New York · Online01—04

I build things
to understand
how they work.

I’m David: CEO of ScholarshipOwl, creator of Hacking Modern Life, software and hardware hacker, and photographer.

01Four parallel lives

ScholarshipOwl

Building a company that helps students navigate the messy business of paying for college.

Useful experiments, hard-won fixes, and an unreasonable number of cables.

Prototypes at the point where software stops being theoretical and starts blinking.

Light, accidents, and the split second before someone notices the camera.

02Recent field notes

Aug 22, 2026

A note about the difference between understanding a system on paper and meeting it with a screwdriver in your hand.

Jul 14, 2026

Software rewards revision. A photograph asks you to notice the moment before it disappears.

03Selected photographs

3 frames

04Open channel

The best projects usually start with, “This might be a bad idea, but…”