About

I'm Ben Hathaway, an engineer by trade and a builder by nature. I've spent more than 25 years building software, most of it as CTO of Mailprotector, a cybersecurity company focused on email security.

Field Notes is my external brain. I look at technology the way an engineer looks at a system: how people actually interact with a product, where it helps them, and where it gets in their way. Less news and opinion, more of the mechanics and incentives underneath.

Every post is one of four types, so a one-line thought and a long essay can share the same place:

• Observations are short-form thoughts: a product behavior or friction point I noticed in the wild.
• Artifacts are links to outside resources worth keeping, with a note on why they matter.
• Echoes are quotes worth repeating, with a source where there is one.
• Signals are long-form essays where I synthesize observations into a framework or forecast.

The Concepts index ties them together by the recurring ideas they share, like feedback loops, leverage points, and switching costs.