What this is
Office hours are the front door
Use this when something is stuck. We can work on a decision, a team dynamic, an operating mechanism, a career question, a product bet, or the leadership mess that nobody can summarize neatly in Slack.Book a session
Pick a 30-minute slot
Getting a session scheduled on both our calendars is the point of this page. Pick a time that works for you. Then bring whatever is on your mind.
Why Tig
You get someone who has actually done the job
I have spent more than 35 years building products and leading teams at Microsoft, Amazon, startups, Control4, SnapAV, and public-company scale. Office hours are where all of that gets pointed at your actual situation.
I've Hired and Mentored Hundreds
Even when I was doing it for real, I was a student of the craft.
Windows-scale execution
I shipped products used by hundreds of millions of people.
Echo, Alexa, and Smart Home
I helped launch Echo and Alexa, then ran Alexa Smart Home while the whole thing was still getting built.
Successes and Failures
See Holy Grail Labs. The FreeBusy scheduler? I co-founded FreeBusy. I am an advisor to dozens of other startups.
Turnaround systems
As CTO/CPO at Control4 and SnapAV, I rebuilt product and engineering across a 4,500-product company through a merger and public-company path.
Active Product Development
I actively maintain and build multiple large-scale open source hardware and software products.
How it works
Make the 30 minutes useful
Include the topic in the invite
A short description is enough. The real work is usually finding the sharper problem underneath, but it helps me prep if you give me an idea beforehand.
Expect direct questions
I’ll start asking questions right away: What’s your story? What drives you? What do you care about?
Leave with a move
You should leave with something concrete to try, write, ask, stop, inspect, or decide.
Good topics
I prefer specific conversations to general conversations
Leadership and teams
Trust, accountability, conflict, tenets, operating cadence, unclear ownership, or a team that is working too hard for the results it gets.
Career and role design
Influence without authority, manager transitions, executive communication, scope, burnout risk, or deciding what kind of role you want next.
Product and technology
Strategy, technical bets, product clarity, platform decisions, founder questions, or translating an idea into something an organization can execute.
AI catch-up
Moving from AI curiosity to AI committed, finding safe internal use cases, setting weekly demos, bringing oversight in early, and building a 90-day plan.
Hiring excellence
Role clarity, bar raising, interview loops, calibration, signal, succession, and the hiring mechanisms that make teams stronger over time.
A few ground rules.
Read at least two of my essays.
Before we meet the first time, prove to me you care by reading at least two of the essays. This will also enable us to have higher-bandwidth conversations.
Why free?
I have been blessed with great mentors and managers. I do not really do nonprofits or standard charity stuff. I give back by helping leaders striving for excellence get unstuck.
Is it confidential?
Yes. What you bring stays between us unless you ask me to share it or introduce you to someone.
Can I book more than once?
Yes. Keep each slot focused, and book another one when a new problem is ready for real attention.
Can I book more than 30 minutes?
If you demonstrate to me you care, you listen, and you sincerely want to become more excellent, then yes. But only after our first session.