What I do outside of work explains, in a way, how I work.

I built my current computer myself, on a three-year schedule — a deliberate sequence of upgrades to manage the budget without compromising on quality, part by part, until I had the machine I wanted for the long run. It carried me through an MBA in Data Science, AI & Analytics: training models, running pipelines over large datasets, pushing the GPU without hitting hardware limits. The pleasure of planning that architecture is the same one I feel taking apart a complex problem at work: understanding why each component is there, and what happens when you swap one out.

I game on PC, but in a particular way. No frantic competition: what draws me are strategy and building games, where I study the mechanics in detail before committing to a plan. Since the week belongs to study, gaming has become a weekend ritual — the mandatory rest of someone who spends his days immersed in AI and transformation. My campaigns stretch across months: I’d rather run a strategy designed with patience than burn hours in compulsive sessions.

I keep a disciplined routine — weight training, spinning, structured eating — not out of performance worship, but because an organized body helps me keep an organized mind. The same goes for the small habits of the day: I like things done well, and attention to detail, to me, is not a luxury.

My wife is an educator, is pursuing graduate studies in neuroscience, and writes creative, inventive children’s books. In that project I am her technology coach: I design learning paths, introduce her to tools — and some of the programs I’m taking today, we take together. I’ve found that explaining AI to someone who thinks about child development demands a level of clarity no executive meeting ever has.

My two daughters live in Europe — one in Cologne, one in Paris — and much of my planning revolves around being close to them. This year we took a family trip through France and Germany, with a stop in Rome on a planned stopover — the kind of thing I organize with the same meticulous care I give a project. But this time, the best guides were them. In the cities they know like no one else, my daughters led the reunion with a generosity that reminded me which project, in the end, matters most.

If there is a thread running through the computer, the games, the studying, and the travel, it may be this: I like to understand how things work from the inside, and I like to do them with care. At work or away from it, it is the same person.