iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 19/05/2026

Learning from the inimitable @jerdog.dev about his perspective of DevEx as a flywheel at Open Source Summit #OSSummit

Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 18/05/2026

Excited that Open Source Summit is in my home base of Minneapolis this year! Come say hi, I’ll be around Mon-Wed. If you’d like to grab lunch or a coffee, ping me. #OSSummit

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 23/04/2026

I'll be at the GitHub event for the next hour or so. Hope to see some of you there! #GoogleCloudNext #GoogleNext #Next26

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 20/03/2026

A unique, minimalistic design to a coffee shop. It’s called cafe Co.R for “coffee and rainbows,” but I’m not sure where the color is supposed to be.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 26/11/2025

Looks like it'll be a white Thanksgiving this year.

Picture of a snowy backyard with some pine trees. There's part of an indoor Christmas tree in the foreground, decorated with ornaments and ribbon.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 12/11/2025

Pretty impressive Northern Lights last night. Best I’ve ever seen!

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 01/11/2025

Happy Halloween! In true Minnesota spirit, if it’s not snowing, it’s road-construction season.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 08/10/2025

Most people don’t appreciate how hard it is to walk this fast (without running).

Picture that says: Average pace: 11’57”/mi

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 01/10/2025

Made it to Maine for #monktoberfest! Hope to see many old friends and make new ones.

View of the Portland, Maine, harbor from Luke’s Lobster

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 08/09/2025

Made it to Bali, 30+ hours later! Now trying to stay out so I avoid falling asleep.

A craft beer at a pool bar with an ocean in the background

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 30/07/2025

People born after I graduated from university are now old enough to drink.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 17/06/2025

Great Platform Engineering meetup last night! Excellent talks by all of the speakers — @brysontyrrell.com, @mbbroberg.fun and Jason Pearson. Here's a pic from @mbbroberg.fun's session on platform product management.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 28/05/2025

Beautiful day for a brewery crawl in the Berkeley/Oakland area. Ping if you’d like to join!

Me holding a small dark beer outdoors at a brewery. It’s sunny out, and there’s a large beer kettle behind me.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 10/05/2025

Fun way to end my week. Got the ol’ golf clubs out and (poorly) hit some balls at the driving range.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 05/05/2025

On my recent trip to Spain, one highlight was visiting a 300-year-old restaurant. According to the Guinness book, it's the oldest continuously operated restaurant in the world. That's not the kind of thing you see much in the US.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 03/05/2025

“The people who are the strongest written communicators” are also the best engineers at using AI-enabled dev tools like Windsurf & Cursor. Similar goes for engineers who see the big picture (architecture, product mgmt etc). -Bryan Pitts #minnebar

Bryan Pitts and Hayley Brooks presenting at MinneBar

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 01/05/2025

First time I’ve ever seen a McLaren IRL. For anyone curious, this was at Nomadic Cafe, which has incredible Somali tea.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 09/04/2025

Best seat in the house for the #GoogleCloudNext keynote. No lines, great wifi, legroom, and easy access to water and a bathroom.

A laptop on a table in a hotel room, with a view of Vegas through the window. The laptop is showing a livestream of a conference keynote.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 09/04/2025

The reality at tech-heavy verticals (Information and Finance/Insurance) is clear — full RTO is the *minority*. Nearly 75% of workers are hybrid or fully remote. One in four remain fully remote, while half are hybrid.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 25/03/2025

Last July, my biological age was 29.6. Now it's ...

Screenshot showing biological age of 26. That's 17.3 years younger than my calendar age.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 22/03/2025

Started my day off right. You can still find breakfast under 10 bucks, if you know where to look.

Breakfast at a diner. The plate has egg whites covered with hot sauce and pepper, grilled ham, and a couple of slices of buttered sourdough toast.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 21/03/2025

Quite enjoying my new super-automatic espresso machine. Amazing deal on a refurbished model from Whole Latte Love. Beans from my favorite local roaster, Smith Coffee.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 21/03/2025

My office for this afternoon, and an incredible Somali shaah (spiced tea). #remotelife #globalorganizations #distributedteams #futureofwork

A laptop on a stand in a coffee shop with an African theme. A cup of tea sits next to the laptop.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 16/03/2025

Still working on my form but feeling good about my pull-up progress.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 10/03/2025

“Homeland Security ends TSA collective bargaining agreement, in effort to dismantle union protections” —This is very problematic. Unions are key to fight the massive power imbalance and information asymmetry between huge employers and individual employees.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 17/02/2025

Seems like the right day for a hot drink at a Minnesotan coffee shop with a Caribbean vibe. Real temp is –15°F / –25°C (windchill is –25°F / –32°C).

