Going Native--Entrepreneur Notes

Every now and then, a small jolt may bring us to some awareness of an outside perspective on one's own small, limited community or profession. In the tarantella danced by entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, one catches glimpses of such a perspective in a term, that if not generalized in that industry, likely conveys some common sentiment therein. The situation involved a VC partner sitting on a board of a company that lost an impressive amount of money in an improbably short period of time. In vain, the other partners tried to get Jones to rein in the situation that had got out of hand and give them an objective account of what was going on. To their surprise, Jones repeated the party line of the company's managers, optimistic that recent unpleasant circumstances were nearly a a temporary glitch along the way to the company's inevitable and imminent prosperity. Jones had "gone native."

Lacking any particular skypish allure--no profits, company operates out of a secretive location in Estonia, the founders (also founders of Kazaa) cannot set foot in the US because they will be served with a subpoena=irresistible attraction, and having once lost our own money in a negative experience we vowed never to repeat, I was sympathetic. I could not imagine nonchalantly losing other people's money. We're in boring old infrastructure software. It may be the end of middleware as we know it, but we feel fine. Then, my bemusement took a reflective, tangential turn. How might one know what circumstances would cause a person to "go native" without spending some more-than-touristy time in the jungle? What skills might one need to survive that jungle? What does building a company without money and patronage have in common with a sojourn in the jungle?

The first negative has some advantages. Comparatively, the "native" has no money or professional standing to lose. This may enable some clarity of vision and foster the ability to take risks. Should the would-be entrepreneur have a strong belief in themselves and strong convictions about what they are doing? It undoubtedly helps. It is no surprise that the classic gentleman, at least in a sort of English, Jane Austen, 18th century perspective, was not expected to be involved in "trade." The business of building a business has the quality of putting one into contact with various people and experiences outside the normal pale. Some prove to be an inspiration, people it is a pleasure to know, experiences one is fortunate to have; some people and experiences leave no lasting impression; and there's the non-negligible portion you learn to survive, recognize and avoid, in a nowhere land aglow with the slow-burning after-haze of paranoia, beyond the timid lying morality of those who would cast stones.

I would not call being an entrepreneur a glamorous career. There are perhaps two types of entrepreneurs--those who love the challenge of and being involved with every aspect of building a company and then, there are those for whom building a company is the only way to do the kind of work they truly enjoy. The latter commit themselves to building the representation of a vision because that's what they have to do. Then, maybe after a while, they get better at that than everything else. Maybe it doesn't exist.

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind...
Shakespeare, The Tempest

And then again, maybe it's like the Cheshire Cat, who disappears and leaves behind his grin.

Profile

Total Geek Moment--Playing Scrabble with a good friend in Middle English. And laughing at off-color words that haven't been off-color in a few centuries.

Education: Wellesley College, BA in English Lit. Mona Lisa Smile it was not; although, I did belong to a "society" while I was there. The Shakespeare Society was not terribly exclusive. If you liked Shakespeare and theater, you had a good chance of being accepted. The fact that women played all the roles was a twist on Elizabethan theater since boys played the women's roles in Shakespeare's time.

Universite de Paris VII, Ecole Charles V--DEA in Etudes Anglophones/Comparative Literature. Loved teaching, but never found a research topic about which I was passionate. The trick is to find a topic about which nobody else has written. Came to the conclusion that there are good reasons nobody has touched some of these topics.

Adolescence--Survived. Empathize with quote by Angela Carter along the lines of "My adolescent rebellion is a period I now remember with intense embarassment, the chief problem being the absence of other people with whom to rebel."

Unusual thing to find sexy--String Theory, probably because I don't understand any of it and can't do the math....but I've got to say, all those colliding branes, open and closed loops, gravitons, super-symmetry, excited-state subatomic particles, parallel universes and thirteen dimensions. What's not to love.

Favorite writers- incomplete and in no particular order--Charles Baudelaire, Blaise Pascal, Honore de Balzac, Marguerite Duras, T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Edgar Allen Poe, Michel de Montaigne, Maya Angelou, Angela Carter, A.S. Byatt, Roland Barthes, Paul de Man, Walter Benjamin, LeoTolstoy.

Worst employment moment ever: being fired after three months from my first job ever out of college-- marketing assistant at a fund-raising consultancy for 1) improperly duplicating the color-coding scheme on meeting packets 2) forgetting to send an enclosure with a mailing 3) talking while stuffing envelopes.

