My Catharsis

I've been developing software professionally for about 13 years now.
The first 12 years of my career were spent at a Semiconductor company
in Idaho. It's probably not hard to figure out which one I'm talking
about as there is only one left. But that's another story.

Recently I was recruited to Savannah, GA to work for a friend at a
startup he was forming. I was lured by the opportunity to work in a
new manufacturing environment where things were just starting. An
opportunity to make quite a few of those initial IS decisions.
Hopefully I could make them right the first time. The title, CIO,
didn't mean as much to me as the opportunity.

Much to my dismay, my first three weeks in that role were much less
thrilling than I anticipated. I spent a considerable amount of time
keeping the groups DSL line running, diagnosing IP issues, fighting
with Windows XP profiles. Some of my time was spent reminding the
sales guys that they couldn't just pull images off the net and use them in
their brochures. Bright moments in my day were spent talking
to an engineer about options for NAS drives and discussing initial
needs for an inventory tracking system and MES.

After about three weeks I learned several shocking things: A) despite
what I was lead to belive, the group did not in fact own the patents
to their technology, B) they had not in fact had a sale of their
product to a real live customer, C) the money had dried up, D) I
wouldn't get paid and I probably wouldn't reimbursed for my expenses.

Rough day.

I resigned the following Monday. On Tuesday, I was legally obligated
to close on a house in the area.

Rough day #2.

This probably is a familiar story for those living in and around
Silicon Valley. I'm sure that many people have entered into this
risky situation knowing the potential consequences of their actions.
I thought I had done my homework. I traveled out to the sight with my
family earlier in the year and asked reasonable questions about their
progress. I thought that I could trust a friend who I had grown up
with and gone to school with. Other people I knew from my past were
also recruited to work in the business. I think that we were all
mis-lead by the CEO about the progress of the company before our
arrival.

In retrospect, there were many warning signs I should have seen. I'll
probably go into a few of those. I'll probably spend a lot of time
talking about my current employment situation. Who knows. This BLOG
is my catharsis.