About

Hello! I’m Max, inventor, engineer, and founder of Eighty-Eight Hustles. This is my company.

I founded Eighty-Eight Hustles in 2020 right here in sunny Oakland, California. After over a decade and a half working as a software engineer in the tech industry, I made the decision to radically change up my career and lifestyle by becoming both self-employed and also a stay-at-home dad. It’s been exciting and terrifying, anxiety-inducing and relaxing, and every day is a new challenge I’ve never in my wildest dreams prepared for. In short, I love it.

What I do

The short answer is I make stuff. All kinds of stuff. I make Internet-of-things (IoT) products, toys, musical instruments, and other random consumer electronics. Longtime fans may remember early musical projects like the Atari Punk Sequencer and the “Sammy Breese” envelope generator. Stay tuned, because as I get started I’ll have more and more products on offer, including some special, limited production runs of old favorites.

For most Eighty-Eight Hustles products, I am the sole inventor, designer, and engineer behind them. I design the hardware that goes into them and the software that runs on that hardware, and all the other stuff like web services that you don’t necessarily see. Though I went to school for computer science, I almost entirely self-taught at electrical and mechanical engineering.

I’m very proud of the fact that many of these, like Canary, have had no other person work on them but me.

You buy it, you own it

I stand by my products and offer them with a warranty, but I stop at telling you what you can or can’t do with your device. My policy is that once a customer buys a product from me, it’s theirs and I don’t try to control how it’s used. Too many companies waste engineering and design resources trying to box you in and prevent you from fully using their products. I’m not about that, and won’t start telling you what to do.

If you modify or hack one of my products, great! Tell me about it. Just don’t expect a lot of help if you screw it up.

Your privacy matters

I honor all valid data deletion requests. See the privacy policy for more details about how Eighty-Eight Hustles collects and uses your data.