Skip to main content

The global political situation

Had a morning call with a friend from the startup community.  One of the first things he mentioned was that he left Paris for London on one of the last trains before the general strikes.  And that there was a fatal stabbing outside his London hotel the night before.

It has been difficult to ignore the changes in the global political situation in the past few years, especially since 2016 with the Brexit vote, the US election, then months later the Catalan independence referendum and finally last year the Gilets jaunes in France.  I have close work and personal relations in all of these places.

There's a lot of anger and frustration in the world of late.  And there are plenty of excuses to get angry and frustrated working in a startup.  Combining discontent from both politics and startups is a potential recipe for disaster.  I'm doing my best to balance staying informed yet neutral on politics.  And of course Startical 2.0 is about staying healthy and positive in my startup!

Popular posts from this blog

Reminiscing about last year's epic rail journey

Last year today I embarked on an epic rail journey from Montreal to Chicago via Vancouver and Seattle.  This time of the year is pretty much the only time I can completely escape startup life (and Internet connectivity), and a year ago I seized the opportunity to do something I'd been dreaming of since childhood: take "The Canadian" across Canada. Sat down with a beer and watched my videos from that trip (see playlists below) which brought back very fond memories not only of the trip itself, but also of Startical 1.0 which involved a similarly ridiculous Montreal to San Francisco rail journey. The playlists: "The Canadian" - Toronto to Vancouver by rail "The Empire Builder" - Seattle to Chicago by rail Also reminds me of my  Rails and Reels: History, Infrastructure and the IoT blog post from 2013, just after we had become "World's Best Startup".  Somehow rail journeys bring out the philosopher in me...

Office painting continued

There was fugly wallpaper on BOTH of those walls... ...the last to (soon) be painted white. Only just today realised that our new office, which is on the corner of Sherbrooke and Parc streets (Parc is French for Park) could cheekily be called PARC.  XEROX PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) is effectively the birthplace of much of the core technologies we continue to use today (tablet computers, graphical user interfaces, mice, object-oriented programming...).  See this reelyActive blog post .  I've been calling the office Sharc to date, but PARC is not only awesome, but also fitting since the intent is to use it as a living lab and showcase of all the emerging tech we have developed and continue to develop. It may seem silly, but this is the highlight of my day and unbelievably motivating!

Office party