As stated before, I took the opportunity of my xmas/newyear
holidays to do some thinking and reflecting. Not only is my
40 year anniversary coming up but the end of my 3 year service
comission is also approaching fast (June). Whatever I choose to do
next shouldnt be something short-term; it will/should probably be
something for the next 5 to 10 year cycle.
The way I see it there are 3 options:
– work alone (solo)
– work for me (entrepreneur)
– work for others (employee)
I’ll tackle the last one first. I am definitely capable of
working for others and within organizations. But its definitely
not one of my strong suites. As it is, for me to consider this
as an option, it would have to be something really special. Not
only in terms of payment/salary, but especially in terms of the
project. What I’m really good at is in leading small specialist
teams in special projects, preferably in problem-solving mode or
in product-development mode. I’m sure that I would have some offers
in this area, but I’m not sure about them being special.
A special case of this option would be working as entrepreneur
in residence for a venture capital firm or business development
unit. Taking into account Portugal’s status quo, I’m really skeptic
about this suboption.
I could definitely see myself going solo. I’d probably follow
my masters with a PhD, after finishing the thesis. With the
existing difficulty in finding good people for good teams, I
would rather work alone that with a bunch of average guys. I’m
sure some consultancy work would be available. And of course
teaching is something that I love to do, as well as doing
academic research (though I’m not so fond of paper writing…).
Finaly, the entrepeneurial option. This has been my “mode” most
of my working life and the one that I do prefer. But, as I said
before, its hard finding the right people. Nowadays I’m more
convinced that its easy/easier to find the funds/money. Besides
the “people” problem, and perhaps more fundamental, is the
project. As usual I have lots of ideas. Some of them would be
easily fundable and easily provided for in terms of people. Other
ideas would be more difficult to “sell” to investors and harder
to provision with good people. As an example I’m sure that some
friends & family would invest in some kind of “open source”
startup led by me and that such an enterprise would be able to
attract local talent. I’m less sure of the availability of both
capital and talent if I finally started a videogame company. But
that would definitely be an option to make me stick around for the
next 10 years…
— MV
