6. Spring 2025

Heard on THE RANDOM FOREST:

“Waves are calming because they’re a consistent kind of chaos.” - Christian Templeton, at Moonlight Beach

Highlights:

Reflecting on my new year’s projections for 2024, I was mostly right. It was a year of transition. From having a toddler and an infant, to having a young child and a toddler. From being narrowly focused on a ”few good things” to widening our aperture to include things like international travel, and new friends. From being the 10-year veteran at Google, to… (stop reading if you hate spoilers).

…being the new guy at Palo Alto Networks. Leaving Google felt even more supportive than I imagined. People were overwhelmingly understanding of my decision, and I was able to focus on all the amazing memories I’ve accumulated over the years.

The CFO Program Ops function I’m heading up at Palo Alto Networks will support the CFO org through strategy development, program management and executional excellence. On my first day I created a walking deck - and my walking tour has now become a running tour. I never expected to be hiring so quickly, let alone to receive so much interest. I’m grateful for the opportunity to build out this function.

It wasn’t the “breakthrough” year I anticipated - it was one of gradual (sometimes even slow) progress. When I put together my farewell slideshow at Google, I picked the lyrics “I did what I had to do” for a reason. It was a fitting theme in the various areas of my life.

My wife and my gentle parenting approach evolved into well, just parenting. And as we expanded the activities we were able to do, it felt like we weren’t doing them efficiently but that we were doing them - which was enough! Mexico, anyone?

I mostly did the things I said I would do. I fell short of some of my technical aspirations. e.g. My wife and my parenting podcast using NotebookLM never launched. And I didn’t make my 10-year reunion appearance at Dreamforce. But I showed up for a few founders to help fundraise for children’s health and development. I organized volunteer events and charitable giving campaigns supporting people with disabilities. And I showed up for my family, as best I could, as consistently as I could.

2024 often felt chaotic, but to quote Sinatra once more: That’s life!