# Origin story

New! I’m launching Dead Men Ship No Code, a fundraiser for Seattle’s [Resilient Hearts Animal Sanctuary](https://resilientheartsanimalsanctuary.org/) in the run-up to re:Invent 2026. 🏴‍☠️

If you’ve worked with me at Amazon, visited one of my offices or joined a Zoom call, you may have spotted the pirate flag behind me. I first hung one up in 2023, at the start of this AI renaissance. It was a reminder to our teams to think and act like small, agile pirate crews: move quickly, explore, change course as we learn, and bring a little swashbuckling spirit to the work.

Since then, pirate-flag emojis have become a recurring feature in comments, and our internal team Slack room is currently called the Pir-ai-ate Crew. You may groan.

Now I wanted a way to share some of that spirit with you all, while raising money to help rescue dogs here in Seattle.

You can choose a shirt or hoodie in one of [three designs](https://deadmenshipnocode.com/#designs): a flaming skull, Blackbeard’s flag or a very good pirate dog. Shirts start at $30. The higher tiers include signed hardback copies of [my book](https://a.co/d/0g7JnYVz), which has a nautical theme of its own, and a handful of signed pirate flags. I’ll sign one of those flags in person with its new owner at re:Invent.

I’m donating the books, and all profits go to [Resilient Hearts Animal Sanctuary](https://resilientheartsanimalsanctuary.org/) to support puppy rescue.

The artwork comes from real, runnable pirate ASCII art. You can explore it in your terminal or browser, and I’ve included [free animated pirate scenes and screensavers](https://deadmenshipnocode.com/#screensaver) for macOS and Linux, with installation instructions on the site. Have a play!

If you’re coming to re:Invent, I’d love to see you wearing yours around the event, especially at my keynote on Thursday morning.

Choose your loot and join the crew at [deadmenshipnocode.com](https://deadmenshipnocode.com/).

Matt Wood [mza](https://www.linkedin.com/in/themza/)

[Choose your loot](https://deadmenshipnocode.com/#loot)

![Matt Wood in his office in 2023, with a skull and crossbones flag on the wall behind him](https://deadmenshipnocode.com/img/office-2023.jpg)

The office, 2023, with the flag on the wall.

The same flag, as ahoy draws it.