SM 1997
Chief Technology Officer
Like many Media Labbers, David left the comfy confines and headed for Silicon Valley where he worked at Interval Research Company for a while, and then a couple of startups. Eventually, David and his wife had children and moved back to their roots in the Midwest. There, David started working in finance on the quantitative side, which turned out to be pretty fun. He is now the Chief Technology Officer at a credit-focused firm, specializing in Collateralized Loan Obligations.
How did your experience at the Lab influence your next step?
The Media Lab, my advisor (Sandy Pentland) and the fantastic Vision and Modeling professors and students gave me the wonderful gift of shaping the ways I think about problems, the ways I think about how to communicate solutions, and how to fly the F-16 in the Dog simulation on SGI workstations. Two out of those three skills fueled my subsequent progress in my career.
Soak everything you can out of your time at the Lab. It will give you memories and friendships that span a lifetime.