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James Everingham
VP of Engineering, Meta
James Everingham is a seasoned executive with a strong background in engineering and technology leadership roles at top tech companies like Facebook, Instagram, Yahoo, and Netscape.
He currently serves as the VP of Engineering at Facebook's Novi, leveraging his vast experience to drive innovation and development in the tech industry.
With a foundation in Computer Science from Penn State University, James Everingham has honed his skills over the years, holding key positions such as Head of Engineering at Instagram and VP of Engineering at Yahoo.
His impressive career also includes stints as CEO and CTO at companies like Luminate and LiveOps, showcasing his entrepreneurial spirit and strategic leadership.
James has been involved in various organizations, including Meta, where he was the VP of Engineering, and ventures like Lobby Capital and Lightspark, where he held senior roles in engineering and management.
His journey in the tech world began at Netscape Communications as a Director of Engineering, further solidifying his expertise in browser development and technology.
Throughout his career, James Everingham has demonstrated a deep understanding of software engineering, strategic planning, and team leadership, making significant contributions to the tech landscape.
James's vast experience and diverse skill set make him a valuable asset in the technology sector, driving growth, innovation, and success in every role he undertakes.
Highlights
Ice Cream and Leadership
One of my fondest memories from early in my career is Jim Barksdale, the CEO of Netscape, pushing an ice cream cart around the office. He'd hand out ice cream to us engineers, striking up casual conversations. I'll never forget it. There I was, a low-level engineer coding away in my cube, and suddenly, Jim was standing there, offering me ice cream and chatting with me like we were old friends.
At the time, I thought Jim was just being a nice guy. But Jim was simultaneously shaping the culture from the bottom up to the top down. He was breaking down barriers of rank and creating relationships with the workers while at the same time acting as a model for leadership. I didn't fully appreciate the power of this gesture until later in my career.
As I moved up the ranks, I noticed a distance forming between me and my team. Initially, I thought everyone liked me and I was doing everything right. But I soon realized I was in a bubble, and people told me what they thought I wanted to hear. This lack of open communication can lead to poor decisions and limit my ability to support the team.
Being approachable has significantly improved my effectiveness as an executive. It keeps me well-informed about what’s happening within the organization. For instance, we recently underwent a major reorganization, which proceeded smoothly—a rarity for such changes. By building trust and maintaining transparency, team members felt comfortable voicing their concerns.
In a one-on-one, a team member mentioned that my frequent phone and Apple Watch usage made it seem like I wasn’t fully engaged. This feedback required considerable trust from him. I decided to stop wearing my Apple Watch and thanked him for his honesty. This feedback was invaluable, and I’m certain others had noticed the same issue.
Being easy to talk to can change an entire team's culture. Approachable higher-ups make the organization feel less hierarchical, encouraging better interactions, trust, and teamwork at all levels. It starts at the top, and I find that the more approachable I am, the happier and more productive my team is. While you don’t have to go all out and push an ice cream cart around, there are a few simple things you can do:
- Talk to your people: Simple, honest conversations foster an open atmosphere.
- Listen: Show you value their input with genuine interest.
- Humanize yourself: Share personal stories and experiences.
- Be visible: Don’t stay in your office; be seen around the workplace.
- Follow up: Show you care by acknowledging and acting on their input.
- Have some fun: Use appropriate humor to lighten the mood.
Jim Barksdale's ice cream cart wasn't just about ice cream; it was about creating a culture of inclusion and approachability. I strive to carry that lesson with me, ensuring my team knows they can always come to me, just as I once did with Jim.
Management Fundamentals: Mastering Emotional Control at Work
When things happen at work that upset us, how we respond matters. Letting our emotions take control can result in negative behaviors, such as sarcasm, belittling, and passive aggressiveness. I used to take things personally and react impulsively, which affected my reputation and eroded my team's trust.
One day, after one of my outbursts, a report asked me: Did I want him to understand my point or know I was angry? After realizing that my outbursts obscured my message, I committed to developing self-awareness and emotional management.
Mastering my emotions has been challenging, and I still struggle. However, this behavioral change has improved my team's productivity, trust, and morale.
Here's why emotional control is important:
Communication: When people sense you are upset, it's hard for them to see your viewpoint. Visible anger can make others see you as biased and question your objectivity. Anger also hampers effective listening and shuts down opportunities for meaningful dialogue.
Decision-making: When you're upset, thinking clearly and making rational decisions can be difficult. Even if you can be objective, your team members may not trust that you've considered all perspectives.
Trust and Respect: Maintaining composure under pressure sets a positive example for your team. People mimic their leaders' behavior, don't be surprised if your team members start behaving similarly, creating a toxic cycle of negativity.
Stress: Displaying anger and taking it out on team members creates a tense work environment, leading to burnout and higher turnover rates. This will negatively impact team morale and productivity.
Expressing Emotions Wisely
First and foremost, wait until the adrenaline rush is over, even if it takes a day or two. Before you speak or write that email, you need to get back to your reasonable self. The goal isn't to never get upset but to manage and express your feelings thoughtfully.
Expressing controlled anger can be critical in conveying the seriousness of a significant mistake, emphasizing accountability for consistently unmet expectations, or addressing violations of company policies.
When core values or ethics are compromised, expressing anger shows a strong commitment to those principles. Also, showing anger can protect and support your team if they are unfairly criticized. In urgent situations, controlled anger can effectively convey the need for immediate action.
When expressing anger, stay calm and focus on the specific behavior or issue, not the person. Try to offer solutions, speak firmly but respectfully, follow up to ensure necessary changes get made, and show support for your team.
Controlled anger can drive positive change and demonstrate strong leadership when used appropriately. Leaders who can't master emotional control are on borrowed time. If you can't get your feelings in check, your leadership days might be numbered.
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.
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