Blogging from the Bensch

My Background

I was born and raised in Santa Clara, CA and have lived in San Francisco for the last 6 years since graduating college from Dartmouth in 2009. After four undergraduate years in the icy hills of New Hampshire, it was an easy decision to return how to the Bay Area, where I plan to stay for the foreseeable future. Immediately after college I became a 6th grade math teacher as part of a program called Oakland Teaching Fellows. Teaching was at the time and remains the hardest thing I think I will ever do (learning Ruby is a cakewalk compared to managing a classroom of 30 6th graders!).

After an exhausting year of teaching, I was fortunate to land a job as an entry-level account strategist at Google, where I worked for the next 4+ years, eventually becoming an Analytical Lead, which basically meant running loads of Excel and SQL based data analyses that my team used to sell more ads. After Google, I joined an exciting medium-sized startup called Metromile, as a Growth Analyst. In just six months at Metromile, I decided I could no longer ignore the entrepreneurial itch that is so contagious in San Francisco, and decided that the best path forward to becoming an entrepreneur was to embark on a 4-month coding adventure with Dev Bootcamp. This website is being built and managed mainly as a learning exercise to document Brian's journey.

My Hobbies & Interests

Outside of coding and brainstorming business ideas for my next pursuit, I love to play and watch sports. The San Jose Sharks and 49ers are my favorite teams, but the Giants and Warriors also get some love too. I’ve played soccer since I was little, and continue to play 1-2x a week on a few adult teams. I also consider myself a weekend warrior of Lake Tahoe, and have shared a “ski lease” with a group of friends every winter for the past six years.

My DBC Quirk

Finally, since all DBC’ers are supposed to have a quirk to share, I would say mine is that I love using my phone for voice-to-text. That may sound not-so-abnormal, but I’m pretty sure I dictate at least 75% of my text messages, and have gotten looks of disapproval for being socially awkward on more than one occasion (mostly by my girlfriend).