mobile ∴ excuses...https://jon.paris/https://jon.paris/blog/15/https://jon.paris/blog/15/My wife published a book! For the next couple days you can get it for free on the Kindle! therunawaymommy : Hi! Runaway Mommy, the picture book for kids and adults that I published last year is now available for free viaFri, 02 May 2014 06:53:00 GMTUncategorizedhttps://jon.paris/blog/3-suggestions-to-prospective-astrid-employees/https://jon.paris/blog/3-suggestions-to-prospective-astrid-employees/At Astrid, our vision is to help over 1 billion people become happier, healthier, and more productive. To that end, we need to not only be smart about how we build (engineering), but also what we build (design, product),Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:26:00 GMTastridproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/5-star-friends/https://jon.paris/blog/5-star-friends/In recent years my wife Jane and a handful of my friends including Gene Yang and Chris Lema have really begun to excel a writers. I’ve know Gene Yang author of American Born Chinese since our freshman year at UC BeWed, 05 Dec 2001 00:00:00 GMTUncategorizedhttps://jon.paris/blog/a-product-managers-job/https://jon.paris/blog/a-product-managers-job/A Product Manager's Job Great overview of a PM’s job description.Fri, 06 Nov 2015 05:35:20 GMTproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/advice-to-prospective-startup-founders/https://jon.paris/blog/advice-to-prospective-startup-founders/Over the past couple weeks I have been introduced to a number people in finance interested in transitioning to technology startups. As I was about to copy and paste a paragraph into the second email I realized it is timeThu, 13 Dec 2012 19:54:39 GMTproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/ai-side-projects/https://jon.paris/blog/ai-side-projects/See-to-solve is a tool to identify the right move for turn-based games, starting with Chess. The original idea was to use machine learning-trained models to: Identify the game Identify if the "state/position" has changedWed, 01 Feb 2023 04:54:32 GMTside projectshttps://jon.paris/blog/announcing-search-in-apps-integration-with/https://jon.paris/blog/announcing-search-in-apps-integration-with/yahoodevelopers : By Jon Paris, Senior Director of Product Search in Apps was first introduced at the Yahoo Developer Conference back in February. Since then, we’ve been working hard with mobile developers across the U.SThu, 18 Jun 2015 15:04:05 GMTyahoohttps://jon.paris/blog/building-networks/https://jon.paris/blog/building-networks/I recently announced that my company Astrid raised seed funding from Google Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, and a number of individual angel investors. I found the process had a lot in common with my previous fundraisiTue, 16 Aug 2011 23:16:00 GMTastridproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/christianity-and-postmodernism/https://jon.paris/blog/christianity-and-postmodernism/In 2003, I would often discuss issues of faith and philosophy with a friend named Jarys. During that time, I was studying at Fuller Theological Seminary and was taking a class with Richard Mouw called Christian WorldviewMon, 22 Jan 2024 02:53:53 GMTfaith & philosophyhttps://jon.paris/blog/dont-make-presentations-fancy/https://jon.paris/blog/dont-make-presentations-fancy/Don't make presentations fancy. Instead, make them like Costco warehouses in the following ways: No frills . Show you spared every expense to deliver maximum value. Organized well spaced aisles . Make it easy to get to tSun, 16 Jul 2023 16:49:22 GMTproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/extremeclarity/https://jon.paris/blog/extremeclarity/At Meta, I often train teams how to communicate with Extreme Clarity. For years I've had former colleagues request that I bring this training to their company or team. Some amazing colleagues and I adapted the presentatiTue, 20 Jun 2023 02:57:57 GMTproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/family-photos-using-stable-diffusion/https://jon.paris/blog/family-photos-using-stable-diffusion/I created some photos of my family in various styles using Stable Diffusion 1.5 with Dreambooth on Google Colab. Find a good tutorial here .Tue, 28 Feb 2023 15:46:58 GMTside projectshttps://jon.paris/blog/goals-guardrails-guidance/https://jon.paris/blog/goals-guardrails-guidance/Clear goals and guardrails empower teams to thrive with little guidance. Without