Category Archives: thoughts

What are you thankful for?

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That is the question my friend Susanne asked to each of her holiday party guests two weeks ago. To be exact, the real questions were:

What are you thankful for and what do you wish for?

These are great questions and gladly, most of the people played the game and provided thoughtful answers. When my turn came, I said I was thankful to have found my path, to do a work I love and be in the relationship I wanted. I also said I did not really wish for anything as I got everything I wanted. Though, after Susanne and Alicia’s teasing, I said I wished for speed.

While this is true, after some more reflection, I think there is something more important I am thankful for and I wish for:

  • I am thankful that I live at a time and a place that allowed me to acquire a great education, took away the vicissitudes of life and the requirement to fulfill basic needs (aka deficiency needs), gave me the freedom and leisure to ponder on my life and eventually discover what I wanted to do with it. I am thankful that I am free to decide I am NOT OK with a situation, and that I have all I need to change it.
  • I wish more people would realize that they too have that opportunity, that whatever they wish for, they are the one in charge, they can go for it and get it. Complaining about something does not make it better. Hard work, focus, and a positive, independent, and optimistic attitude will surely make a difference.

I realize this is a complex subject and everybody’s situation is unique. Sadly, a large percentage of the world population is not in the position to make that choice. Still, this applies to a lot of people that live in the “free world” and keep on waiting for someone else to fix their problems. I just wish they would take charge of their destiny.

Oh, and yes, I do wish for speed :).

2008: A Great Vintage

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2008 ended yesterday on a great final note thanks to an awesome party organized by my friend Cyril at his place in San Francisco.

Cyril and David

I have many reasons to be grateful for this past year:

  • I finally set my mind on what I wanted to achieve and do going forward and things have aligned nicely so far to make it happen. The support of many of you through my wanderings and indecision definitely helped make that a better experience.
  • I started working in December for a great company that is aligned with my principles and that offers me great opportunities to grow and contribute. It has been going really well so far.
  • I got the opportunity to visit my family and friends in France for a very extensive 3 month stay during the summer.
  • I got many opportunities to learn new things and relearn old things, read great books, listen and learn from great people, think, grow and move along on the path to mastery.
  • I went on a 1 month ski road trip with my ski buddy Arnaud. We skied in California, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. Our stay in Jackson Hole at the last Ski bum hostel right at the bottom of the slopes was the definitive highlight.
  • I ran 2 marathons and 1 1/2 marathon achieving most of my race goals. Even better, I had a great time training for those.
  • I had a great time visiting Virginia’s landmarks. Especially, Jamestown and Williamsburg. The trip was made even better by the wonderful welcome of my friends Alpana and Bhavesh that hosted us while we were in the DC area. Washington DC is awesome in April. The Cherry Blossom 10 Mile run, while wet, was a great start to my running season.
  • I visited Italy for the first time with my longtime friend Mathieu. It was just awesome to see cities like Pompeii and Rome.
  • I am independent financially and mentally.
  • I have no health issues.
  • And last but not least, I have a great group of friends that supported me all along this year :).

The best thing about that is that I am looking for an even better year 2009 :).

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

20 Months Later

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Tomorrow is my first day working for my new company: Collaborative Drug Discovery (CDD). I am really excited by what the company is doing and its mission resonates deeply with me.

A new chapter in my life starts. If you are interested, here is a resume of the last 2 episodes ;).

Fumbling through and self-introspection

I quit my last job 20 months ago. I was not committed to the company anymore and it did not seem fair to continue showing to work everyday in these conditions. The company ended up closing doors less than one month after so if I had waited a little longer, I could have got laid-off and claimed unemployement benefits but it did not look like the right thing to do either.

I first interviewed with some companies with the help of head hunters I worked with in the past but it did not work out as I was not clear with what I wanted to do and was not very committed to the idea of taking another job yet.

