Dan Brazelton

I’ve shipped games, cut film by hand, and chipped ice off a hull in the Gulf of Alaska at three in the morning. A few full careers, a few misspent years. The job underneath all of them was the same: keep the thing afloat and pointed roughly the right way, and try not to be the reason it isn’t.

I’m usually found organizing chaos, which means I’ve been thinking about leadership, operations, and process for a long time. I read Frederick Winslow Taylor at sixteen. For fun. Yeah, weird kid. Teams, companies, a few startups, the occasional galley. I’ve taken startups from angel checks to real products, and I’ve been the lowest man on a tugboat, cooking for the crew and then jumping up the side of a barge to grab the line as we hipped up (still not sure why that was the cook’s job). Most of operational leadership fits in one sentence: the work doesn’t care how you feel about it, so you may as well be useful and kind while you get it done.

The rest is the other half. I write about technology, culture, and the things people get precious about. I cook, and then I write it down so it survives contact with a Tuesday. Not so much thought leadership as thinking out loud.

Writing

Essays on the stuff I’ve watched up close: how tools eat trades, why every disruption runs the same movie, and the occasional bad take. Read the Field Notes →

Recipes

My wife has the better palate. She just won’t write anything down. I’m the better technical cook, so together we eat well. This is thirteen years or so of our regular rotation, the meals we actually make. Some original, some traditional, some stolen. Usually credited, if I know the source. Into the Kitchen →

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Stay a while. Read something. Make dinner.