I’m David Raistrick, and I’ve been connecting people to information since before the web existed.
In 1991, I got my first modem and discovered BBSes - suddenly I had access to incredible communities and information. When I found a BBS with a UUCP feed providing Usenet and email access, I was hooked. By ‘92, I had a dialup that dropped me to a telnet prompt, opening up a world of archie, veronica, gopher, and the early web.
I immediately understood the power of this connectivity. I helped everyone I could get access - through freenets, geek houses like the Armory, any resource we could find. When PPP exploded and the dialup internet market was born, I knew what I had to do.
Fresh out of high school, I gathered some friends and built an ISP. Twice. The first attempt failed when our funding fell through. The second time, a partner embezzled money and literally stole our T1 connection to UUNet. We eventually sold - basically a contract bailout, because everything had 5-year commitments back then.
But the story didn’t end there. My friends transformed that foundation into a successful MSP that’s still running 29 years later. I went on to lead technical operations for three different wireless ISPs, fighting to provide the service that cable and telcos should have but didn’t. Even today, vast areas of our country lack reliable internet access - a problem that drove me then and still concerns me now.
Later, my wife and I ran a brick-and-mortar bookstore. While we only lost about $10k annually (not bad for retail!), it taught me priceless lessons about business fundamentals: managing partnerships, staying intentionally small, working with limited resources, and why I never want employees again.
These experiences shaped my approach to business and coaching. Success isn’t always what you expect - sometimes your best ideas need a different path to succeed. Through my consulting practice BrassTack, I’ve spent years helping post-startup companies scale their software delivery. More recently, I’ve been deeply involved in the fractional executive community, helping other technical leaders build sustainable businesses without burning out.
I started in the early 90s at a science museum, helping visitors understand the computing revolution that was changing their lives. During that same time, I spent four years as a Red Cross volunteer in an Army hospital medical photography lab, where I was involved with their transition from traditional to digital photography - in an era when a good digital camera cost $50,000 and a printer could run you $200,000. That work earned both a Red Cross youth volunteer achievement award and a Department of the Army commendation for exceptional service. More importantly, it taught me that technological change is about people first, technology second.
“I’m not afraid of unfamiliar environments. I hear from a lot of teams, ‘It takes months for new engineers to learn enough to contribute!’ That’s not me. I’m an expert at learning and adapting.”
I’m an expert at becoming an expert. Drop me into any unfamiliar environment - whether it’s a game studio shipping once a year that needs to ship daily, or a government CDN serving millions of users - and I’ll start making an impact fast.
Want to see how I work? When players of Tiger Woods Online complained about a mysterious 5-minute lag that happened every day at exactly 8pm Eastern, most engineers would have thrown more servers at it. We tried that too - it didn’t help. So I spent months methodically collecting data, testing theories, and investigating every possibility. When daylight savings hit and the problem shifted to 7pm, it cracked the case wide open - a complicated DNS issue involving a transcontinental VPN and cascading TTL expirations. That’s how I approach every problem: systematically, persistently, and thoroughly.
In the sports and gaming industries, I discovered something interesting: you don’t have customers, you have fans and players. These people have a different level of engagement with your platform and product. This understanding helped me transform how game studios approached their infrastructure - moving from yearly releases to shipping code multiple times per day when needed.
At Electronic Arts, I had to understand the unique pressures of game development. At the VA, I needed to grasp complex government regulations. Each new environment brings its own language, constraints, and challenges - and I’ve learned how to decode them quickly.
“If the network was an orchestra, I’d be the guy who makes sure that all the instruments are in place; there are enough flutes, but not too many tubas; and the drummer doesn’t end up with a trombone.”
For over 30 years, I’ve been called a network engineer, sysadmin, systems engineer, SRE, director, leader, devop[|s] - and worse! I’ve built infrastructure for AAA video games, helped sports tech companies scale, and guided organizations from scrappy startups to giants like Electronic Arts and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“Sometimes the only way to get a project on the road is to make a plan, grab some tools—and fix it while you’re driving!”
Unlike consultants who focus on just one piece of the stack, I understand that everything is connected. Whether it’s helping a game studio shift from yearly to daily releases or figuring out why your production system falls over every Tuesday at 3am, I dig deep to understand the whole system - the technology, the people, and the business goals.
For the past five years, I’ve been an active member of the fractional executive community, sharing insights and helping others navigate complex technical challenges. My role isn’t to implement solutions - it’s to help others see the full picture and chart their own course forward.
I believe that sustainable success comes from understanding both the technical and human elements of any challenge. Today, I take everything I’ve learned about technology, business, and people and use it to guide others toward better solutions. Because after three decades of building, breaking, fixing, and scaling things, I’ve discovered that the most interesting problems are rarely just technical.
Want to hear more war stories? Let’s talk about your journey.