For six years, I ran Etsy, a global company that did business in nearly every country in the world. I spent a lot of times on planes, meeting with people in countries all over the world, and doing calls in all time zones at all times of the day. This sounds glamorous to some people but focusing on a global business that needed constant attention meant that I didn’t connect with folks in my immediate neighborhood as much as I would have liked. I was always on the way to somewhere else.
Since then, I’ve been happily spending most of my time within a small chunk of Brooklyn. Everything is there: home, the two non-profits where I serve on the board (St. Ann’s Warehouse and Jalopy), a little office space I rent to do work related to my coaching business and the class I’ve been teaching at Cornell Tech, and the music shop where both my son and I take piano lessons.
It’s in that hyperlocal spirit of living that I did the HeyBK podcast with my friend Ofer Cohen. I talk a little bit about my background, building Etsy, what makes NYC tech special, and finding real community in Brooklyn. Check out the episode here.
(The episode just before mine was with my friend Susan Feldman, the amazing Artistic Director at St. Ann’s Warehouse for nearly 40 years and one of the people I admire most in Brooklyn! Check that out, too.)
Chad Dickerson's blog 