Started Maysoft at 24 with a Chemistry degree and an MBA — no CS. Built SpamSentinel. Wrote novels about AI before ChatGPT made them believable. Fired a brick oven more than 5,000 times. Still chasing the next leap in productivity.
“I spent my early career bringing computers into businesses that had never touched one — and watched productivity surge and costs fall. Now I'm AI-enabling those same systems, driving another huge leap in productivity and savings.”
By the numbers
Story
Frank Paolino started Maysoft at age 24, with no background in computer science. His undergraduate degree was in Chemistry from what's now UMass Lowell, followed by an MBA from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst in 1982. He lasted less than a year at Colgate-Palmolive before striking out on his own, and spent the next decade consulting in the early days of personal computing — automating old, worn processes inside large organizations that were only just beginning to understand what automation was.
In 2000, he built anti-spam software for the Lotus Notes email system. That product, SpamSentinel, carried his business for the next fifteen years, and it's the reason he can talk credibly about enterprise software, IT constraints, and what it actually takes to keep a piece of infrastructure running. He also authored Using Lotus Notes (Que) during the Notes era that made SpamSentinel possible.
He's practiced karate since college under Sensei Kazumi Tabata. It took three attempts to pass Tabata's black belt test — a standard that doesn't bend for anyone.
Moved from the Boston area to Santa Barbara in 2015 chasing a new adventure.
Built the oven himself (brother Steve on the arch). More than 5,000 pizzas since, dough included. First pie cost a thousand dollars on paper.
Books
Marco Fermi builds Iris — an AI assistant that anticipates needs before he asks. She's too good. Drafted in 2018 and shelved because nobody would believe a bot could do all that — then ChatGPT shipped, and he went back and finished it.
Two decades of running a company, distilled. “If you don't attempt something, you have already failed.” Five-step process for the voice that says you can't.
Timeline
From the feeds
You don't need to be Einstein to make great pasta dishes at home — bonus points if you're taking Giuseppe Crisa's hand-made pasta classes.
View on Instagram → LinkedInFear of failure is toxic — it brings all plans to a full stop. Face it the way a samurai accepts death, so you can proceed ferociously anyway. From Defeating the Enemy Within.
View on LinkedIn → X · @FrankPaolinoAn ode to the creatives. Teddy Roosevelt's quote has been on Frank's desk for over 30 years: the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.
Read on X →Say hello