About
A software founder who's spent four decades building things himself.
From Frank Paolino's own site and public profiles — career, dojo, family, fire, and the books that came after.
Career
Chemistry, consulting, SpamSentinel, AI
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.
“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.”
He also authored Using Lotus Notes (Que) — still listed on Amazon — during the Notes era that made SpamSentinel possible.
Dojo
Karate under Sensei Kazumi Tabata
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.
Home
Married 1989 · four children
Married since 1989, four children. Moved from the Boston area to Santa Barbara in 2015 chasing a new adventure. A wood-fired brick pizza oven since 2009 — more than 5,000 pizzas, dough included (Lyknss).
Books
Iris before the world believed it
In 2018 he wrote the first draft of a novel built around an AI that could reason and act the way today's tools do — the book that became I Call Myself Iris. He shelved it because nobody would believe a bot could really do all that; then ChatGPT shipped, and he went back and finished it.
His second book, Defeating the Enemy Within, pulls from the two decades he spent running a company and learning to work through the fear that comes with it.
Timeline
Selected milestones
- Chemistry · UMass Lowell — undergraduate, no CS degree.
- 1982 — MBA, Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst.
- <1 year — Colgate-Palmolive, then independent.
- ~1980s–90s — Decade consulting early PCs, networks, automation in large orgs. Maysoft founded at 24.
- 1989 — Married; later four children.
- 1990s — Using Lotus Notes (Que).
- 2000 — SpamSentinel for Lotus Notes; ~15 years carrying the business.
- College → ongoing — Karate under Sensei Kazumi Tabata; black belt on third attempt.
- 2009 — Built wood-fired brick pizza oven; first $1,000 pizza.
- 2015 — Boston area → Santa Barbara.
- 2018 → — Drafted Iris; finished after ChatGPT; Defeating the Enemy Within follows.
Contact
If you want to discuss AI, books, self-doubt, karate or technology
Frank Paolino · CEO · frank@maysoft.com