My Story

I was about five years into product management (after MIT, Wharton, and a few years in consulting) when our second kid arrived and I got an offer for a new role. I told my wife the worst case was not getting the mandate I needed, and I'd be a stay-at-home parent for a while. She said if I was even considering it, I should consider it now.

So I ended up choosing it. When people asked how I made the decision, the honest answer was that the direction felt right before the plan was clear. One month turned into one year, and now it's the foreseeable future.

We moved to Minnesota, I started documenting what I was learning, and each thing I built led to the next. This site is where I think out loud, build things, and share what I'm learning.

Albert Kao
Family of four
Family of Four
Sandbag training
Sandbag Training
Chinese cooking
Chinese Cooking
Minnesota
Minnesota
Keep Running
Keep Running
What I'm Exploring

Family Building

What does it look like to design my family life instead of just getting through it? The identity shifts: who I am, how I work, what my partnership looks like when kids come into the picture.

Coaching

I spent years focused on work and ended up treading water on everything else. Now I work with people in that same gap. Capable people who know they're missing something, but haven't started moving yet.

AI

AI amplifies whoever is holding it. I use it to sharpen decisions, remove friction, and make more ambitious builds possible (products, workflows, content, experiments). I'm less interested in AI as a topic and more interested in what it lets me do.