Michael R. Bock @michaelrbock Twitter profile

Pinned Tweet

Michael R. Bock

2 years

Thrilled to share we've raised $21.7m for @ColumnTax to scale up our fundamentally new tax filing product It's been so much fun building the first-ever IRS authorized tax filing API with the amazing team here

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Last Seen Profiles

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

9 months

tbt to the glory days of 2016 when an Uber was under $2

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

every month like clockwork AWS charges me $10.28 and i have no time or motivation to figure out why

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

we still desperately need more VCs who used to be software engineers

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

people underestimate how working at Google gives you access to the best free worldwide gym/lounge membership land in any major city in the world, work out at a beautiful gym, shower, get a coffee, and a full meal

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

the stripe to full-time angel investor to VC pipeline

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

a VC friend of mine told me that when a company won't respond to his outreach... he'll make a market map and *purposefully* put the company in the wrong category so the founder will respond asking for it to be fixed!

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

1 year

this is the perfect example of VCs' ability to predict the future from a VC in 3 months ago:

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

the essay was IT'S TIME TO BUILD, not IT'S TIME TO BECOME A VENTURE SCOUT

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 months

you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

this guy is on every startup website 🙃

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

wow - really helpful new warning label from Twitter

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 months

john collison has liked ~40% of my recent tweets and i feel that means i deserve some sort of stripe discount

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

you don't need to ask people to sign an NDA

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 months

looking forward to changing my filing status to Married Filing Jointly

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

5 years

It's interesting how much reading Twitter can warp your worldview. I asked a friend (in tech, in SF) the other day if they had heard of @LambdaSchool . They hadn't.

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

It's impressive when a co the size of @Stripe cares as much as they do: I incorporated using @Atlas & happened to notice a tiny typo in a legal doc. Wasn't a big deal so I sorta forgot about it... their team *called* to thank me, fixed the bug, & proactively issued new docs!

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

1/ Thrilled to announce we've raised $5.1m for @ColumnTax to reimagine personal income tax software in the US In February (tax season) of 2021, @GavinNachbar and I set out to find a hairy software + ops problem to solve...

Column Tax announces $5.1M seed round to launch mobile tax-prep products | TechCrunch

Mobile income tax software Column Tax announced today that it raised $5.1 million in seed funding and is launching its first commercial product, which

techcrunch.com

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

🚨new side-project alert I've spent the last 5 years closely following the self-driving space and compiling _every_ company (and acquisition). Now I'm ready to share:

SelfDriving.fyi

The most comprehensive database of companies working on autonomous vehicles and related technologies.

selfdriving.fyi

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

Ok lol, just sold a used Peloton bike in SF in under 30 minutes on Craigslist (for full price)

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

9 months

@itsgeorgepi i remember it fondly

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

1/ There's an internal tool at Google that makes engineers _much_ more productive (dare I say 10x?) It's also an incredible startup opportunity in the devtools market This is why more people should know about Code Search 🧵

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

oh lol, looks like we just did this tweet in July:

Jason Lengstorf

@jlengstorf

2 years

Every month I pay AWS $1.43 and I have zero recollection of how or why but I’m too lazy to dig through the AWS console to figure it out.

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

This was the easily the hardest week of my life...my partner had to go to the ER and spent 4 days in hospital We are accepting any and all good vibes you can send our way! Really thankful for all the doctors & nurses at UCSF

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 months

here's a free marketing idea for Vanta: hire a new spokeswoman: SOC 2uah on that thang

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 months

@noampomsky reminds me of

andrew (in CS teacher mode) 🌹

@__drewface

1 year

my friend literally parted the matrix

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

Is anyone using Discord instead of Slack for company chat?

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 months

@pitdesi smart! you enforced this:

Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

5 months

i'm a simple man: i see a quora link in my google search results and i do everything in my power to remember to NOT CLICK that link

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

this doesn't quite beat that one time @patio11 tweeted about the company, but it's still pretty cool to see

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

I'd like to offer free software engineering practice interviews to anyone affected by layoffs. My qualifications: I've given over 500 algorithms and system design interviews at Google and elsewhere. DM me if interested and we'll schedule 45 minutes together!

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

we got featured as one of the "61 most promising fintechs [sic]" in Business Insider!! unfortunately, i've never met a single person with a Business Insider subscription, so i don't know anyone will see this, but here's a screenshot so that you can!

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

6 months

a friend asked me what it's like being a startup founder:

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

@cauchyfriend was really confused when i thought this was talking about an Ernst & Young corporate podcast about using AI to advance strategic business metrics for a second

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

if you're a web3 engineer looking to get back into web2: my DMs are open!

