I’m Leaving my Role at Studio71

Back in October, after 11 years at the company, I made the decision to leave my full-time CTO role at Studio71.

I came to Studio71, then called The Collective (and later Collective Digital Studio), because I wanted to build something big. I love building things, and by things I mean all the things: software, teams, culture, process, business, revenue, arcade cabinets…I’d love to learn how to weld, but I digress. Back in 2012, Studio71 offered me something I hadn’t had the chance to do myself, which was building a tech organization from scratch. I figured it would be hard, and it was even harder than I imagined, but it was also incredibly fun and it’s crazy to try and think about all that I’ve learned about technology, business (particularly the entertainment business), and people in these last 11 years.

What occurred to me over the summer was that I really want to do it all over again.

That was the thought that pushed me to take the crazy step of walking away from my role at Studio71. I will always be proud of what we built at Studio71, and I will certainly miss the amazing Technology team spread out across California, Texas, Japan, Florida, and Berlin (and that’s not even including our amazing alumni). This group, now led by Marissa Moroz, quietly keeps everything running while working towards the future, but they can’t ever get enough recognition for standing shoulder to shoulder with teams that have 5-10x the resources.

Thank you to Reza Izad, Dan Weinstein, and Michael Green for seeing the potential for technology and hiring a computer scientist at a talent agency! Thanks to Mark Heyert (he/him/his), Federico Blanco, Oliver Strutynski, Matt Crowley, and Adam Boorstin for working with me and teaching me how to excel at the executive level.

Over these last few weeks I’ve been extremely fortunate to work as an advisor and consultant on some amazing products in addition to helping Studio71 with the transition. I don’t have any announcement today on my next full time role, but look for that soon and I will tease that I’m am really excited about what I get to build next.

(Originally posted on LinkedIn on Monday December 4th, 2023)