clear goals and guardrails constant guidance will be needed. Goals + Guardrails > Guidance To be more precise, but less concise: Goals +Wed, 09 Aug 2023 07:26:52 GMTproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/how-to-start-smart-the-five-things-to-know-when/https://jon.paris/blog/how-to-start-smart-the-five-things-to-know-when/Note: This post originally appeared in TechCrunch Incubators are playing an increasingly vital role in acquiring meaningful investment for first-time entrepreneurs. TechCrunch reported that elite accelerators like Y CombMon, 05 Mar 2012 08:19:00 GMTastridhttps://jon.paris/blog/jesus-and-the-samaritan-woman/https://jon.paris/blog/jesus-and-the-samaritan-woman/About 25 years ago, my wife Jane observed some intriguing similarities and stark contrasts between a text from John's Gospel where Jesus goes to Samaria and meets a woman at a well and a story in the Hebrew Bible where AWed, 02 Jul 2025 14:14:00 GMTUncategorizedhttps://jon.paris/blog/job-insecurity-in-the-age-of-ai/https://jon.paris/blog/job-insecurity-in-the-age-of-ai/Image created by DALL-E. This past week, while I was getting my haircut, I shared with my stylist that my son was returning from college for Thanksgiving. "Where is he going to school?" she asked. "The University of WashSat, 25 Nov 2023 03:23:11 GMTproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/leading-with-faith-hope-and-love/https://jon.paris/blog/leading-with-faith-hope-and-love/“Hope is not a strategy”, is a phrase Chris Lema, one of my closest and longest lasting friends is fond of saying (often accompanied by a knowing smile). While have said this myself and agree with the thrust (”have a strSun, 10 Apr 2016 12:35:07 GMTUncategorizedhttps://jon.paris/blog/monkeypet/https://jon.paris/blog/monkeypet/yahoo : By Andrew Poon, VP Product Management You already use Facebook Messenger to stay connected to your world. Now, thanks to four new Yahoo bots that are algorithmically-driven, coming to Messenger today, you can staFri, 08 Jul 2016 03:07:33 GMTyahoohttps://jon.paris/blog/ode-to-the-adventures-of-parenting/https://jon.paris/blog/ode-to-the-adventures-of-parenting/In the run up to this last Mother’s day my wife’s book, The Runaway Mommy (published in 2013) was downloaded over 7,000 times in just a couple days. It has been encouraging to see all the positive reviews pour in as readFri, 22 May 2015 16:55:43 GMTside projectshttps://jon.paris/blog/olympic-trials/https://jon.paris/blog/olympic-trials/It was in the break room…, a casual conversation… Anthony had recently mentioned how late he was spending at work… when Sarah overheard his stories of how late he was staying at work challenged him&hThu, 07 Apr 2016 13:25:44 GMTUncategorizedhttps://jon.paris/blog/parachurch/https://jon.paris/blog/parachurch/I'm currently on a one month work sabbatical called a "recharge." As I shared on Facebook, I plan to use the month to connect with friends, travel with Jane, exercise, read, pray, reflect, and generally slow down. My hopWed, 17 Jan 2024 01:38:44 GMTfaith & philosophyhttps://jon.paris/blog/recommitting-to-regular-rhythms-and-routines/https://jon.paris/blog/recommitting-to-regular-rhythms-and-routines/How to bring a community to a ruinous end During my fourteen years as a campus minister I saw dozens of faith communities grow, sometimes to hundreds of members, while other groups would atrophy and die. Almost every groFri, 09 Feb 2024 05:48:32 GMTfaith & philosophyproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/runaway-mommy-by-jane-paris/https://jon.paris/blog/runaway-mommy-by-jane-paris/If you are a parent of young kids you are sure to relate to the Runaway Mommy , written by Jane Paris, my wonderful wife. Watch the campaign video and you’ll see some our kid’s antics that informed the story! These last Sun, 27 Oct 2013 02:51:25 GMTside projectshttps://jon.paris/blog/side-projects/https://jon.paris/blog/side-projects/Photo ( @kamerakrazy ) For over 10 years my focus, the one thing I strove to do well at was campus ministry. During my time at UC Berkeley my studies of physics and chemistry became secondary to my desire to help others Tue, 11 Feb 2014 08:00:00 GMTproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/step-by-step-android-app-improvement-with-help/https://jon.paris/blog/step-by-step-android-app-improvement-with-help/Astrid Tasks / To-do is one of Android’s oldest applications and the most popular to-do list among