In 2025, I’d been slowly working on an idea for a journal/book for my kids. I’d spent over a year thinking about it and jotting down notes and ideas, but with three young children, work, and everything else, progress was agonizingly slow.

Then, my wife took two of the kids away for a week, and I found my opportunity. I can’t conjure up focus on command in short stints. I need long, uninterrupted stretches to get into the zone. That week, I wrote a substantial part of a first draft. It felt like all the notes and pre-work exploded out of my brain onto the table where I could finally begin organizing them into a coherent structure. It was a splendidly productive time.

A year earlier, I’d stayed at Sea Ranch Lodge for a company offsite. I loved it. It was a special, remote place with an inspiring legacy. At some point, the dots connected: a week of focus, in this place by the sea, could be the perfect gift for someone with an idea waiting to break through.

I want to gift that week of mine to others. The space to focus and create something uniquely theirs.

I want the Fresnel Residency to bring together an eclectic, ambitious group of doers who are eager to represent this idea. My hope is that each individual's story becomes a small beacon for someone else: a reason to start, find their focus, and see what they’re capable of creating. A distinctly human residency.

California—and Silicon Valley in particular—has treated me well. The Fresnel Residency is my way of paying some of that forward, in a place I love, by giving people something I know the value of: one week to see how far they can take an idea.