ABOUT NATI
I started by writing code.
Then I learned that the hard part was deciding what to build.
I've spent more than 25 years building technology, companies and teams - as a software engineer, founder, product leader and data & AI executive.
Today I help product, data and engineering organizations become AI-driven builders. And I still build things myself.
- Building technology and organizations
- 25+ years
- Writing software and leading engineering
- 10+ years
- Built, scaled and sold
- 1 startup
- Product thinking, frameworks and practical guidance
- 100+ articles
BUILDER FIRST
I don't teach from the sidelines.
A lot of people eventually become advisors because they stopped operating.
I took a different route.
I began my career as a software engineer, spending more than a decade writing code, designing systems and managing engineering teams. Then I co-founded Newsfusion, a consumer technology company, and experienced the entire startup journey from idea to acquisition.
That changed the way I thought about building products.
Writing good software is difficult. But deciding what deserves to be built, why it matters, and where not to spend your time is often harder.
That realization gradually pulled me from engineering into product leadership. Since then, I've led product, engineering, data science and data organizations, worked with executives on strategy, trained product teams, and gone deep into AI.
And through all of it, I kept building.
HOW I GOT HERE
One career, moving upstream from building to deciding.
- 01
Engineer
I graduated as a software engineer and spent the first part of my career close to the technology - writing production code, developing algorithms and eventually managing engineering teams.
Being close to implementation taught me an instinct I've never lost: abstract decisions eventually have to survive contact with real systems.
- 02
Founder
Newsfusion · exit 2020
Then I co-founded Newsfusion, a digital-media startup built around news aggregation.
Being a founder changed my perspective permanently. Suddenly engineering was only one piece of a much larger system: customers, distribution, positioning, priorities, economics, people and relentless trade-offs.
We eventually sold the company in 2020.
- 03
Product leader
After Newsfusion, I moved deeper into product management and product leadership.
I became obsessed with a question that still drives much of my work:
Why do smart teams, filled with capable people, spend so much time building things that create surprisingly little impact?
That question led to much of the product thinking I teach today, including the CAF Product Framework.
- 04
Data & AI leader
My work then expanded into data science, analytics and data engineering.
That matters because modern product decisions increasingly sit at the intersection of product, technology and data. I have had the unusual opportunity to operate on all three sides of that intersection.
And then AI changed the equation again.
THE THROUGH-LINE
I've spent twenty-five years moving between building things and deciding what's worth building. AI is bringing those two worlds back together.
HOW I THINK
Impact beats activity.
A team can execute beautifully and still accomplish very little.
I care less about how much gets shipped than whether the organization is solving the right problems, making deliberate choices and creating meaningful outcomes.
Strategy is about choosing.
I have very little patience for strategy documents that describe everything a company would like to achieve.
A useful strategy constrains behavior. It tells you what matters, what does not, and what you are willing to sacrifice.
Without those choices, agility quickly becomes opportunism.
Builders are replacing specialists.
AI is changing something much deeper than productivity.
The historical boundaries between people who think, people who analyze, and people who build are becoming much weaker.
Product managers can prototype. Analysts can build applications. Engineers can explore products. Small teams can accomplish things that previously required departments.
I believe the organizations that understand this shift early will operate very differently from those that simply give everyone an AI subscription.
THE CURRENT CHAPTER
Everyone becomes a builder.
For most of my career, becoming more senior meant moving further away from actually making things.
AI is reversing that.
Today I can move from an idea to research, architecture, code and a working product at a speed that would have sounded absurd a few years ago. I use that capability constantly - not because I want to become a full-time engineer again, but because I believe leaders make better decisions when the distance between thinking and testing becomes dramatically shorter.
That is also the transformation I am increasingly helping organizations make.
The question is no longer:
NOT
“How do we use ChatGPT?”
BUT
“How should a product, data or engineering organization operate when almost everyone can build?”
CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR
The AI Opportunity
Chapter 3 · Everyone Becomes a Builder
This idea became the chapter I contributed to The AI Opportunity, a collection of perspectives from AI practitioners on how AI is changing organizations, work and society.
#1 Amazon Best Seller · High-Tech Business & Finance
WHY I SHARE WHAT I KNOW
Useful knowledge should survive the meeting.
I started teaching long before I created Effective Product Management.
As an engineer, I trained engineers. Later I mentored product managers and product leaders. Over time I found myself repeatedly explaining the same ideas, frameworks and mistakes.
So I started writing them down.
That became a body of more than 100 articles covering the practical reality of product work - from writing a good PRD to product strategy, organizational leadership, AI and data.
I don't write to produce content.
I write because when I discover a useful way of thinking about a problem, I want to turn it into something other people can actually use.
OUTSIDE THE JOB TITLE
There is life outside the screen. Mostly.
I live in Israel with my family.
I've been playing computer games for roughly as long as I've been writing software, which probably explains more about me than it should. I also hike, train regularly, travel whenever I get the chance, and remain chronically curious about subjects well outside technology.
I have a hard time doing anything casually. Apparently that includes hobbies.
WORK WITH ME
If you're trying to change how your organization builds, we should probably talk.
I work with executives and product, data and engineering leaders on the problems I care most about: strategy, organizational effectiveness, AI transformation, and turning capable teams into builders who create substantially more impact.