Jolly Fund

View fullsize

I was about to graduate.
About to start a job building an app.
One of my professors asked,
“Gonna spend your life making buttons?”

Now that I’m free from the button factory,
What should I do in this world?

What am I interested in?
What am I good at?
What can I do to help?

Looking through old notebooks.
Reading things I wrote while drunk.
Essays about how money is silly.
Always in cursive for fun.

I wrote very confidently,
All people should get the basics.
Just give everybody money.
We should all be able to afford life.

Too much imbalance in this world.

We talk about universal basic income,
But people just argue about it.
Can we do something about it?
Should we?

One of the many problems,
Where’s the money?
Some people say taxes,
But that’s a steep hill.

What if we just donate it?

Tax-deductible donations.
Split amongst anyone who signs up.

Free money.
Provided by those who care.
If we’re generous, we benefit.

Can we just do that?
Is that legal?
Can we start a Jolly Fund?

Farewell Ode to Apple

Ten years ago, I snuck in the back door at Apple.
New grad on a product about to be cancelled.
My team was repurposed to work on Notes.
I was a lucky kid.

Notes manager asks, “Who wants to build sync?”
Having never synced a byte in my life, I raised my hand.
Whether due to trust or desperation, I got the job.
A billion sync bugs later, I still had it.

Eventually I managed the Notes team.
I wore button ups then, but they’re a pain to wash.
Things were going well, but my bucket list screamed at me.
Apparently, I had to live in London.

Joined the CloudKit team. Moved across the pond.
Five years and a pandemic later, a pet project became API.
But now, the bucket list screams again.
Apparently, I have to quit.

Not going to a competitor. No problems. No spicy drama.
I just want to experiment with pure freedom.
Not sure exactly what I’ll do, but I have some ideas.
No kids. No responsibilities. Now is the time to be dumb.

I’m sad to leave.
Sad to miss everyone.
Sad for any time I made you mad.
Sad for all the crappy code I leave behind.

But I’m happy to have been here.
Happy for all the opportunities.
Happy for the laughs.
Happy for all the funky log lines and comments.

Thank you, Apple, for helping me make a dent.
My last day will be Friday, December 15th.
I need to finish the liquor on my desk before then.
Come by if you’d like to help.

Career Radar Stats

Bugs Filed: 8,135
Bugs CC’d: 26,175
Bugs Modified: ~40,000
Bugs Resolved (Fixed): 2,488
Bugs “Resolved” (Other): 4,620*

*Likely thousands more, but there’s a bug with how Radar tracks resolutions. Don’t worry, I filed a Radar about it.