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

9 months

can't believe this worked

Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

9 months

summoning circle, hope this works 🕯 🕯 🕯 🕯 a vc gives 🕯 🕯 me free warriors 🕯 🕯 tix 4 saturday 🕯 🕯 🕯 🕯

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

6 months

the future of tax filing is fast, free, and embedded

Column Tax

@ColumnTax

6 months

Congrats to the @Chime team for announcing their launch of free, in-app tax filing! We’re excited to partner with Chime to build on their mission of helping everyday people unlock financial progress with embedded taxes. We're proud to help Chime members get their taxes done

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

5 months

SF is amazing: I just got on the subway, saw an old co-worker, chatted for 10 minutes, and now I know the roadmap for the next set of BigCo LLM products

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

you can basically say anything in a PR review as long as you put "nit:" in front of it

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

1 year

the founder's breakfast of champions

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

This tweet was one of the highlights of my career

Patrick McKenzie

@patio11

2 years

This is a really clever business:

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

Recently went back to look at some of the prompts my cofounder and I used for startup idea generation s/o to @avichal for many of these

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

something just happened for the first time ever in years of hiring: a software engineering candidate sent a follow up thank you email we are definitely in a tech recession

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

how it started how it's going

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

5 years

SLAPS is the new FAANG Stripe Lyft Airbnb Pinterest Snap

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

Two years ago my partner was diagnosed with a _really_ rare (1 in 100M) form of cancer and it was the scariest day of my life... Luckily we caught it early and had an amazing doctor Here's a photo from the day she got surgery and has luckily been cancer-free ever since ❤️

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

I'm so glad people noticed I left Tesla off the list 😏 The website is called , not What's the point of building side projects if you can't do some light trolling ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

apropros of nothing, i feel like this is a good time to tell everyone that *both* @packyM and @zachweinberg are investors in Column Tax

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

I joke with the team that you could replace my presence in a 30min meeting with a video of me saying: - (Start) What are the goals? - (5min) Is there any way we could do this faster? - (10min) How can we break this down into smaller chunks? - (25min) What are the next steps?

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

8 months

Tax season will never be the same

Column Tax

@ColumnTax

8 months

Tax filing with Current is live! For many Americans, their tax refund is the largest check they'll receive all year. Current is helping their users secure their maximum refund and access to much needed funds. Congrats, Current!

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 months

@the_P_God same energy 🤝

Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

5 months

remember prezi lol? that was the absolute most fire way to make presentations back when i was in high school

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

10 months

Has anyone ever tried creating a role that's combined Product Manager & Engineering Manager? I imagine managing a team of ~3-4 and doing all of the PM work. Seems like it could lead to some really great small team execution.

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

My new startup CTO mantras: - Can we solve a simpler problem? - Can we break down the problem into smaller chunks? - What are the immediate next steps? - What can we do now? What are we blocked on? - Are there any shortcuts to getting this done faster?

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

it's kinda cool how you can become a world-class expert in something with like 1-2 years of really intense effort

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

summoning circle, hope this works 🕯 🕯 🕯 🕯 🕯 🕯 software engineers 🕯 🕯 🕯 🕯 🕯 🕯

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

5 months

remember prezi lol? that was the absolute most fire way to make presentations back when i was in high school

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

the bad news is i got covid while traveling and was stuck in a 200 sq ft nyc hotel room for a week but on the bright side, i'm now Marriott Elite Silver status

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

the talent density we're building here is honestly incredible

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

6 years

Uber introduces an Amazon Prime-style monthly subscription service "LA-based subscribers will get free bike and scooter access." cc @michalnaka

Uber introduces an Amazon Prime-style monthly subscription service

$14.99 a month for flat, heavily discounted fares

www.theverge.com

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

~~some personal news~~ (am i doing this right??) I'm super excited to be part of the inaugural class of the @southpkcommons Founder Fellowship @GavinNachbar and I are working on Something New™

Kicking Off the Inaugural SPC Founder Fellowship

To help founders during the -1 to 0 phase of building a company, we announced the South Park Commons Founder Fellowship program in…

medium.com

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

but for spiciness levels across restaurants

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

5 months

i'm a simple man: i see a quora link in my google search results and i do everything in my power to remember to NOT CLICK that link

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

@patio11 We think so too 🙂 Your blog posts throughout the years have been a huge source of information & inspiration. Really excited that you dug into to what we're working on. Thank you!

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

Udacity's homepage on the day it launched in 2012

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

not today, satan!

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

1 year

a friend who works at a FAANG company sent me this (real) project timeline for a small feature...in case you were wondering why Google never ships anything

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

a social event on a boat is a unique horror because of the inability to escape!

