I'm quitting Google to build open source tools for political activism

I'm quitting my job to do activism full-time, and I need your support

Everyone agrees that something is wrong with San Francisco. Whether it be school performance, homelessness, unaffordable housing, crime, or crumbling infrastructure — we all know it shouldn't be like this. Some people are so fed up with San Francisco that they’re bailing. But I’m doubling down on the city I love.

I'm excited to announce that, effective April 2nd, I'm leaving my job as a Senior Engineer at Google to focus 100% on creating open source tools for political change.

We all know that you can't fix what you can't measure, and San Francisco isn't measuring most things we care about. We can't expect the tools we need to improve our city to come from inside the bureaucracy.

I am going to help build a New Liberal movement alongside passionate people and organizations like GrowSF, SF YIMBY, the United Democratic Club, and the Center for New Liberalism. We want a better, more prosperous, and more functional San Francisco.

I need your support to do it full time. You can sponsor my open source work on GitHub, or you can subscribe to my Substack, where I will be posting essays on politics, tech, and the tools I'm building. I’m aiming for a weekly cadence of essays, and will open source my tools as I hit various funding goals on GitHub.

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
- Teddy Roosevelt

Many of you have seen the work I've done in my spare time (running for office, volunteering with campaigns, writing essays on SF politics, building data analysis tools for campaigns, etc, etc), and I can’t wait to dedicate all of my energy to it.

If you're interested in how you can deploy capital to most effectively make change in San Francisco, DM me on Twitter and let's talk. I’m happy to connect you with anyone I know in the SF political world.

I will also be resigning from the YIMBY Action Board of Directors. This is partly because YIMBY must be a big-tent policy-focused organization, and I don’t want my increased focus on other issues to be a barrier to coalition building. But also because my particular skills are no longer needed on the Board — the organization is healthy, growing, and has new concerns I don’t have experience with. I'm extremely proud of what I helped build and know it’s in excellent hands, and I’ll be forever grateful to YIMBY Action Executive Director Laura Foote, and my fellow executive board members Laura Fingal-Surma, Jane Natoli, Ernest Brown, and Vincent Woo for giving me an incredible opportunity. I will always strongly identify as a YIMBY and will continue to be involved as a volunteer.

I'm excited for the next year of work, and I know that we can fix San Francisco together.