Friends

Remember blogrolls? This is the 2026 version. Inspired by slashfriends.org and Nick Gray.

Nick Gray

Noah Kagan introduced me to Nick way back in 2014. Noah and I hosted a get together about growing your email list, Nick came (with a gold chain for bling), and we all got pizza after. Since then Nick and I have been good friends and worked together some. Nick's greatest contribution to my life was teaching me the art of dinner and cocktail parties, which helped me get established in Little Rock and meet great people.
Anthony Yeung

We connected online over a shared obsession with marketing and writing, then ended up consulting on a few projects together. He's lived in Europe for seven years now, and I've been bad about keeping in touch across the time zones. He's still one of the most intentional people I know about how he spends his days, and it shows up in everything he writes.
Karen Borchert

I met Karen when she reached out about the SchoolCEO Conference. I said no because I thought she was just a vendor. Turns out she's an incredible entrepreneur who built Flywheel (sold to WP Engine), then Roka, and now leads Alpaca as founder and CEO. Alpaca is a K-12 business that helps schools build better cultures and makes teachers happy(!!!)
Sean O'Connor

We met while both of us were living in New York, though neither of us can remember exactly how. He moved to Denver around the same time I moved to Little Rock, and since I've got family in Colorado, we still manage to catch up in person every couple of years.
Georges Janin

We met at a meetup in New York. He grew up in France but spent his summers in Arkansas, where his mom is from, years before I'd ever moved there myself. My wife is from Little Rock, so between New York and Arkansas we kept finding reasons to meet up. Georges also helped Apptegy build out its LatAm presence and pointed me toward some of my best early hires.
Ben Orozco

Ben replied to a cold email and joined Apptegy as VP of Engineering, where we worked together for four years. He turned into a work friend, then a real one, and he's the reason this site still runs. Thanks, Ben.
Will Parker

A mutual friend, Jamie, introduced us through the K-12 world. Will came on the SchoolCEO podcast, then spoke at the conference I hosted every year after that. He knows as much about K-12 leadership as anyone I've met, and he's the best listener I know, which is the part I'm still trying to learn from him.
Tobi Emonts-Holley

I reached out to Tobi online when I wanted to get better at "dad life" without giving up my professional one. He's been a cornerstone for the past couple of years, mostly because he lives his own advice and keeps pushing me to be better instead of just telling me to.
Matthias Wehnert

Matthias and I worked together at Apptegy for eight years, starting and leaving around the same time. He went on to build Bean Archives, which I recommend to anyone who'll listen. He's one of the few people I know who's as hard working as he is thoughtful.

Good Follows

Wes Kao

I send more of her links than anyone else on this list. Her writing on managing up and communication is second to none, and her whole approach to work is high agency. Start with 15 Principles for Managing Up, then read Super Specific Feedback.
Henrik Karlsson

Essayist who writes slower than everyone else on the internet and says more because of it. Start with his piece on why you should trim as much as possible out of your life to make it richer, not thinner.
Rory Sutherland

Vice Chairman of Ogilvy and the reason I stopped trying to solve problems with more budget instead of better framing.
Zach Ware

Led product at Zappos before Amazon bought it, then became a private markets investor who treats health and longevity like a second career. Matter of Craft is short and deliberately irritating, which is exactly the point.
Nabeel Qureshi

Essayist on economic growth, talent, and how countries and people actually get better at things. His principles page is worth reading twice.
JL Collins

Wrote The Simple Path to Wealth and has been quietly right about index funds for longer than most people have been investing.

This is something new I'm trying thanks to my friend Nick! Inspired by slashfriends.org.