Android users . Over the past few months we have steadily improved Astrid’s quality by reducing application crashes, incrTue, 09 Oct 2012 08:56:00 GMTastridhttps://jon.paris/blog/suggestions-for-astrid-engineering-interns/https://jon.paris/blog/suggestions-for-astrid-engineering-interns/Over the years I have heard many stories of interns writing code for companies for entire summers and at the end, the company erased it all. In my opinion, this is a failure of management and mentoring. In contrast, the Sat, 14 Jan 2012 07:41:00 GMTastridproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/the-answer-is-yes/https://jon.paris/blog/the-answer-is-yes/Story about being asked to do something costly… ( travel for business - another country to represent the company …), congressional staff, corporate leaders, what will my answer be… Why some people deThu, 07 Apr 2016 12:44:47 GMTUncategorizedhttps://jon.paris/blog/using-astrid-to-build-astrid/https://jon.paris/blog/using-astrid-to-build-astrid/Astrid Tasks was a popular shared to-do list and lightweight project management app. The vision at the time was to help people get more done with help from friends, virtual assistants (think Task Rabbit, Doordash, or FivTue, 20 Jan 2026 04:51:23 GMTastridside projectshttps://jon.paris/blog/what-should-we-build-next/https://jon.paris/blog/what-should-we-build-next/When I was leading Astrid I had lists of idea for how we could make the product better. Some of these ideas were my own, but many came from my co-founder, employees, investors, users, and similar products. With many greaWed, 05 Dec 2001 00:00:00 GMTUncategorizedhttps://jon.paris/blog/whats-your-companys-batna/https://jon.paris/blog/whats-your-companys-batna/BATNA: Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement I ask this question as a way to think about where I take my career and my own sense of contribution. Many of us ask "what's my BATNA" and "what's their BATNA" when we negWed, 09 Aug 2023 07:18:24 GMTproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/why-i-left-campus-ministry-to-start-a-software/https://jon.paris/blog/why-i-left-campus-ministry-to-start-a-software/During the summer of 2007, for the first time since I graduated from college I began to explore the possibility of leaving campus ministry. I was leading a week-long seminar entitled Beyond Graduation for around 20 newlyThu, 24 Mar 2011 11:51:00 GMTastridproducthttps://jon.paris/blog/wordle/https://jon.paris/blog/wordle/I created a wordle solver. When starting with the word SALET it solves for all possible words in 7920 guesses, or 3.421166307 on average (Distribution 1: 0, 2: 78, 3: 1225, 4: 971, 5: 41, 6: 0). GitHub - jonparis/wordlesThu, 03 Feb 2022 06:34:49 GMTside projectshttps://jon.paris/blog/wordle-solver-update/https://jon.paris/blog/wordle-solver-update/On March 27, 2023, the New York Times broke my Wordle Solver . Specifically, they added a word not part of the 2,315 possible answers the original game allowed. The new word they added was GUANO, which amused me as a metFri, 07 Apr 2023 11:27:02 GMTside projectshttps://jon.paris/blog/yahoo-acquires-astrid/https://jon.paris/blog/yahoo-acquires-astrid/Note: This post originally appeared on the Astrid Blog Friends of Astrid, We are thrilled to announce that we have been acquired by Yahoo!. When we set out to build Astrid, we sought to help as many people as possible beThu, 02 May 2013 03:48:24 GMTastridyahoohttps://jon.paris/blog/yahoo-mobile-developer-conference-mobile/https://jon.paris/blog/yahoo-mobile-developer-conference-mobile/Yahoo Mobile Developer Conference: Mobile Developer Suite Part 2 I have the opportunity to share about Search-in-Apps around 9 minutes from the end of this session. ( Source: https://news.yahoo.com/ )Fri, 04 Sep 2015 13:56:29 GMTyahoohttps://jon.paris/blog/yahoo-search-in-apps/https://jon.paris/blog/yahoo-search-in-apps/I had the honor of announcing Yahoo Search in Apps at the Yahoo Mobile Developer Conference on February 19th, 2015. We announced it as part of the Yahoo Mobile Developer Suite . We start talking about search at 38 minuteSat, 28 Feb 2015 08:00:59 GMTyahoohttps://jon.paris/blog/yahoos-on-kik/https://jon.paris/blog/yahoos-on-kik/yahoo : By Jon Paris, Senior Director of Product At Yahoo, we’ve always built experiences at the intersection of search, communications and content to help you connect with what matters most to you. Today, we’re thrilledTue, 07 Jun 2016 22:56:59 GMTyahoo