Missing My Friend.

I don’t have many words right now, but I wanted to share with my community that a dear friend, Gayle Noble, has taken her final step beyond this life and - if you believe as I do - begun her next journey among the stars.

Gayle was the embodiment of strength, intelligence, and originality. She began her remarkable career as a radio station engineer, later becoming one of the early pioneers in the computer engineering world - paving the way for many in what was, and often still is, a male-dominated industry. She didn’t just break barriers; she vocally redefined them.

What do I remember most? Honestly - it was the way she carried herself. With her signature long ponytails wrapped in cloth lizards or her whimsical, feathered hats, she turned heads and challenged assumptions. But if you took the time to truly see her, you were welcomed into a circle of profound kindness and, as her daughter so perfectly described, aggressive generosity.

Gayle made a habit of stopping by my IT team with treats from Costco - never empty-handed, always full-hearted. I used to tease her, saying she was trying to fatten me up, but truthfully, it was just her way of showing love - always giving, always present.

She was an engineer, a writer, a music lover, and someone who profoundly influenced how I approach my work, my relationships, and how I choose to meet people - with openness, empathy, and care, leaving judgment behind.

She will be deeply missed. But I take comfort in imagining her now - unbound, soaring through the cosmos, just as wild, free, and extraordinary as she was here with us.

Rest well, Gayle. You were a gift.

Happy International Women's Day

Let's be honest—this shouldn’t be a one-day celebration. Just as Pride and Black History shouldn’t be confined to a single month, recognizing and uplifting women should be part of our everyday mindset.

At a time when DEI initiatives face resistance from our own federal government, I remain committed to ensuring that diversity, equity, and inclusion are not just checkboxes, but ingrained in how we hire, promote, and support qualified talent—on autopilot.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: we do not have enough women in IT, Science, Engineering, or leadership roles. And that needs to change. Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of working for incredible women—leaders who have challenged me, elevated my game, and made me a better leader, listener, and technologist.

Today, let’s honor the women who are making an impact—whether in the workplace, mentoring the next generation, or supporting their families. Their contributions deserve more than a day, a week, or a month of recognition. This is a year-round commitment.

I would not be the leader I am today without the strong women in my life.

IT Recognition & Leadership

 A post showed up in my LinkedIn feed recently that stopped me in my tracks. It got me thinking about the health and well-being of IT teams, and more specifically, the people I lead.

I have spent 30 years in IT here in Silicon Valley. In that time, one thing has remained stubbornly consistent: IT teams are taken for granted. We are the glue holding complex processes together, and most of the time, nobody notices until something breaks.

I rose through the ranks the hard way. Front-line support, increasing responsibility, and eventually leading the very teams I once was a part of. That experience gave me something invaluable: a deep appreciation for what these people go through every single day.

Here is what I believe without reservation. The head of any IT department has one non-negotiable responsibility above all others: protect your people. That means managing their workload, shielding them from unnecessary chaos, and creating conditions where they can actually do their best work without burning out.

At my previous company, where I spent 13 years and built what I genuinely consider a world-class support organization, the executives largely took IT for granted. The old saying, "if it is working, we are doing our jobs," sounds harmless enough, but it erases all the effort, planning, and late nights that make continuity of service possible. Recognition rarely came from within.

The moment that sticks with me most happened at a sales kickoff meeting around 2014. A guest speaker from VMware stood in front of 150 people and asked one simple question: Have you thanked your IT team today? It took someone from outside the company to start a conversation that should have been happening all along. The SVP of Sales asked me to stand and be recognized. It felt good, but it also felt like it should not have required a guest speaker to make it happen.

Recognizing people for good work should not need a catalyst. It should be instinctive.

But this is not really about IT getting a moment in the spotlight. It is about something bigger. Every experience I have had, every leader who invested in me, every difficult situation I navigated, helped shape the way I lead today. I did not get into technology for applause. I got into it because I genuinely love what it makes possible for people.

Burnout is real. It is quiet, it is cumulative, and by the time you see it, you are often too late. Flexibility and empathy are not soft skills. They are the foundation of a functional, sustainable team. Nobody on my team should ever feel overlooked or worn down without someone in their corner.

That is the standard I hold myself to. Every day.

Real Leadership comes from Empathy

 Here's the rewrite:

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Real Leadership Comes from Empathy

I came across an article in INC. magazine today that I could not stop thinking about. It focused on a CEO who summed up his company's remote work decision in ten words. Those ten words say everything about what emotionally intelligent leadership looks like in practice.

Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, surveyed his employees about where they wanted to work. The results came back: 7% wanted to be in the office full time, 31% preferred a hybrid arrangement, and 62% wanted to work fully from home. His response? "Sounds great. Do whatever you want. If you get your work done, that's all that matters."

That is it. No committee. No policy debate. No performative flexibility theater. Just a leader who listened and got out of the way.

This is consistent with who Dan Price has always been. In 2015, he restructured his entire company's compensation model and set a minimum salary of $70,000 for every employee. He ran the numbers, believed in his people, and made the call. It was not about optics. It was about genuinely understanding what his staff needed to live well and do good work.

COVID changed the rules for everyone, whether companies were ready or not. The organizations that responded with empathy and adaptability kept their people. Those that clung to rigid, outdated expectations found themselves on the wrong end of the Great Resignation, watching talented employees walk out the door in search of workplaces that actually respected their lives outside of work.

So what is emotional intelligence, and why does it matter so much right now?

The dictionary defines it as the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships with good judgment and empathy. That definition sounds clinical, but the reality is deeply personal.

Think about what the past few years looked like for most families. College students and high schoolers doing classwork from their bedrooms. Parents managing their kids' education while keeping up with their own jobs. Households with four or five people all competing for bandwidth at the same time. My own family was no exception. My wife and I were grocery shopping for her parents and dropping food at their garage, kept at a distance while they disinfected everything we touched. That was our routine for months.

Now multiply that by every single person on your team. Each of them was carrying their own version of that story. As a leader, you are not just managing deliverables. You are managing people who are managing entire lives at the same time. That reality has to be part of how you lead.

Will Rogers once said he never met a man he did not like. When his life was adapted into a Broadway musical in 1991, his character described a practice rooted in his Native American heritage: walking around to the other side of a person to see what they were seeing. To understand what drives someone, what worries them, what they are working toward. That is empathy in its most practical form, and it is how I try to approach every conversation with my team.

When I work with someone, I always come back to three questions:

• What has their experience been?
• What motivates them?
• How can I help them reach their personal and professional goals?

A leader who asks those questions, and actually listens to the answers, builds something different than a leader who just manages tasks.

The INC. article also included a list of leadership practices worth keeping visible:

Show genuine personal interest in your people. Communicate expectations clearly and early. Set reasonable norms around response times for messages and email. Check in regularly, not to monitor, but to support. Coach rather than micromanage. Give people room to take smart risks and explore ideas. Treat mistakes as learning, not failure. Recognize good work loudly and often. When things go sideways, give feedback that helps rather than harms.

I would add one more. Invest in your people's future, not just their current role. The best thing you can do for your team is make sure they are growing, that they have the skills to do their jobs not just today but in the environment that is coming. Workplaces are changing fast. A good leader makes sure their people are ready for what is next.

High emotional intelligence, paired with strong communication and a genuine commitment to your team's growth, is what separates managers from leaders. It is also what keeps good people from leaving.

What is your EQ?

Company Respect and ME: Black Helmet Apparel

Update: Black Helmet Apparel has since gone out of business. I will leave it at that.

Update 2: Black Helmet is back (2025) and they seem to be back to basics

Women and Technology: A Lesson from Blizzard's Failure

 Here's #4:

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Women and Technology: A Lesson from Blizzard's Failure

I am sad and angry about what continues to come out of the Blizzard/Activision campus. The reports describe years of extreme toxicity, sexual harassment, and outright assault, all protected and perpetuated by a culture that should never have been allowed to take root in the first place.

Let me say that plainly, because it deserves to be said without softening: this was not a rough workplace. This was a sustained, predatory environment that destroyed careers and harmed real people.

I have been a Blizzard supporter since Warcraft 2. I subscribed to World of Warcraft from its launch, with only a brief break in 2005. I attended BlizzCon four times in person and several more times virtually. At one point, working there was genuinely my dream job. I believed in what they built.

Blizzard was at the top of the gaming world for a long time. Then the wheels started coming off. The Activision merger in 2008 began a slow cultural shift. Chris Metzen's departure in 2016 was followed by a broader leadership exodus in 2018. What came after was not a surprise to the people inside, even if it shocked those of us watching from outside.

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing described the workplace culture as a "pervasive frat boy" environment. That phrase is almost too mild for what the reports actually describe.

Here is what troubles me most beyond the harm done to the victims: the technology industry already struggles deeply to attract and retain women. The pipeline problem is real, the systemic barriers are real, and stories like this make every bit of progress harder to achieve. When news breaks that one of the most celebrated companies in tech fostered this kind of environment for years, why would any woman look at this industry and think she would be safe, valued, or respected?

