I'm a Dublin, Ohio-based software developer, writer and consultant who currently serves as a partner at Xenon Partners. Prior to this role I spent two years as CEO of Treehouse. Prior to joining Treehouse, I served as CTO of DreamFactory Software. My career has been devoted to helping companies of all sizes build amazing products.
I'm the author of nine books, including the bestselling “Beginning PHP and MySQL, Fourth Edition”, “Easy Laravel 5”, “Easy PHP Websites with the Zend Framework, Second Edition”, and “Easy Active Record for Rails Developers”.
Over the years I've published more than 300 articles within popular publications such as Developer.com, JSMag, and Linux Magazine, and instructed hundreds of students in the United States and Europe.
I'm cofounder of the popular CodeMash Conference, the largest multi-day developer event in the Midwest. Although I'm no longer involved in the day to day, attending the event and companion KidzMash conference has become a much anticipated few days for me and the family. Away from the keyboard you'll find me hanging out with the family, hunched over a chess board, or having fun with DIY electronics.
In August, 2023 I launched EmailReputationAPI in response to the rampant abuse I've witnessed over the years with regards to bots, scammers, and credit card fraudsters signing up to legitimate online services using anonymized and illegitimate personal email accounts. EmailReputationAPI offers an easy API which will help companies identify both personal and anonymized email domains whether at time of registration or during periodic CRM audits.
Treehouse is an award-winning online platform that has taught more than 1 million people how to code and design.