Good People Dinner | NY

At Svitla Systems, we believe the best conversations begin over a shared table. Our Good People Dinners series brings together a community of tech leaders for meaningful dialogue and chef-crafted meals. This intimate evening is designed for senior executives who value authenticity, trust, and genuine connection.

Join us for Good People Dinner, New York!

Capacity is very limited. Please register to be considered. 

​Invited Speaker

​Chad Dickerson | Our friend Chad Dickerson is an executive coach, musician and the former CEO of Etsy.

​For the last six or seven years as he's crossed from his 40s into his 50s, Chad has been really serious about music, transforming from a casual campfire guitarist to a musician who knows how to read music and play guitar, piano, and lap steel as well as sing harmony with others. Playing music went from an intermittent side interest to more of a serious life practice, culminating in the formation of a band and playing "real" gigs. His learnings along the way now feel like a percolating book manuscript about creative blossoming later in life.

​The rise of his musicianship strangely correlated with the rise of AI, which freed Chad from various forms of occupational drudgery associated with professional work, opening up time to focus on the creativity of music, practicing, and writing / performing songs solo and with his band. Along the way, AI tooling has been an accelerant in learning about and actively using everything from complex microphones to audio effects to synthesizers.

​What he's noticed: the practices that took him from casual campfire guitarist to working musician — deliberate practice, tolerance for sounding "bad" in front of others, showing up when the work isn't producing anything yet, playing real gigs instead of hiding in the safety of the garage/basement — are the same practices that separate a merely competent team from one that ships something genuinely original. How do we build those practices into our teams, our companies, and our own work — and go from casual to serious in the creativity we bring to market?

​Dinner Chef

​Bagus Ruswandi | Our new friend chef Bagus Ruswandi is the founder of Studio Bumi, a New York culinary studio designing belonging through communal dining. Born and raised in Indonesia and now cooking in New York, his food draws from the archipelago's home kitchens, street stalls, and celebration tables, translated for a communal setting where every dish is meant to be passed, torn and spooned over rice!

​His project, Studio Bumi, is known for a dinner series that runs on a flywheel: guests become hosts. People who sat at one table come back to cook, host, photograph or bake at the next, and the series has never repeated a menu, because each dinner is shaped by whoever showed up to the last one. What gets cooked is a consequence of who has been in the room. That has made the studio less a restaurant with a point of view and more an ongoing conversation that happens to be edible.