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

5 months

i think it's a very good sign that the last three people to join Column Tax are all former founders

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

it's amazing how it's 100% socially acceptable to be addicted to one drug: caffeine

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

Truly, thank you to everyone for the well wishes. It means a lot. Things are looking a lot better now than a few days ago! So now back to the regularly-scheduled snarky tech tweets

Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

This was the easily the hardest week of my life...my partner had to go to the ER and spent 4 days in hospital We are accepting any and all good vibes you can send our way! Really thankful for all the doctors & nurses at UCSF

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

1/ Lots of software engineers ask me how they can switch from working on web & mobile apps to building self-driving cars. If you're a software engineer, you can work on autonomous vehicles TODAY. You don't need to wait for more "experience". Here's how 👇

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

11 days

Yes!

Quinn Slack

@sqs

12 days

Yeah your product is cool, but are your customers' CEOs bragging about it on their earnings calls?

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

5 years

I have a connection to a very talented high school freshman underrepresented programmer stuck in school in rural KY. He's already finished the HS math curriculum & taught himself C++ for graphics programming. Anyone know of any stipends/sponsorships for him over the summer?

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

the only three things in life that are certain: death, taxes, and receiving one (1) Amazon/AWS recruiter email per day

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 months

the cafe reveille breakfast sandwich will in fact fix you

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

The best source of passive income is working remotely at FAANG

Michael Arrington 🏴‍☠️

@arrington

4 years

A friend of a friend at Google interviewed at Facebook right as the virus hit. Accepted new job in March. Didn’t quit old job. Apparently does both jobs at home in 55 hours/week. Neither company knows yet. Might have reversed the co’s, not sure. I have so many thoughts on this.

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

startup has first customers!! have to be more careful with my tweets now😒

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

@PaulRoales @hamandcheese This narrative that the GOP is now the party of the working class confuses me to no end.

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

Kelly joining Column is an absolute coup for us. Kelly is likely _the most knowledgeable person on the planet_ about how to build tax software

Column Tax

@ColumnTax

3 years

Today, Kelly Smith, former VP at TaxAct, joins the Column Tax team. Kelly brings 20 years of experience as a leader in the tax industry. We're so excited to welcome Kelly to the team! 🚀

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

this absolutely kills me

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

i'm looking for angel investors* for my startup! * full-time software engineers working for salary + equity

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

9 months

Too much demand means we're hiring for our GtM team. If you're interested in working with the absolute best sales & partnerships team I've ever seen, reach out.

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

4 years

One amazing thing about startups is that you can build a gigantic company on incredible hacks: - Honey is a terrible chrome extension that sold for $4B to PayPal - Plaid is literally phishing software worth $6B - Zapier glues APIs together and just sold secondaries at $4B

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

got this notification yesterday then i hacked together an analytics script with Ruby + SQL, ran it against the prod DB, and definitely did not feel like a "Portfolio Executive" :)

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

it's always a fun day when the whole team is working together in lockstep and graphs are going up and to the right :)

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

10 / And maybe most importantly @ay_o for writing the epic blog post outlining how to take on the entrenched incumbent :)

How to dismantle TurboTax

www.kunle.app

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

my preferred activity for procrastinating on my own taxes (until the literal last day!) is to build software to do everyone else's taxes

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

you know you're really focused on building product and talking to users when an article about you comes out in the morning and you don't have time to read it until the late afternoon

Fintechs create tech that lets banks offer tax prep help

April and Column Tax are among the startups capitalizing on the idea that taxes are part of a person’s financial life and banks are most suited to help with tax preparation and filing.

www.americanbanker.com

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

Three (3!) new people all starting on one day to help us build software faster, and there's no more exciting feeling

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

@pyyding exactly.

Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

the only three things in life that are certain: death, taxes, and receiving one (1) Amazon/AWS recruiter email per day

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

at a two-person startup, 1:1s are also All Hands

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

3 years

5/ We're building APIs so that every mobile bank and fintech can embed the future of tax software -- from year-round tax refund unlock to seamless year-end filing Today, we're also launching our product with @KloverApp & @YottaSavings powered by Atomic payroll rails

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

2 years

one funny thing you learn by starting a tax company is how many people write into support asking where to enter their onlyfans income

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

8 months

i've used literally every productivity tool: RescueTime, Rize, Freedom, Opal, etc. etc. the best productivity tool is just working on things you really care about

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Michael R. Bock

@michaelrbock

7 months

only in SF: your neighborhood greek spot has a note on their website specifying they're "not raising"