Speaking

I’ve been known to stand in front of large groups of people, pacing back and forth, waving my hands furiously and talking. I used to get panic attacks when I did this, but after a lot of practice, the butterflies are still there, but I no longer panic.

I’ve spoken to very large crowds in Wellington, New Zealand, who scared me with their powerful anonymity; I’ve run small workshops in the middle of winter in Philadelphia with bright people who asked equally bright questions, and once I was asked to speak on a moving bus in Ireland — it was awesome.

I’ve developed short presentations that cut to the chase in 15 minutes. I’ve designed longer presentations that fill an hour. Webinars – no… I like to see what they are thinking. I like it when Q&A is a part of a presentation because the audience is always smarter than I… and their questions always remind to mention that thing I forgot to say.

A few of my favorite talks in no particular order are:

The Second Act – why 2.0 is harder than 1.0.

The New Manager Death Spiral – how new managers fail.

Stables and Volatiles – diversity of opinion == winning.

The Vegetable Talk – leadership 101.

Confidence is a Cocktail – how to speak in public.

Fear is a Liar – how to write about what you love.

Many of the above talks exist in various forms on the Internet, but the recording quality and my delivery quality wildly vary. Here are a couple that I think I nailed:

(Header photo courtesy of The Lead Developer, one of the finest leadership conferences on the planet)

Presentation Archive

2026 • 2025 • 2024 • 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011 • 2010 • 2009 • 2008

2026

LDX3

Keynote

London, UK

2025

CTO Craft

Magic and the Mouse House

Toronto, Canada

2024

Netflix

Kobayashi Maru

Los Gatos, CA

2023

CTO Craft

Kobayashi Maru

London, UK

Amplify

Kobayashi Maru / New Manager Death Spiral

New York City, NY

2022

Level Equity

New Manager Death Spiral

Greenwich, CT

GitHub

New Manager Death Spiral

San Francisco, CA

Grafana

The Second Act

New York, NY

2021

People Connect

Work in a Time of Pandemic

Virtual

2020

RIT Guest Lecture

Leadership in a Time of COVID

Rochester, NY

PuppetConf

The Second Act

Portland, OR

Developer First

New Manager Death

Virtual

2019

TaskRabbit

The Product Triangle

San Francisco, CA

Calibrate Conference

The End

San Francisco, CA

FirstMark

New Manager Death

New York, NY

Code Climate

New Manager Death

New York, NY

UCSC

New Manager Death Spiral

Santa Cruz, CA

2018

Unity

The Second Act

San Francisco, CA

American Express

The Second Act

Phoenix, AZ

DSW

The Second Act

Columbus, OH

Calibrate Conference

How to Rands

San Francisco, CA

Codemania

The Second Act

Auckland, New Zealand

The Lead Developer

New Manager Death Spiral

New York, NY

2017

Mozilla Leadership Workshop

The Worst Conversation

Austin, TX

Toronto Meetup

New Manager Death Spiral

Toronto, Canada

Remitly

New Manager Death Spiral

Seattle, WA

Girl Develop It

The Second Act

Chicago, IL

Cerner

The Second Act

Kansas City, MO

Calibrate Conference

New Manager Death Spiral

San Francisco, CA

Eero

The Impossible Job / How to Slack

San Francisco, CA

ShipIt Conference

The Second Act

San Francisco, CA

Build Conference

Engineer, Designer, and the Dictator

San Francisco, CA

Ground Control

The Impossible Job

Houston, TX

2016

QCon

The Second Act

San Francisco, CA

Calibrate Conference

The Impossible Job

San Francisco, CA

WebExpo

Stables and Volatiles

Prague, Czech Republic

Chicago Camps

Fear is a Liar

Chicago, IL

Riot Games

The Second Act

Los Angeles, CA

Lead Developer Conference

Leadership. By the Numbers.

London, UK

Build.com

Stables and Volatiles

Chico, CA

Cultivate Conference

Leadership. By the Numbers.

Portland, OR

Rands Leadership Conference

Managing Humans Workshop

Napa, CA

2015

Calibrate Conference

Leadership. By the Numbers

San Francisco, CA

Fear is a Liar

Stables and Volatiles

Wellington, New Zealand

The Biases of Humans

San Francisco, CA

2014

Mozilla

The Old Guard

San Francisco, CA

NIC

Stables and Volatiles

Minneapolis, MN

Malwarebytes

One Important Fact

Santa Clara, CA

2013

Cultivate Conference

I Hate Meetings

Portland, OR

Digital PM Summit

Stables and Volatiles

Memphis, TN

RailsConf

Stables and Volatiles

Portland, OR

MailChimp

Engineer, Designer, and the Dictator

Atlanta, GA

Úll Conference

Stables and Volatiles

Kilkenny, Ireland

Waza

Stables and Volatiles

San Francisco, CA

Webstock

Stables and Volatiles

Wellington, New Zealand

MIT

Engineer, Designer, and the Dictator

Cambridge, MA

Engine Yard Distill

Stables and Volatiles

San Francisco, CA

2012

Farmhouse

Stables and Volatiles

Los Angeles, CA

Funconf

How to Listen

Kilkenny, Ireland

University of Illinois

Nerd Life

Urbana-Champaign, IL

Úll Conference

Keynote Kung-fu

Kilkenny, Ireland

Atlassian

A Communication Cadence

San Francisco, CA

2011

Pearson

Engineer, Designer, and the Dictator

New York, NY

Rypple

Bored People Quit

San Francisco, CA

Barcelona Mobile Forum

Barcelona, Spain

Webstock

Engineer, Designer, and the Dictator

Wellington, New Zealand

Twitter

10 Tweets for Twitter

San Francisco, CA

C4 Conference

How to Talk Shit

Chicago, IL

CUSEC

Being Geek

Montreal, Canada

OSIsoft

Managing Humans and Projects

San Leandro, CA

2010

No idea why 2010 was so quiet…

2009

Business of Software

How to Talk Shit

Boston, MA

OSCON

A Brief History of Software

San Jose, CA

Webstock

Being Geek

Wellington, New Zealand

2008

Webstock

Managing Design

Wellington, New Zealand