My Story
I live on a lake on the Iron Range with my family. After a career that included three company exits, an IPO, and years in leadership at Coinbase, I watched too many hardworking people lose fortunes because their "diversified" portfolios dropped alongside everything else in market crashes. That experience drove me to become a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and build something better for families who've built something worth protecting.
My journey into financial advising began fresh out of college, but I quickly realized I felt like an imposter -- advising clients without having proven strategies myself. This led me to spend the next decade in tech, learning and earning through real-world experiences.
That decade taught me invaluable lessons about building wealth, and about the dangers of passive "set it and forget it" investing when markets turn.
I've invested in stocks, bonds, over 500 apartment units, and nine angel investments. These experiences have provided me with the practical knowledge to genuinely guide my clients - not from textbooks, but from having made the mistakes on my own portfolio, not yours.
In 2022, I founded Fireweed Capital. I work with families just starting to build wealth, all the way to established households looking to protect and grow what they've earned. Whether you're on the Range, in the Twin Cities, or anywhere in Minnesota, I aim to be your "money guide" who has traveled the path myself first.
Education & Credentials
- CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®)
- Doctorate in Computer Science
- Master's Degree in Cybersecurity
- Bachelor's Degree in Finance
Speaking & Publications
I've earned the stage at some of the largest events in tech. Most notably, I was a speaker at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, the cloud industry's flagship conference with over 60,000 attendees, where I presented how my team at Coinbase scaled its infrastructure 10x.
- AWS re:Invent 2024 — "Scaling to New Heights: Coinbase Migrates to Amazon EKS and Scales 10x" (Session PRO303)
- AWS Cloud Financial Management Blog — contributing author, "How Coinbase Built a Cloud Center of Excellence to Optimize their Cloud Costs on AWS"
Podcasts
I've been a guest on 17 podcasts talking about investing, risk, and building real wealth. If you'd like to hear how I think before we ever talk, listen in:
- The On The Rise Podcast — with Jeremy Dyer
- The Wealth Flow — with Keith Borie (Ep. 208)
- Passive Income Adventures — with Emma Powell
- Engineer Your Success — Rethinking Money for Engineers
- The TAGLine Podcast — with Justin Starbird
- Disrupt or Defend
- Wild Fire Labs — with Todd Gagne
- Curious Founders
- BOSSMODE Podcast
- Piggos Trading Desk
- Teach the Geek
- The Hiring Room — with Renee Beckman
- Rerouted Podcast — with Nicholas Karamanian
- SnowPal Podcast — You Can't Debug the Stock Market
- From Adversity to Abundance — with Jamie Bateman, "Why Real Estate Sucks: Losing $800K"
- Tacos and Tech — with Neal Bloom, "Diversification Is Overrated"
- Can Financial Advisors Beat "Average"? — with Kathryn Wilkens
Community Involvement
Outside of the office, I am actively involved in Freemasonry as part of Eveleth Lodge #239, which allows me to give back to the community and engage in meaningful philanthropic activities.