Not very--Mechanical, could write a treatise on stupid things I've done in cars. Got drivers license at seventeen, only because humiliation of being in a carpool with younger kids became unbearable. Learned to drive stick shift at nineteen. At some moment in the process, my father suggested that maybe drinking a beer might help me relax and do a better job behind the weel.

Sort of known for--Being Communications Director for a company that has many, er PR moments, is known for its modesty, professionalism, and employing some of the bad boys in the J2EE industry, among whom my husband is one of the most outspoken.

Humiliating social moment--Mr. Bogey, my Bull terrier, was totally snubbed at a French dog show where we took him in hopes of establishing his pedigree. Ok we bought him from the gypsies on the Quais de Paris, but he does have all the neurotic bull terrier traits--occasionally chases his tail, loyal but dense, has sensitive skin, and has a shoe fetish (all shoes must be picked up around the house or he drags them off to his lair). Picture of General Patton and his bull terrier, Willie.

Lives in--Atlanta. It took me almost ten years and living in a lot of more cosmopolitan places to decide to return to my hometown. Places I sort of like to go to in Atlanta--Cafe Intermezzo, Jolie Kobe (now Azure) in Sandy Springs for best pastry in the city, Alon's Bakery (Virginia Highland) a good runner up, Doc Chey's Noodle House in Virginia Highlands, Chez Philippe In Peachtree Hills (love the Sunday brunch), hairdresser "Pascal" at Studio Pascal in Buckhead. Technically he's Pascal Bis (the second) because I used to go to another Pacal who moved to Aspen and became a celebrity hairdresser. Have heard the Supper Club and Cafe d'Alsace in Decatur are good, but haven't been there yet. Heck anybody who moved to this town six months ago, probably knows more of the happening places than I do--I've got three kids.

Strange fact--Had pet rats as a child. These were "fancy domestic" rats, not the common wharf varmint variety. My rat was caramel and white and called Turkish Delight; my sister's was black and white and named Daddy Boze. It used to provoke some curiosity among the neighborhood mothers when we would stroll our pet rats in a doll parambulator--but not much, we had the good fortune to grow up in the South where you have to be really eccentric to stand out.

Used to--Run marathons: Boston (twice but not officially since you have to have a competitive time), NYC (my favorite) and Washington DC Marine Corps. Average time--4 1/2 hours, finishing was the main accomplishment. Definitely would recommend the NYC marathon for someone who's never run one before--great way to see the city, especially parts where you might not feel comfortable going under normal circumstances, loved the bridges and the enthusiastic crowds.

"Etat Civil"--Married with three children.

Aging Gracefully with Children

I find it exhausting raising 15 month-old boys when they are rampaging through the house throwing everything out of cabinets and drawers, stealing each other's toys and barking indignantly at each other like seal pups. However, a recent car ride, with a friend, our daughters and her thirteen year old son, made me consider the daunting possibility that a couple of years down the road I would be the parent of adolescents. The scene brought back memories. "Charlie" as we'll call him was upset because his mother wasn't listening to the "cool" radio station. Rather than sit back in his seat and deal with it, he kept lurching forward and trying to switch the channel, which only made my friend more insistent. Finally, the Four Seasons December '63 (Oh what a night) came on and we couldn't resist and started singing along "Oh, what a night, late December back in '63, what a very special time for me, as I remember what a night!"

There's something so ridiculous about adolescence, teenagers and how seriously they take themselves, as highlighted by that cheesy song. Maybe it was being around a thirteen year old and not feeling so far removed from that stage ourselves (granted I was born in '72 and my friend is a little older), but it seemed very hilarious and she and I decided to be equally immature and continue singing out loud.
"Mom stop singing now, you've got a terrible voice."
"You don't like it, well now you're going to have to listen to the entire song..."
Even I couldn't resist, "Chill out Charlie, you'll be old some day yourself. Oh and what's with calling your mother homey, you know they were saying that back in the eighties when I was your age. Are you so sure you're with it?"

The upside with thirteen year olds is that they move on, so twenty minutes later Charlie was happily showing off some hockey moves at the ice skating rink and acting like a sweet kid again, not yet old enough to be totally embarassed about being seen with his Mom and her "homey."

It did make me think about the parenting thing. I only had a younger sister. I guess my reference on mother of boys would have been a family friend who had five sons. Two of them were my sister's and my ages and we hung out with them a bit in junior high and high school. You couldn't get anything past Mrs. X. I remember one of the boys describing their brothers coming home late one night and sheepishly hugging their mother good night. "Hmmh," she said "It smells like you boys have been drinking beer, smoking pot and then eaten some peanut butter to cover it up."