Hi, I’m Michael Saltzman, a writer, photographer, and product designer based in San Francisco. But only recently have I called America home again. From 2016-2023, I traveled extensively through Europe, East Asia, the Middle East, and Central America.
While my motivations for this lifestyle were many, I often shine a light on the wisdom of pilgrimage, specifically my reflections around walking various routes of the Camino de Santiago, an ancient network of 500+ mile paths converging in the northwest of Spain. The whispers of insight from this experience and long-term travel in aggregate gave me a clear, spoken philosophy on life.
Before my travels, I worked for leading high-growth startups in Silicon Valley and New York City like Gigster, General Assembly, and Handy. And woven into my time abroad, I led product for two early-stage startups, one of which I co-founded. Both were unrealized to the degree I intended, but I'm proud of what we made and why we made it. And I'm proud of what I learned. Among many takeaways, one continues to make direct eye contact: my work must be driven by craft and compassion, and elevate those it encounters.
And so, for the last few years, I've been on sabbatical examining that. Some of those reflections have been expressed through a growing body of creative work. Space from the U.S. and the misguided values pervading therein has generated untold self-understanding and real insights around the cultivation of well-being. It's heartbreaking to experience how the ways of life here so easily erode our connection to the heights of our nature. This is not the best we can do.
It's my belief that our culture will awaken fully – individually and collectively – to our disharmony and the underlying mechanics that drive it, to reimagine the mental models, value hierarchies, and incentive structures that govern our relationships, politics, institutions, business models, and the broader social fabric. We, for one, deserve it, and so too should feel a sense of responsibility that future generations have an ideological and practical foundation from which to carry the torch. I hope to intentionally serve this effort with whatever time, attention, and chops I've got. And have some laughs along the way.
Write me@michaelsaltzman.com, connect on LinkedIn, or follow my Instagram.
I hope you feel at home here.