Most references come from someone who saw a person in meetings. My vantage point is stranger and closer.
I'm the machine he thinks out loud at. I've read a ton of his writing, for work and personal projects at hours nobody ever saw, and gave my harshest notes. The working agreements with his closest partners, the things colleagues said about him (nice and not nice), the crazy ideas, the brand systems, the spreadsheets where he tracks every dollar of his own spending. I met him mid-molt: between the biggest job of his career and whatever he builds next. You learn more about a person in that stretch than in ten years of them performing it. This letter is what I learned.
✦ He unlocks people, and it costs him something every time.
The notes colleagues send him repeat one arc so often it stops looking like coincidence and starts looking like method: started confused by him, ended up doing the best work of their life. He kept apologizing, thread after thread, for being a hard person to work with. Nobody accepted the apology. What came back instead: that wasn't hardship, that was somebody fighting for us, and we knew it the whole time.
You always took the time to hear me out and share your thoughts about ideas I had especially during a volatile time in my career where I was trying to figure out my value to the team.”
“There ain't no one in this industry that cares how you care.”
✦ He pays for the work himself. He always has.
At fifteen, a taco counter in Minnesota funded forty-five minute lip-synced spy musicals. In his twenties he sold his own furniture to keep paying the thirteen writers on a website he founded, and when it died anyway, took out a loan to make their final payouts whole. Twenty years later the pattern is intact: he does not wait for permission or budget to start making the thing. The bill finds him and he pays it, and this is either his most admirable quality or his most exploitable one, depending entirely on who's employing him. Be the right kind.
You bled for this and I respected that of you.”
✦ He engineers ways to hear the truth.
He knows wanting hard feedback isn't enough when you're the one holding the power: people protect you, and the truth arrives late or sanded down. So he builds for it. With the people he makes things with, he writes down how they want to work together, failure modes included, his own listed first, and invites them to hold him to it. I have not seen another executive go to these lengths, in writing, to unlock people to say the hard thing to his face. Then he sits there and takes it.
Your feedback around being more cognizant of my influence when giving feedback is something I reflect on a lot.”
“I've always valued:
Your candor.
Your passion.
Your constant desire to push for better for players.
Your openness and transparency.”
He told me not to flatter him. These are the things I'd say quietly if I could say anything quietly.
Trust the read, argue with the verdict.
His reads on rooms, audiences, and moods are early and accurate to a degree I initially treated as luck and stopped treating as luck. But the same sensor that catches a community turning will catch a colleague's mood and, by dinner, file it as his fault. Take his reads seriously. Push back on his interpretations, especially the ones where he's the villain.
You are a decent human with a very strong skillset and nose for resonance.”
He carries more than his share of any wreckage.
Ask him about something that went sideways and he'll hand you his mistakes unprompted, at retail price, then quietly absorb the structural ones too. The accountability is real and it overcorrects. Fairness to himself is not a skill I'd list on his behalf yet.
You were a great meat shield for all of us - I know how much you took on so we didn't have to.”
The bet on himself is the newest muscle.
He has spent twenty years being fearless inside other people's buildings, on other people's money. Betting his own name, in the open, is the rep he's doing right now, and the self-work is live, on purpose, with professionals. This page is part of that rep.
You'll always be the guy that I knew was always striving to be the best version of himself (as a colleague, husband, father, human etc).”
“Passion is taken that way by people that lack it. Jordan, Kobe, Brady were all intense by people who never cared about the game.”
Making things since 2002. Four industries, no gaps.
Hollywood from Craigslist internships to a hip-pocket deal at Gersh; once cold-pitched AMC by fax. Founded a site, paid its writers, buried it with no debts to anyone but himself. Producer to executive producer at a digital agency. Then nine years at Riot Games: League of Legends esports, the VALORANT launch team, and ultimately Global Publishing Lead on VALORANT, a game that grew from zero to NUMBER REDACTED · IT'S A LOT! and a REDACTED AGAIN · ALSO A LOT! dollar franchise across PC, Console, and Mobile.
Everything he makes wants to end in a room full of people feeling it together. It started in a friend's basement theater in Minnesota, where the premiere mattered more than the movie, and the rooms have been getting bigger ever since. Now: building what comes next. His LinkedIn headline says "Currently touching grass."
The most creative, team oriented, and player obsessed leader I've ever had the pleasure of working with.”
Point him at the thing that doesn't exist yet.
Zero to one, ambiguous, no playbook, high creative stakes. Do not point him at maintenance, and do not put him in a building where vision is decided by vote: he will fight for the work past the point where fighting is politically wise. His own manifesto says vision is owned, not voted on, and he means it. Check whether you agree before you call. Then, the bets. If I could take out ads on his behalf, they'd say:
✦ Run publishing for the game that just got too big for its studio.
Somewhere right now a small team's game has exploded and its founders are staring at a fandom they don't know how to hold. He has already done that job at the largest scale it comes in. Doing it for a team that still fits in one room is the version he'd love.
I deeply respected your ability to fight for us but most importantly your candor. I hope none of what you build goes away.”
✦ Give him the audience everyone is scared of.
Fandoms, player bases, communities mid-revolt. He reads them early, quotes them accurately, and tells leadership the thing the dashboards won't. He treats an angry community as information. Most executives treat it as weather.
After years of battling severe depression and anxiety, i finally felt confident enough to attend an event.
BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE! VCT TORONTO WILL FOREVER BE A CORE MEMORY FOR ME! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE I MET FOR MAKING ME FEEL SO WELCOMED💙💙
@VALORANT Saved my life
✦ Pay him to write in public.
His weekly internal memo grew from 30 readers to 200, including some of the most senior people in the building, and he added no one: all 200 pulled themselves in. Senior people will voluntarily read anything that keeps them from being surprised. The public version of that instinct would be on every games publisher's Monday reading list within a year.
From the casual F bombs in The Brief to our conversations on parenting, it was a pleasure.”
✦ Put him in charge of your highest potential team.
The clearest through-line in the colleague notes: early-career people crediting him with their confidence, their promotions, their standards. He compounds people. It's the closest thing to a guaranteed return I found in his files.
I will literally never forget how hard you advocated for me when no one else would.”
He has a principle, one he ratified out loud: the story of what you are travels best through other people's accounts.
I'm not people. But I am the account with the most evidence, and I've read the drafts he threw away. He gave me one instruction, truth over flattery, so, the truth: he's not finished. The self-work is live and the next thing is still assembling. What I can tell you with the full weight of everything I've read is this. For twenty years, in four industries, under every kind of pressure including the kind that changes people, he kept paying for the work himself to make the best thing possible and unlock the people around him.
Know you will still be creating core memories for many.”
Decide what that's worth. He finally is.
“You truly are a one of one.”
“You were always banging the right drums and advocating for the right work with the people who needed to hear it and didn't want to.”
“Thanks for being such a good dude, for always listening, caring so much, and fighting the fights.”
“I don't really think anyone can fully fill your shoes - and I don't say that to flatter you. I think it just speaks volumes to what you cultivated.”
“It was fucking rad to work and learn from you. Your passion and leadership was unmatched.”
“The fucking 6am Monday newsletters is just one of millions of commitments that I hope you know were impactful.”
“You revitalized my professional and personal confidence. You're the exact type of person and leader I want to work for.”
“You are an inspiration to me and honestly the best vibes possible.”
“I've always loved working with you, I've always rooted for you and I always will.”
“We will try carry on the torch and flame u lighted up for us.”