Jan 20, 2008
Extracting emails from Gmail and Google Apps for Domains
I wanted the useful contact history buried in my Gmail mailbox, so I built a tool to extract, rank, deduplicate, and export email addresses. That utility later became MineMyMail.
Jason Vallery · Builder and product leader
I build things
to understand them.
I have spent thirty years taking systems apart, making them work, and explaining what I found. These days that means cloud data, AI infrastructure, and a greenhouse in my backyard.
30 yearssince my first published byline
12½ yearsat Microsoft, ending in Azure Blob
Named by OpenAIunder Microsoft Azure Support
Longmont rootedBoulder County native, resident since nine
In progress
What I am building now
My day job, my home lab, and a greenhouse project with my son. Each one gives me a different problem to solve.
01
Cloud data
Product work at VAST Data
Working on the infrastructure beneath demanding data and AI systems.
See current work →02Agent systems
A private platform with guardrails
Operating a pod-per-repository fleet of coding agents on Kubernetes.
Explore the system →03Verdify
AI-assisted greenhouse control
Building a bounded control loop with my adult son, James.
Visit Verdify ↗A defining chapter · 2017–2025
Infrastructure beneath frontier AI
From 2017 through 2025, I led Azure Blob product work, including the Azure-side storage relationship supporting OpenAI and Microsoft AI. OpenAI’s 2019 Dota 2 report names me under Microsoft Azure Support. At SNIA SDC 2024, Jegan Devaraju and I explained how Azure Blob supported large-scale model training.
My part was product and infrastructure work, alongside a much larger team.
Read the Azure and OpenAI chapter“I came home from my first meeting with OpenAI in 2017… mind-blown.”
Selected writing
Notes from problems I wanted to solve.
The collection currently includes 39 articles: 32 technical pieces and 7 essays. Some solved an immediate problem; others captured what I believed at the time. I have left both kinds here.
Feb 1, 2008
Automatically backup your Mac to Amazon S3
Time Machine protected me from a failed disk, but not a failed house. I combined local backups with Amazon S3 to create an automated off-site copy.
Mar 27, 2007
What is Web 3.0? A review of the ICWSM
I used the 2007 International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media to ask what people meant by Web 3.0. My answer focused on social data, identity, and machines learning from human behavior.
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