A Startup Silverback’s Epistle to Future Founders

Reading all the headlines about layoffs still hits home for me.  Just about everyone in the QQQ is laying off large numbers of people, including technical staff.  This part of the economic cycle seems pretty bleak, but some of us have seen this movie before and can share that this is a just a part of the economic cycle and we will all recover from this shake up.   In fact, by the time they admit we are in a recession, we are mostly out of it and about to take off.

The first time I ran into this part of the economic cycle was in the dot com bust in the early 2000s.  I was a code-slinging elite engineer who worked for a newly public company, Ciena, and had unvested options worth “FU money”. We had offices in all the hot cities and were purchasing startups in “Silicon Valley” at a time when we were all working on actual Silicon ASICS and there were fruit trees left from the agrarian roots of The Valley. 

Then during one of these famous mass layoffs I got the call from my manager that I was too expensive and got a nice package to separate from the company.  That is when the learnings started from the best teacher in the Universe: Hard Reality.   

Most of my co-workers got let go over the next two years in grinding waves of “right sizing”, “off-shoring”, “re-prioritization”. They all landed in interesting places, most of which were new but promising companies.  As a result, I now have deeply talented contacts at lots of major companies as well as several small growing startups. My peer group moved on and eventually up and the most successful among us have kept up our relationships, even if its just on LinkedIn. If you are a young engineer, getting separated from your dream job may be the best thing that ever happens to you.

After Ciena I had some money in my pocket and had two young sons. My side gig had just sold out to a Private Equity investor.  The only thing I had going on was a couple of Rental Houses.  I decided to take one year and build up our Rental House fleet and to spend as much time with my sons as I could.  That was an amazing year! I was recharged and connected with my family and proved that Rental Houses were a nice long term investment, but not a “put food on the table” type gig.  Take time to follow your passions, keep your relationships healthy and don’t be afraid to take a calculated risk, especially when you’re young.

After the Year of Real Estate portfolio building I put that venture on the nights and weekends path and reconnected with some of my Cyber Security buddies who were starting a Venture Backed company.  That was an amazing job and the interview was basically having a beer at lunch catching up with a friend. At that company, I got into deep cryptographic security problems and eventually launched Global Crypto with financial backing from a Ciena Founder.  It may take a few weeks or a few years, but you will get help from your friends to get where you are supposed to be in life. 

In fact, the connections that I made from Global Crypto brought me to my current stage of life at TechCXO.  I was a customer in 2008 and now am a Partner in the CTO practice. Today, I am privileged to be a part of some amazing growth companies who are all hustling through this down turn.  Raising money is tough, but there are always funds for great teams who can execute on a good idea. Right now is actually the best time to be a part of starting something new.  The companies that are lean and growing will absolutely explode when we come out of this down turn.   

Reach out to your old co-workers to see where they are and re-combine with the best ones to make something special.   

If you are reading this I’d like to be one of those friends and get you into a project that is setup for success.  I have a great network of folks that are doing some amazing things and they all need help from the right people.  Engineer, Founder or Friend, Hit me up!  Lets get a beer and get you to where you are supposed to be.