepreneurship.
- After sophomore year, I did an internship at ASML in global trade and customs.
- I would never have predicted that export controls on semiconductor lithography tech would have become even more critical, but here we are.
- After my third year, I had enough credits to graduate with my one degree but was on the fence between double majoring in entrepreneurship or not.
- I did an internship at a consulting firm that summer, and kind of liked it.
- Realized that going to school and majoring in entrepreneurship was oxymoronic, and elected to graduate early.
- I accepted a remote tech consulting job and spent 3.5 years working across Fortune 500 clients in financial services, manufacturing, and tech.
What I'm doing now
I'm obsessed with the gap between what AI can do, what people think it can do, and what actually changes behavior. That gap is large, and it's not only a technical problem. It's a translation problem.
Most AI people talk in models, evals, context windows, and benchmarks. Most business people talk in incentives, trust, margins, politics, and customer behavior. The interesting work is not picking a side. It is speaking both languages without letting either side bullshit the other.
- I use AI as a leverage layer for research, product thinking, software, writing, analysis, and weird experiments.
- I care about media, prediction markets, generative tools, business design, and the second-order effects of everyone suddenly being able to make things.
- My consulting background gave me a useful allergy to vague strategy. If something cannot be turned into a decision, workflow, product, or incentive change, it is probably theater.
Why this site exists
smith.bid is a place to make my thinking visible before it becomes too polished. A personal site should not read like a corporate capabilities deck. It should feel like a person is alive behind it.
- Things I am thinking about
- Tools or games worth leaving online
- Longer arguments that need a better home than a chat window
- A clearer signal for the people I should probably meet
I care about
Clarity > noise
True signal is rare, and the noise often drowns it out. I'm obsessed with finding signal and amplifying it.
Depth > hype
I care more about second, third, and fourth-order effects than first-order headlines.
People > products
The most interesting and compelling things are still built out of emotion, desire, and trust.
Agency > dependence
I believe in tools that empower people, not ones that inflate institutions.
Play > posturing
As Ferris Bueller once said “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
If we're not laughing, questioning, and building at the same time, what the hell are we doing it for?