Michael Privat

About Michael Privat

What if your engineering org could move from stuck to unstoppable without burning people out. If release trains slip, quality wobbles, and your best engineers feel invisible, you are not alone. I have seen: → Teams ship late because processes grew heavier than the product. → Bright minds check out when bureaucracy smothers curiosity. → Leaders choose speed over integrity and end up with neither. It does not have to be that way. The pivot begins when you decide throughput and pride can rise together. That is the moment an org shifts from firefighting to foresight. I made that shift in my own journey. In 1983, I was an eight-year-old in France coding little demos on the computers sitting on shelves at the store. Passion led me from Amiga coding parties across Europe to elite math prep in the late 90s. It carried me to the top computer science program in Nice and then to MIT’s CECI lab in 1998. Since I have solved puzzles in the real world and never stopped having fun. I co‑authored technical books in 2011 and formalized people leadership in 2020. Today, I lead an organization of roughly 700 engineers across the US and India. I pair deep engineering with practical systems thinking and a calm, warrior mindset. I am relentless, but never reckless. I ignite dormant passion and organize it into a disciplined flow. When teams work with me, the first wins are clarity and cadence. We diagnose where value is trapped and remove friction without harming what makes your culture special. We build mechanisms that make excellence the path of least resistance. Shipping accelerates and defects drop because accountability shifts from fear to ownership. People feel seen, standards rise, and momentum compounds. Your product direction sharpens and your architecture supports it instead of fighting it. The result is a powerhouse with heart and a roadmap that actually becomes real. Speed becomes a byproduct of better thinking and better teaming. I do not lose and I do not quit on hard problems. I ask a lot, and I never ask for anything I will not do myself. Let\'s make shipping fast, quality high, and Monday mornings something your engineers look forward to.If you\'re struggling to turn a stuck engine into a flywheel and you want to chat about it, DM me or email at m••••••@mac.com.I put all my posts on my substack for easy reading: https://michaelprivat.substack.com/

Experience

1. Executive Member

   International Leap Network

   Mar 2024 — Present

   LEAP is a private exclusive network for members of the #LeapAcademy Program: executive leaders, entrepreneurs, and high achievers from around the world who inspire and drive growth and impact on themselves, their work and their communities.

Education

• ESSI - University of Nice - Sophia Antipolis

  MSCS, Computer Science

  1995 — 1998

• MIT xPRO

  Designing AI Products, Artificial Intelligence

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Visiting scientist, Conversational AI

  1998 — 1999