Andrej Gregov

While I was at Amazon, I was told that he’d be a great mentor. Unfortunately, I never tried to tap his well of management knowledge.

I last caught up with Tinoo a few years ago on San Juan Island. We hung out, caught up. “Hey mahn,” when am I going to see ya again?

I have bad dreams about Andrej, where no matter where I am or what I am doing, Andrej is telling me that I am not doing it right, and telling me to “follow through” like I’m playing tennis or pickleball when really I’m changing a diaper or driving a car. But he says it in this ghostly way, in my dreams, like a ghost on Scoobie Doo would say it.

This is because the one and only time I’ve played pickleball Andrej wouldn’t stop telling me to follow through. I still don’t follow through, and I never will.

The End

I first met Andreas as he helped to brainstorm ideas for tracking my team’s “fitness” at Amazon. The guy has one of the most positive attitudes I’ve ever seen. His raw enthusiasm for jumping into a problem is amazing. He was a real pleasure to work with.

His nickname, given by Daniel Spils, is “the Dickertator.” Why? Because at work, he tells you how thing need to be. Kind of like a dictator by in a friendly way. :-)

Jeff can’t stand folks who put a flag on the back of their wheelchairs.

I was having a really bad first week as an MBA at the University of Washington. My registration was mixed up and the bookstore had run out of the books I needed for my classes. I was about to give up on the idea of getting a dual degree and just go back to law school.

One night I was checking my mail at the student housing where I lived and Andrej was hanging out by the mail boxes. He recognized me from one of the orientation sessions earlier in the week. After listening to all of my frustrations, Andrej somehow managed to convince me not to quit just yet and to give the program another shot.

Because of this intervention, I blamed Andrej for the events of my life after this. He redeemed himself, however, by helping me get a few of my early jobs in the technology industry.