Who am I?
About Me
I'm James. I enjoy building things, from LEGO when I was a kid (and still to this day) to products at Zillow and The Motley Fool. More recently I've been building interesting apps on my own with the help of AI. I'm at my best when I'm exploring something new, figuring out how it works, and making it useful and intuitive. I like when things just work, which often takes longer than you'd expect. In 2023, burnt out after a decade of work and two years of a pandemic, I walked the entire Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine, 2,190 miles. When I'm not at a laptop I'm probably out exploring somewhere. A friend in San Francisco once told me I'd seen more of the Bay Area in three months than he had in three years. That tracks. These days I'm looking to build things that actually make a difference.
Hobbies & Interests
Appalachian Trail
In 2023 I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail — 2,190 miles from Georgia to Maine over six months. It was the hardest and most rewarding thing I've ever done. Living out of a backpack with no schedule except “walk north” taught me more about problem-solving, adaptability, and patience than any job ever has.
I told people afterward that I had to hike 2,000 miles to discover a love for backpacking. The trail also inspired What Mile?, a geospatial guessing game I built after getting home.
Geography & GeoGuessr
I've been obsessed with maps and geography for as long as I can remember. In my spare time I'll often pull up a map and just explore — tracing roads into places I've never been, reading about regions, getting curious about why a town exists where it does. GeoGuessr turned that obsession into a competitive hobby: there's something deeply satisfying about identifying a location from a single street-level image based on road markings, vegetation, and sun angle.
Spatial awareness is an underrated skill. Understanding how places connect — physically, culturally, economically — shapes how I think about products and the people who use them.
Travel
My default mode of exploration is close to home — a weekend drive to a trail I haven't hiked, a historic site I've driven past a dozen times, or a national park I've been meaning to get to. I've made it to 31 national parks so far, plus countless other sites managed by the Park Service, and I'm always adding to the list.
I've also been further afield: spent time along the coasts of Greece and Italy, traveled through eastern Africa (Ethiopia and Tanzania), and this past December transited the Panama Canal, which was one of the more remarkable things I've experienced. I travel internationally when it feels right, though I'm increasingly thoughtful about flying — with current climate trajectories, I think carefully about how often and where I go by air.
Craft Beer
What started as a casual interest in college turned into visits to roughly 500 breweries across 26+ states. I appreciate the craft — the intersection of science, creativity, and community that goes into a great beer. It's also a great excuse to explore a new neighborhood or city.
I hold the Certified Beer Server credential from the Cicerone Certification Program — the first level of a rigorous industry certification. I've thought about going after the full Certified Cicerone at some point, mostly out of genuine curiosity.