every story below is the same story: something didn't work, i OPENED IT UP, i changed it. that pattern's been running since i was seven. the long version:
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age 7
banned from a minecraft server
there was a rare item i couldn't get, so i found a hack client. the server's anti-cheat caught me flying in about five minutes. most kids would've made a new account. i opened the client's files in notepad instead, found the double-jump cooldown, and DELETED it. the server was watching for creative-mode flight, not a kid bouncing upward forever. nothing ever flagged again. first code i ever shipped.
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same year
the transformers mod incident
tried to install a mod that turns you into a transformer. got a virus instead (those download sites were BRUTAL. fake buttons everywhere). factory reset, found the real link, then noticed bumblebee was missing an ability. so i built it myself. it was clunky, but it worked, and i published it. first open source project, technically.
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the server years
localhost, but multiplayer
started hosting my own minecraft servers on my bedroom pc, with vpns so my friends could connect to my ip. uptime depended on nobody touching my computer. the mods and texture packs went up on random forums just to see if anyone would bite.
the 2012 archive is real →
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age 12
first revenue
coded and published roblox games that earned ACTUAL money. not a lot of money, granted, but real nonetheless. i got my start in game dev, and it still shows up in everything i build.
the group still exists →
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age 14
the editing era
one of the biggest games in the world EXPLODED, and i was inside the wave: cutting short-form for its creators and for professional esports organizations. this is where the short-form obsession started.
the archive is still up →
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age 16
the agency era
chatgpt dropped my senior year and i was the FIRST in my class to take it seriously. my friend nikos and i folded years of editing experience into data-driven digital, our content agency: $600 a month for 10 in-store videos, scripted, filmed, and edited by us, with classmates on payroll at $10 a video. i drafted the contract myself, then learned what a signature ACTUALLY demands. our first client ran the coffee shop we pitched them in.
data-driven digital on linkedin →
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the day after graduation
employee #5
no gap year, no dorms. the day after graduation i started riding shotgun with my dad to the outboundIQ office at 5am and heading home at 7pm. EVERY day. i was employee #5, and we were at customer number sixty-something. (there's a photo of me as a kid in his first call center. foreshadowing.) i ran college in parallel for a while: finishing intro assignments before the professor finished explaining them, checking work email under the desk. calculus and a company growing THIS fast don't share a calendar.
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the side quest
stockpunkz
built an ai bot in class that read live stock news and returned a BUY or SELL score, wrapped it in a discord, and grew the instagram to 40k followers in about 40 reels (yes, really). live sessions, coaches, the works. eventually sold the page to a soup startup, lol. you live and you learn.
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nights and weekends
the moonlight builds
vp of ai for a sports betting startup, building the real-time betting assistant. consultant on an ai engine generating localized seo content across HUNDREDS of sites. corporate finance coursework at columbia business school in the gaps, and a raspberry pi ai assistant living on my office desk.
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june 2025
we launched a rocket
outboundIQ sponsored phoenix ii, a rocket engineered by the SEDS chapter at ucf (a partnership kicked off by nikos. yes, the same nikos). it flew to 11,176 feet with our logo on the side. we are LITERALLY lifting contact rates to new heights. 🤯
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september 2025
the accidental ctf
stopped at uf to visit friends and got pulled into a cybersecurity ctf at 8pm. i learned what a ctf was on the car ride over. twenty minutes into a web challenge, the flag popped: one only 71 people had EVER solved. i don't code much day-to-day anymore, so it was nice to confirm the muscle never left. 😅
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earlier this year
the book
co-authored "the ai shift" with erik seversen, about how businesses ACTUALLY adopt ai. my chapter tells a contact center story with a twist ending. it hit #1 bestseller on amazon in the us. pretty cool way to spend a tuesday, lol. that same stretch, i talked shop on a podcast hosted by the former cto of the florida democratic party.
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june 2026
director, technical services
four roles in three years: support engineer, platform engineer, FIRST senior platform engineer, now director. 450+ resolved tickets, 80+ implementations, 100+ custom dialing cadences, crm integrations from salesforce to oracle, and an internal background-check tool the company STILL runs. outboundIQ grew from sixty customers to 1,000+ and i grew with it. now i build the team version of everything the platform years taught me. my pod goes by team rocket. clients ask for it by name. 🚀
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now
building in public
five9-mcp went open source and the response was WILD: launched at 58 tools, first outside contributors, 77 tools three weeks later. so i did it again for genesys: genesys-mcp launched to 38k impressions in week one, genesys employees were in my dms by day two, and the crossover video (claude rebuilding one ivr across BOTH platforms) took it from there. dialerRX is in the lab. the linkedin thing keeps working. next up is next up.
