Longtime listener, First Time Caller...
Transitioning from executive communication to expository long form can be a challenge. Let's see how I do.
This is what Dall-E thinks I look like while contemplating my next big Deep Tech project, in Cyberpunk motif (thanks Microsoft Bing Image Creator).
All Beginnings Are Difficult
Over the last couple years, I’ve found myself spending more and more time on platforms such as this one and Medium reading through the rich content and incisive analysis of others. After watching social media not only lead to the apotheosis of vapidity but also the Orwellian attempts to censor wrongthink on major platforms over the last few years, it’s been refreshing to find forums with a diversity of views that could educate and challenge my own.
Now that I have taken a pause from the grind of founding CEO life for a while, I thought I would take this opportunity to create a forum to reflect, share my observations and some thoughts on my various interests and my experiences from the knothole of the tech world in which I reside.
1. The Accidental Founder
For the last five years I’ve been nose to the grindstone with two different deep tech start ups, Epirus then more recently Spartan, taking them both from zero to one in that time. Epirus is presently a defense unicorn with a unique approach to directed energy weapons: non-lethal Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP), generated by software-defined solid-state phased arrays, with the power to neutralize drones (and any electronics for that matter) that are caught in it’s beam. Spartan is a growth stage sensor company in the automotive sector focused on bringing advanced radar software to the safety systems of commercial and passenger car fleets, making them safer, more automated, and more reliable. When I was a kid I used to read Science Fiction - now I make it Science Fact.
I’ve often struggled with whether or not I’m lucky or good (or both). Statistically speaking, 60% of start ups fail or get acquired before Series A; close to 80% before Series B and 90% before Series C. . To have two companies I founded go to Series C and Series B respectively in 5 years would be a 2% probability based on a random draw. But as Kenny Rogers once advised, perhaps its best to not “count your money while you’re sitting at the table,” so for now I’ll just say I’ve been very lucky to surround myself with some phenomenal engineers, talent and investors and I have tried to create great teams pushing products that solve hard and relevant products in the process.
I didn’t set out to be a start up founder - the stars just aligned with the right opportunity (and the right encouragement from some long time friends) and I seized it. But I’d like to use this as a forum to share some of what I’ve learned, talking about what I’m seeing in the broader world of tech, politics or whatever else interests me at the moment and maybe be halfway interesting/entertaining in the process.
2. Scar Tissue and Hot Takes
Back over a decade ago when I worked at Raytheon, I once took a test called a KAI assessment that seeked to determine if I was a “Builder” or “Innovator”, an inside or outside the box thinker. Apparently my assessment came back with an answer along the lines of “I’m so far off the chart I don’t even know what the box is.”
If you enjoy reading stories about the mechanics of building deep tech companies, start up life, book reviews and hot takes on current events from someone who fits this criteria, you may have arrived at the right place.
3. Frequency
I’m going to try to post something thoughtful at least once a week and maybe something longer once a month.