A side project Shut down · COVID

Catherine Manor Labradoodles.

Before the AI research and the startups, there was a dog. Catherine Manor was a community network I built for Silicon Valley dog owners — meetups, advice, and a group chat that got out of hand in the best way. Then COVID happened, and the meetups didn't. (Yes, really.)

A red Australian labradoodle puppy — the mascot of Catherine Manor The mascot-in-chief
What it was

A network for dog people, run by a dog person.

Part directory, part group chat, part excuse to get a few dozen dogs in the same park on a Saturday.

Catherine Manor started the way most good things do — informally, around a labradoodle, with no business plan. It grew into a real community network for Bay Area dog owners: a place to find walkers and sitters, swap vet recommendations, organize meetups, and trade the kind of advice you only get from people whose couches have also been destroyed.

It was never meant to be a company. It was a thing I built because it should exist — the same instinct behind everything I've made since. When the pandemic shut down the in-person gatherings that were its whole point, I wound it down rather than pretend it was something it wasn't.

Community first

Owners helping owners — sitters, walkers, vet tips, and meetups — with the dogs doing most of the networking.

Bay Area roots

Built for Silicon Valley dog owners — small enough to feel like a neighborhood, organized enough to actually help.

Built for love

No revenue, no roadmap — just a project that made a few hundred dogs' and owners' weekends better while it lasted.

From a dog community to AI infrastructure.

Different domain, same instinct: build the thing that should exist. See what I'm working on now.

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