April 19, 2018
David Siegel ’04 is a techie, philosopher, and creative thinker. Blending his love of technology with a sensitivity to human flourishing, he is driven to understand how technology affects people. “I’m naturally skeptical of the techno-utopian tenet that technology will inevitably create the world we want,” he shares, “so I’m concerned with building technologies consistent with our core values.”
Currently working as a design leader at Microsoft in San Francisco, he also recently founded a company around his open source project, quicktype.io, which he summarizes in layman’s terms as “autocorrect for data.” After eight months since David began working on quicktype as a side project, it’s approaching 30,000 monthly users and is snowballing in popularity with developers. He expects to reach 100,000 users per month and to build a business on top of the open source foundation this year.
During his years at MPA, David gravitated mostly toward Spanish, film, writing, and critical thinking. He especially loved arguing contentious topics with others, which was encouraged at school. He was also personally motivated to seek knowledge about emerging technologies, and MPA’s laptop program was vital.
After graduation, David attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned dual degrees in philosophy and computer science engineering. Despite graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, he admits he has never used his resume and has reported directly to the CEO at every position he’s held (until joining Microsoft via acquisition in 2016).
DAVID’S ADVICE TO MPA STUDENTS
“Understand that college is valuable because of what it does to your brain, so treasure the opportunity and learn as much as you can about the things that interest you most. There is a lot of confusion about whether or how higher education is valuable, especially in the tech world, but the benefit of education is real and enormous, and you’re incredibly fortunate to have access to it.”
“Develop your own theories about problems that interest you, seek out people working on those problems, and explain your ideas to them. View professional challenges as opportunities for creative thinking and devise your own solutions to these problems, rather than succumbing to pressure to behave uniformly.”
“Keep learning and thinking,” he says. As a designer, David continues to explore the role of technology and how it can better serve our values. Check out one of his older projects, iamfutureproof.com, for more on this topic. “Futureproof is a collection of articles, experiments, and tools that enrich your life by helping you develop a more sophisticated relationship with technology,” he shares.
“Learn to think, listen, and argue as clearly and honestly as you can. Be present and pay attention when communicating. If you want to be a leader, be the person who can get others to shut off their technology and listen to you—control the distraction. Also, read the book, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World by David Deutsch.”
Read more MPA alumni features in the Spring 2018 edition of MPA Now here!
