I decided to capture learning from my experiences as the next generation of my family are in the early stages of their careers and have asked what I’ve learned.
In 35+ years in software engineering, coaching and teaching, I’ve had the luck, benefit and honor of working alongside some of the most incredibly brilliant, inspired, competitive, collaborative and productive people in small and large companies in two cultures (experiencing 3 acquisitions and 2 IPOs)…
• Atmosphere Sciences Research Center – Acid Rain Data Analyst – Results published in Scientific American
• Ultimate Frisbee – Player / Captain / Coach of National Champion Team
• Softlab, GmbH- a lead engineer and consultant for Germany’s 2nd fastest growing independent software house at the time – acquired by BMW, GmbH (10% for $30M later to 75%)
• Cooperative Solutions, Inc. At its time, the most heavily funded ($29M) start-up company ever – acquired by Bachman, Inc
• Informix, Inc. One of the big database players in its day – acquired by IBM, Inc.
• BroadVision, Inc. VPE at 2nd fastest growing company on Nasdaq in the dot com days – joined pre-IPO
• San Mateo/Santa Clara Public/Private Schools – Teaching and Learning about Growth Mindsets, knowledge acquisition, etc
• Intuit, Inc. – Spear-headed disruptive internal startup and learned about small businesses
• Yahoo, Inc. – Ran Yahoo!Games Engineering as the biggest social gaming site of the time
• IMVU, Inc. – Improved agile and continuous deployment at the company behind the book “The Lean Startup”
• Twitch, Interactive, Inc. VPE at Rapid growth/paradigm shift in video streaming – “unicorn” acquisition by Amazon, Inc. for ~$1B
• Pure Storage, Inc. fastest growing infrastructure company to date – joined pre “unicorn” IPO at ~$3B