Then, a friend of a friend (foaf) introduced me to a couple of entrepreneurs that needed a technical person to join the founding team of a travel oriented website. I liked the idea as I am myself an avid traveler and they have great ideas to make travel planning more manageable. This did not work out either at the end as we all felt it was not a fit and I did not feel like it was the right thing to do.

I then decided I should first find what I wanted to do before committing myself again. Additionally, I had enough money to live for a long while without any revenues so it did not seem like moonlighting on a random job was right either. That decision has not always been easy to explain as I might not have been clear about what I was doing all of the time, some people felt threatened by my actions (or in-actions!), and I had internal fights between my fears and desires.

Along the way, I got also a bit distracted ;). I upped my yoga practice to five or six times a week, started training for long distance running religiously and completed several half marathons and one marathon, read a lot, picked up drawing, hiked and climbed some mountains, read a lot, invested and lost some money, traveled a bit, bummed like never before on a one month ski road trip, read a lot, stayed with my family and friends for several months, and read a lot more.

Still, all of those gave me a new outlook and helped me define how I want to live my life from now on. Of course, it took a lot of thinking, soul searching, more reading, and a lot of discussions with my closest friends and some other people to get to a clear vision.

Very basically, learning and contributing are core to my life and anything I do has to resonate with those. This gives me a strong foundation to go forward and allow me to make clearer decisions.

Finding the right opportunity

With this new outlook, I started looking for opportunities to contribute in the software engineering field once I came from France a couple months ago.

I first looked at Kiva.org, a company I really like and that I have been marketing to all my friends and anybody that will listen to me for a couple years. They had a job opening for a software engineer position. And while I did not know some of the technologies they use, I still took my chance and applied. It was a long shot as I did not have any connection to anybody there and my work background is very different than what they are doing. Still, my cover email interested them enough that their director of engineering contacted me and even brought me in for a round of on-site interviews. I thought it went well but sadly, they finally decided to pass on me. I will never know why but my lack of experience with the technologies they use might not have helped, or it might just be for any other reason not related to me :). Still, check them out and if you have some money to spare, make a loan!

While talking with Kiva, I made the mistake of not looking for other opportunities and when they decided not to bring me in, I was back at square one. It was more than time to widen my search. I looked if other companies I liked were hiring and looked for job offers on Craigslist.org and LinkedIn. I identified a roster of eight companies that matched my criteria. Some in line with my previous experience, some very far from it :). Still, I applied with them and hoped for the best.

The market being in the state it is right now, I did not think I would hear from many of them but I eventually got an answer from five of them! Two, LinkedIn and CDD, contacted me on the same day and eventually took me through the whole interview process. Their processes are different in many respect.

LinkedIn was very prompt to act, I went through the interview process very fast. Ending with a grueling very technical 6 hour round of on-site interviews. They liked me and went ahead with the reference checks and told me they wanted to make me an offer. But then, it took them a very long time to extend the offer.

CDD took a bit longer. It started with a phone interview. Then I programed a small application for them so they could see an example of my development skills. Finally, I went to their office for a 7 hour on-site interview. Still less intense than at LinkedIn. By the end of the day, they made me an offer!

And the day after, LinkedIn finally made me an offer!

So here I was with two great opportunities. A great place to be. But a very difficult decision to make. Being myself, I started analysing the pros and cons of both jobs and pestering my friends with my undecision.

I am a big fan of LinkedIn and all the people I met are very smart. Aditionally, it is a successful company and they have very interesting software challenges to solve. The project I was to work on is very visible and important and has a big impact on the users and company. I know it would be great to work at LinkedIn.

I like CDD’s vision and mission. I really liked the people I met. The company is in a field that is new to me and they use processes and technology I want to experience. It is also positioned to contribute to the research on neglected diseases. It just resonates a bit more with me and it is why I went with it.

Of course, there is no way to know how things will turn out but I am very hopeful and am sure it will be a great experience. I am super excited and cannot wait to start contributing :).