Business & Tech
Who's Who: Thomas Insel, a Director at Gracenote in Emeryville
There is somebody behind the scenes for what happens when you put a CD in your computer and a software program reads the names off of that CD.
Name: Thomas Insel
Age: 37
Occupation: "I'm a director at a computer company in Emeryville called Gracenote"
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Describe what you do. If you’ve ever used iTunes, or an application like that, you know when you put the CD into the computer and it knows all the titles and tracks, et cetera? I work for a company called Gracenote, a market leader in music identification. I run the team that maintains all of the production infrastructure for all the servers and the networking that are used to provide the services that we sell.
How did you end up in that line of work? In 1995, I moved to California to go to graduate school at Cal, to study mathematics. In about 2000, I was looking for summer work, and it was right before the dot-com bubble burst. I found a job that was interesting enough that I ended up doing that instead of finishing the Ph.D., and I’ve been doing it ever since.
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Right on. It keeps me off the street.
And you work in El Cerrito? I live in El Cerrito and I work in Emeryville. I moved here and bought a house in 2005.
Where were you from before El Cerrito? I come from central Illinois, Bloomington. I like it. I lived in Oakland. I love Oakland, but I reached the point where I really wanted to live alone. The houses that I liked in Oakland really weren’t affordable and the houses here are, or were when I bought a house, so I ended up here. I really like this whole neighborhood here. It’s quiet, everyone is friendly. When I moved in, my front yard was a mess, and it took me years to get it looking decent and nobody ever complained. It’s not a neighborhood where nobody ever talks to one another, either.
What do you do for fun? That’s a good question. Recently I’ve been working too much. I’m almost done building a tiki bar in my backyard. I’ve got a nice covered porch; I’ve got a little bar and beer on draft.
Where do you like to go in El Cerrito? Every Saturday morning I make it to the farmers' market in the El Cerrito Plaza. Probably three quarters of my grocery shopping is either there or .