It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you can do with it
About two weeks ago, I decided it was time to start putting out feelers for what I was going to do post-eyejot. I was feeling a little burnt-out from startups, so one of the introductions I asked my network for was into a certain Seattle-based bookseller turned web services company.
My overall high-level goals at this point in my career are:
1. Work on something that touches a lot of people
2. Participate on both the tech and strategy side
3. Have some public/client/external-facing exposure
4. “Manage” a small team and continue hands-on development
5. Make an impact
I’ve been very passionate about Amazon Web Services for a long time, and thought this might be a good opportunity to step back from the startup world for awhile, while still servicing it, and working on something cool. As I talked with a couple folks at Amazon however, I realized that I’m a lot more interested in the consumption and use of the services, and their implications on startups and entrepreneurs, than in the actual building and operations of them.
I joked to one of the principal software engineers on S3 that he was a layer or two lower on the OSI model than me.
In college, after transferring to UW and not getting into the CS program immediately, I chose to be a communications major. I was already programming 40+ hours a week at work, and had taken all the cool CS classes I was really interested in, but had this craving for the more human side of things. Cultural studies, and the effects of various forms of media on society were fascinating.
10 years later, looks like that’s still what does it for me…