A pistachio latte in a black mug & saucer sits on a table, with a tropical-looking coffee shop in the background

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 01/02/2025

Gentoo wins the award for most on-brand swag. “Compile your own Gentoo button” #fosdem

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 21/01/2025

And again, even colder today. First °F, then °C, then coffee.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 20/01/2025

Today's weather. First in °F, then in °C for my non-US friends, so you can understand how cold it really gets in Minnesota. And a coffee at my favorite local shop, to prove the cold doesn't keep us at home.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 19/01/2025

"What firms are for" www.economist.com/culture/2025... from The Economist — Some useful pushback against the Friedman doctrine's garbage perspective on shareholder value.

If there is one topic on which the author moralises, it is the doctrine that executives should seek to maximise shareholder value. Its proponents have “often ended up destroying not only shareholder value but also the very businesses that their abler and better-motivated predecessors had created,” he writes. What follows is a litany of iconic firms that were run into the ground by managers in pursuit of short-term profits, from Imperial Chemical Industries (a 20th-century pharmaceuticals giant that discovered beta-blockers) to Sears, Roebuck (a once-mighty American retailer). The core of Mr Kay’s argument is that it is so difficult to decide what will ultimately create or destroy value that executives are better off simply focusing on building “great businesses”.

So what is a company for, if not maximising shareholder value? The author’s answer is “the flourishing of the multiple stakeholders of the corporation: employees, investors, suppliers and customers, the communities in which it operates and the corporation itself”.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 03/01/2025

If you’re thinking of moving to Minnesota, we’d love to have you. Just make sure you’re ready for a few weeks like this:

Weather forecast of 7°F with a windchill of -5°F

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 29/12/2024

Sorry, too late to change. It’s already written into permanent memory.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 28/12/2024

Today’s holiday adventure was HVAC-related yak shaving. Wanted to install smart thermostats, but my zone board couldn’t handle them. So I found one that did (EWC NCM-300 was widely recommended), upgraded to it, completely reconfigured my wiring on the process, and installed the new Ecobees.

New furnace zone-control board (EWC NCM-300) with LED status lights

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 23/12/2024

Ski and après-ski. St Bernardus Abt 12 on nitro. What?!

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 18/12/2024

One of the most unexpected coffee shops in Minneapolis. Excellent Cuban sandwiches too.

Island-themed artwork that says Key West Bistro

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 15/12/2024

No better time than a cool winter day to enjoy a hot cinnamon spice tea at my local coffee shop.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 29/11/2024

Days like this are why I, like many Minnesotans, have two winter coats. One for normal cold and one for “damn, that’s cold.” Today the windchill is –1°F (–18°C). Not gonna let that stop me. Considering how many other people I’ve seen out, I’m not the only one with that philosophy.

Me in a fully zipped parka with the hood up, walking outside in a park

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 23/11/2024

25 years … feels like yesterday, but so far away at the same time.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 18/11/2024

🎵 Happy birthday to me … 🎵 (One day early but tomorrow is a workday, with less celebratory opportunities)

An individual-sized French dessert called feuilletine praline cake, on a table at a bakery with a fork and knife resting on the plate. Looking out the window.

A dark beer in a glass next to a bottle in a dim room. Pohjala Kamin is the beer.

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 15/11/2024

Hitting up the MSP Python meetup tonight to learn more about Temporal

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Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D. @dberkholz.com · 13/11/2024

Feeling great about the last year and a half of unrelenting work on myself, so I’m going to celebrate in public. Progress pics: June 2023 and today. Muscles are still tiny (but *so* much stronger). At least as importantly, the fat’s mostly gone. I’m down 65+ pounds today. 75+ was my lowest.

Me in June 2023, in a lounge chair, significantly overweight

Me in Nov 2024, muscles in flexed arm and visible abs.

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