About

I’m Mark Alcazar. I spent 28 years leading engineering teams at Microsoft, scaling organizations from 10 to 250+ engineers. I’ve shipped products used by over a billion people, led teams through platform crises that made headlines, and learned (often the hard way) that the hardest problems in technology aren’t technical.

They’re leadership problems. And they’re lonely.

I started Laser Focused because I remember what it felt like to be underwater. Early in my career, I was leading a team through a major platform transition when everything started breaking at once. The technology, the timeline, the team dynamics. I needed someone to tell me I wasn’t alone, and more importantly, what to actually do.

That conversation didn’t exist. So I’m building it.

Here’s what I believe: the tech industry is drowning in frameworks, hot takes, and thought leadership that sounds smart but doesn’t help when you’re in the thick of it.

What’s missing is applied wisdom. Not “here’s what you should have done” from people who’ve never operated, but “here’s what I actually did on that Tuesday” from people who have the scars to prove it. That’s the gap I want to fill.

I don’t have all the answers. I’m a builder, an engineer, and I’ve ‘seen somethings. But I’m still learning, still growing, still figuring it out. Every guest on this show has been in the arena, made hard calls under pressure, and come out the other side with something useful to share. My job is to pull those stories out and get to the specifics that actually help.

If you’re a founder, CTO, or engineering leader who’s ever felt like you’re the only one struggling with this stuff: you’re not. Let’s talk about it.