Freedom

I am going to close up this company, pack my bags, and head west with my wedded soul mate. The forwarding-thinking west is where the future is being built. The east coast is where the edge of the ripples of tomorrow taper off. The east may set its clocks ahead of the west, but the west still lives ahead of its time.

I crave to create the future with people who want to build it too. Since I discovered my true love, everything has shifted. I found out how to translate imagination into life. I adopted audacity and sought out a dream the way I thought possible. I found happiness because I became bold enough to go after it.

I used to think that moving on was accepting defeat, and that a suffering was the only way to achieve success. I was wrong. I am wrong. It is a sign of change that necessarily comes with all things, but it’s time to move on to better things.

My fire has slowly sputtered out, and I thought that it was because of my dreaded graduation. I thought that the hours spent on group projects with “micromanagers”, mindless technical reports, and soulless presentations were enough to bury my innovative spirit. I was wrong. It was my company.

I now own most of the equity in an empty dream that I used to give life to. It used to be all of me. I now long to shed it from my existence. I yearn to be reborn.

While sharing coffee with a recent developer who worked with me, the talented guy told me that “We got this far thanks to you [me]. We never would have gotten here without your [my] vision and leadership.” At least his words were to that effect. If you ever read this, the talented guy who helped me see a path to the future, thank you for showing me what this company actually was. That coffee was the most insightful cup I’ve had in a long time.

I now see where this entire journey has led me: owner of a company that now runs on the fumes of hope long gone. We are floating in the wake of the passion that I poured into this thing whereas parasites clung to the edge of the glass of entitlement whispering “we’ve put our time in, we deserve a payout down the line”. The line is too long for that kind of thinking, it kills innovation, dreams, and purpose all under the supposed “natural order” of the system.

To my cofounders, real innovation demands better than what we can give today. We are never good enough for the future, and I forgot that. We called complacency, innovation. As you’ve explicitly pointed out, it is true that what I brought to the table was not as tangible as your front end design or backend contributions, but I did make us move with productive energy. I do not believe that today is a moment of defeat, but a pivot in our lives from working together.

Innovation

At conception, an idea is orgasmic, full of limitless ecstasy and pleasure.

Soon after, development of the embryo leads to nausea, bloating, uncertainty, anxiety, joy, sadness and naps as life demands growth in a womb.

By birth, the truth is shared with the world, a being is made physical, and there is judgement against the circumstance around the newfound consciousness.

Let’s not reject change, let us be brave for it.