A career shaped by curiosity.

My relationship with computers began long before I imagined making a career out of technology. Growing up during the emergence of personal computing and video games, I was fascinated not simply by what computers could do, but by how they did it. Arcade machines, early home computers and the limitations of the hardware available at the time encouraged me to look beneath the surface, experiment and understand how things worked. That curiosity eventually led me into programming, computer graphics and the world of software engineering.

My journey was not particularly conventional. There were false starts, unexpected opportunities and people who helped shape my direction, including mentors who recognized potential before I necessarily recognized it myself. I learned as much from experimenting, making mistakes and building things as I did from formal education. Over time, what began as a personal fascination developed into a profession, and eventually into entrepreneurship.

The emergence of handheld computing, particularly Palm OS, opened an entirely new world of possibilities. I began developing software and games for devices with extremely limited resources, an experience that reinforced the importance of understanding systems at a fundamental level. Those early projects grew into commercial products, development tools and companies, taking me from independent software development into international business, mobile platforms and technical leadership.

Over the following decades, I worked across startups and multinational organizations, including BlackBerry and Ericsson, while founding and building technology ventures of my own. My engineering work evolved from handheld computing and cross-platform development into embedded systems, cybersecurity, distributed architectures and the Internet of Things. I also had the opportunity to travel extensively, work with developers from many different cultures and share technical knowledge at conferences around the world.

Not everything worked out as planned, and some of the most valuable lessons came from projects that struggled, business decisions that proved difficult or technologies that ultimately disappeared. Building something technically impressive is not the same as building a sustainable business. Equally, having substantial resources and established processes does not guarantee good engineering. Those experiences have shaped how I approach technology, leadership and the relationship between technical ambition and commercial reality.

Today, I remain actively involved in software engineering and technology development, while also providing independent strategic and technical advisory services through Aaron Ardiri AB. I particularly enjoy helping organizations understand complex systems, challenge assumptions and make decisions grounded in practical experience rather than fashionable terminology or unnecessary complexity.

Writing has become another important part of that journey. My books explore the foundations of computing, the evolution of technology and the experiences accumulated throughout my career. I have also developed a growing interest in preserving historical software, development tools and other material from computing platforms that once played an important role but are now largely forgotten.

Looking back, the technologies, companies and responsibilities have changed enormously, but the underlying motivation has remained much the same as it was when I first encountered a computer: a desire to understand how things work, to build something useful and to keep learning.

My autobiography, Technology, Entrepreneurship and the Reality of Building Systems, tells the fuller story — including the people, opportunities, successes, setbacks and unexpected turns that shaped the journey.