Hi! I'm William Pietri. I am a developer, leader, writer, and occasional entrepreneur. I was very involved in both the early Agile movement (1999-2008 or so) and the Lean Startup movement (2009-2013). I then shifted more toward doing good with tech, including time at Kiva.org, Code for America, ADL's Center for Technology and Society, and NYU's Cybersecurity for Democracy project. I live in San Francisco, where I work for MLCommons on tools to measure AI safety. I also do some coaching of technologists and entrepreneurs.
The best way to contact me is via email; try my first name at this domain. Also feel free to message me on Mastodon. If you're looking to book something with me, check out my public calendar. Read on for more contact information, including other options to reach me and how I use the various social networks.
From a family of developers and entrepreneurs, I started programming at 12. I've since filled many roles, but for the last 15 years I've alternated between leading the technical side of ambitious products and advising others on how to make systems and teams run well. You can read about my work and history or jump straight to my LinkedIn profile.
To me, writing and coding are closely related: through words and ideas, I aim to serve others and make the world better. You can read more about my writing, or jump to popular posts like my top 10 signs of startup failure or why forcing programmers to work longer weeks is counterproductive.
Speaking used to scare me silly, but lately it has gotten fun. I have a list of talks available. If you'd just like to see me in action, try me advocating that everybody should do support or a longer talk using my distance running as a metaphor for doing a startup sustainably.