I have seen what a genuinely inclusive team looks like. At one point in my career, my IT department was split evenly between men and women. It was one of the best teams I have ever led. Not despite that balance, but in part because of it. Different perspectives, different problem-solving approaches, and a culture where everyone felt they belonged made us better at everything we did.

The best manager I ever had was a woman. She gave me an opportunity I might not have gotten elsewhere, genuinely invested in who I was becoming, and mentored me for four years. I would not be the leader I am today without her influence.

I was bullied in high school. I have been treated poorly at jobs. Those experiences did not harden me into someone who passes that treatment along. They made me determined to make sure nobody on my team ever has to feel that way. Every person, regardless of their background, identity, or sex, deserves every opportunity to succeed and a workplace where they feel genuinely safe.

Toxic culture does not survive because of one bad actor. It survives because people around it stay quiet. That ends when leaders decide it ends.

I cancelled my 16-year World of Warcraft subscription until Blizzard addresses the lawsuit and makes real, meaningful changes. Not symbolic ones. Real ones.

We can do better. We have to.

Lessons from the Solarwinds Orion Cyber Attack

 On December 13, 2020, SolarWinds CEO Kevin B. Thompson notified customers of a highly sophisticated supply-chain attack affecting Orion Platform software builds from versions 2019.4 through 2020.2.1.

The details were still emerging, but the attack appeared to involve malicious code inserted into software updates distributed to SolarWinds customers. Approximately 18,000 organizations may have installed the affected versions. The incident came to light shortly after cybersecurity firm FireEye disclosed that it had experienced a breach involving the theft of internal security tools.

This was a sobering moment for the cybersecurity community. The scope of the compromise extended beyond private companies, potentially affecting Fortune 500 organizations and government agencies, including entities responsible for national cybersecurity.

Why this attack matters

Most security conversations focus on attacks that come from outside an organization - such as denial-of-service attacks or penetration attempts - or attacks that exploit people and systems from within, such as phishing, ransomware, or malware.

The SolarWinds incident exposed a different and especially concerning risk: the compromise of a trusted software-development and delivery process. By inserting malicious code into legitimate software updates, attackers were able to take advantage of the trust customers placed in a widely used vendor.

The incident underscores an important reality: every organization may have vulnerabilities within its software development lifecycle. Even well-established processes can be compromised if appropriate safeguards, reviews, and monitoring are not in place.

For years, organizations have invested heavily in perimeter protection, intrusion detection and prevention, endpoint security, and network monitoring. Those controls remain essential. But this attack demonstrated that the software development process itself must also be treated as a critical security boundary.

The long-term impact will likely include stronger tools, more rigorous standards, and updated regulations designed to improve software supply-chain security.

What can be done?

Improve communication and information sharing

Effective response depends on timely, useful communication among companies, government agencies, and security professionals. Privacy and data-protection laws remain important, but organizations also need practical ways to share threat intelligence quickly and responsibly.

In a cybersecurity incident, early access to relevant information can help organizations contain an attack before it spreads. Coordination across agencies and industries is especially important when responding to threats with broad public and economic consequences.

Strengthen quality control and code review

Although the full technical details were still under investigation, the incident made clear that malicious code had entered the SolarWinds software delivery process. That should prompt every organization to review how code is developed, approved, tested, built, and released.

Agile development and automation can improve speed and consistency, but they do not eliminate the need for strong controls. Organizations should consider:

• Independent code reviews and approval processes
• Automated integrity checks between releases
• Monitoring for unexpected code changes or behaviors
• Secure, isolated test environments
• Comprehensive audit logs for development and release activities
• Regular reviews of third-party and open-source dependencies

Automation can help identify meaningful differences between code versions and flag suspicious changes for human review. It should support - not replace - clear accountability and sound engineering judgment.

Act now

Organizations should assess their current exposure and avoid assuming that any process is inherently secure. Review systems across the business, from software development and vendor management to finance and operational workflows.

A mature cybersecurity program may identify risks before they become incidents, but no single team or tool can protect everything. Security must be a shared responsibility across IT, engineering, leadership, legal, operations, and other business functions.

Breaking down departmental silos and examining the software development lifecycle honestly - even its weaknesses - is essential. Technology and standards will continue to improve, but organizations also need disciplined processes, open communication, and collective accountability to reduce the likelihood and impact of future attacks.