Chapter 011996 — 2005
New York
Where it starts. Not much of it is mine to remember, but it is the first address on the list.
November 19, 1996
Born in New York.
The beginning of the list.
Childhood photo — New York
01 — New York1996 — 2005
The story so far
It has never gone in a straight line.
This is the whole thing in order: New York, Austin, four schools, a move to Israel, a DJ booth in Tel Aviv, a payments business, and everything that has kept collecting since. Scroll slowly.
Scroll
Chapter 022005 — 2014
Austin
The city that ends up being the through-line for almost everything else — the businesses, the friendships, the rooms, the music.
2005
Moved to Austin, Texas.
Austin eventually becomes the place I consider home, and the foundation for most of my businesses, relationships, creative projects and community involvement.
2014
Graduated high school.
The official start of a very unofficial path.
High school photo — 2014
Chapter 03After 2014
Figuring It Out
Four schools. I am not going to pretend that was a strategy — but it is a real part of the story, so it stays in.
“The path was not exactly linear.”
Texas State University
Started working out the direction.
First campus. Mostly spent figuring out what I actually wanted my life to look like.
Austin Community College
Kept going, kept exploring.
Continued while exploring different interests and opportunities around the city.
Full Sail University
A more creative environment.
Entertainment, media, music, entrepreneurship. The first place where the things I was drawn to had a name.
University of Central Florida
Another campus, another year.
Another set of people, another version of the plan.
“I definitely did not have this figured out.”
Somewhere in there
Started DJing.
It began as something to do. Learning to read a room, hold attention and build a night turned out to be the most useful education of the entire period.
Chapter 04The years abroad
Israel
The decision that made the least sense on paper and the most sense in hindsight.
Moved to Israel
Left, without much of a plan.
A completely different chapter, in a country where nobody knew any version of me yet.
Israel photo — arrival era
Volunteer teaching
Spent time teaching.
Volunteering and teaching, far outside the career path I had originally imagined for myself.
Volunteer teaching photo
Became a medic
Trained and worked as a medic.
The chapter that permanently changed how I think about pressure, and about what actually counts as a bad day.
Medic photo — uniform / ambulance
Tel Aviv
Started DJing at Shalvata.
A booth on the water in Tel Aviv. Music and life abroad running at the same time, feeding each other.
“Somewhere along the way, DJing stopped being a hobby.”
Chapter 05The return
Back to Austin
Came home with a strange résumé and a much better sense of what I could handle.
Returned to the United States
Back, and back to Austin.
The same city, a different person walking around in it.
Started in payments
Joined the family business.
Merchant services, payment technology, sales, operations. Learning the industry from the inside, in the least glamorous and most useful way possible.
Chapter 06Ongoing
Building
Payments turned into a career, and the career turned into an appetite for building and backing things.
From there
Built a career in payment processing.
Complex, regulated, unfashionable, and genuinely interesting once you are inside it.
Then
Started building businesses of my own.
Companies and projects across payments and technology. Details on the current list live on the Building page.
Alongside
Started investing.
Early-stage bets and advisory work, mostly in industries and founders I already understand.
“I realized I liked building things almost as much as performing.”
Present
Multiple businesses and projects, in parallel.
Companies, investments, a music project, a monthly dinner. It looks scattered from outside. From inside it is one thing.
Chapter 07Ongoing
Music
The part that never had to be justified. It just kept getting more serious.
Parallel
Grew DJ Jordan Miller.
Sets, residencies, private rooms and festivals. Warm, patient, low-end-forward — built for rooms where people are still talking to each other.
Alongside
Started producing.
Studio time, edits, originals. Learning to make the thing rather than only play it.
Then
Created Mixmode.
A live project: me DJing and producing, with Kristian Cruz on live guitar over the top of it.
Since
Started touring.
Playing in other cities and other countries, and learning how differently a crowd behaves in each one.
Ongoing
Performed major events.
Larger rooms and larger nights. Details and dates live on the Music page.
Chapter 08Ongoing
Community
Most of what I care about eventually comes down to the same thing: getting good people into the same room.
Ongoing
Built Third Thursday.
A recurring gathering in Austin's Jewish community. Same night every month, a table that keeps getting longer.
Ongoing
Community involvement and leadership.
Jewish life, philanthropy and civic work in Austin. Roles and organizations are on the Community page.
Ongoing
Kept traveling.
Twenty-odd countries so far. Travel is where most of the ideas come from, and where most of them get tested.
