I turned 60 this week.
And yes, I said that out loud. I have seen a lot of ageism in the last few years, and I just don’t care anymore. Do I sound like the classic cranky old fart? Fine, whatever. You can either choose to listen and learn from lived history, or you can blindly make the same mistakes. Your call. This Gen-X tech veteran has a few things to say.
Looking at my LinkedIn network, it is pretty clear that I have been actively kicking around in the business world longer than most of my contacts have been alive. I mentioned to someone the other day that I wrote my first commercial code in 1982, and they said: “That was 10 years before I was born.” Ouch – I have T-shirts older than you. But there’s incredible value in seeing digital technology evolve from inside the trenches. Where we are today isn’t exactly the future I thought I was helping build, but it is close.
Two weeks ago, I stood in front of a crowd of email geeks in Toronto and explained that I have been involved in digital communications since before the Internet existed. I built my first modem from phone parts in 1976 with the help of my uncle/wizard, the late Doug Bailey, to whom I will be forever grateful. Using it to connect with the few mainframes that existed at the time was life-changing and set me on the path I am on now. Along the road, I have learned many lessons, both technical and philosophical.
One of those lessons is that the basic rules of digital communication haven’t fundamentally changed. If you want to get a message through to someone who will actually listen, be respectful of the space, send only what is relevant, and if you are asked to leave, do so (maybe try again later). As much as the tech around that has changed with high-volume email, mobile communications, video, and streaming chat, those basic rules are still fundamental to success.
The next lesson here is to keep your eye on the fringes. So many people today think AI is a new revolution, but the reality is that this tech has been growing for decades – you just didn’t notice. My own journey to AI started with a study of Expert Systems in the mid-2000s, followed by a course led by the venerable Andrew Ng on Machine learning operations on Big Data. That was back in 2011, 15 years ago. Interesting tech rarely just sneaks up on you. You just didn’t notice it growing in the background.
The third lesson is probably the most important and has nothing to do with tech. I think I finally figured out that life happens in 3 parts. For the first 30 years of my life, I was just bashing around, trying to figure out how stuff worked. Every time I thought I understood something, the rules seemed to shift, and I had to learn anew. But the reality is that none of it was really new; I just had not seen the big picture yet. I hadn’t figured out what was important and what was noise. So for all those 20-year-olds who think they know what is going on – brace yourself – you don’t know jack. I’m calling this “Chapter One“.
The following 30 years, which I’ll call “Chapter Two,” represented incredible growth for me. Kids, work, school, failures and successes – each a learning opportunity. I was still struggling with the signal-to-noise ratio, but I’d at least figured out what to look for and who to watch. I was fortunate to steer my way into opportunities that let me work with some of the most amazing people. Those are blog posts for another day, and I am truly grateful to have learned and grown with some amazing leaders. The lesson here is to put yourself in the path of success with other successful people. If I could go back in time and tell my younger self anything, it would be not to try to do everything alone. Find other creative, like-minded people and build a community; you will not regret it. Oh, and buy Nvidia and Apple stock early.
“Chapter three” is where this blog post ends, and the rest of the journey begins. The next 30 years are still ahead of me, and they promise to be full of adventure made possible by the last two chapters of learning through the school of hard knocks. I have way too many ideas in my head to even consider slowing down. Startup number six (AKA KumoMTA) is still rapidly growing, and startup number seven is already percolating in the back of my brain.
Age is just a number. Bring it.
Be Awesome; Change the World.
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