Behind Enemy Lines

Had been meaning to write this blog for a long long time --- more than a couple of months. And lack of time counts as one of the reasons. But, more importantly I wanted to wait this long in order to be completely sure. And now the time has come to pen down the reasons that drove me to take the most important career decisions I have taken till date.
In short, I switched from one wireless startup to another - M to A. Both are the leading startups in the enterprise wireless LAN, and it by no means an easy decision. But, I am so glad I could take it. I am going to replace the companies by M and A, as I don't want to land up on google's first page.

It all started late last summer at M. After one of the most thrilling learning experiences over the past one year, I started feeling a bit stifled. I got to do core engineering projects, live customer supporting, and some very innovative unique stuff. But, somehow I felt I was not utilizing my capacity to my full potential. I worked on a few wireless projects, but primarily i was closeted in algorithms, "coordinating" stuff. Very interesting needless to say and in the core IP of M. I wanted to get into wireless/driver stuff which would nicely complement my skillset in routing/protocols/algorithms. Now, I would have gotten the chance to work in that area had I asked, as I did get when I resigned, but ......
Some things are best left unsaid, and it would suffice to say that I could not see my career going in the direction I wanted it to take in M.

I have a strong desire to shift base to bangalore from bay area in the next 3 years. And obviously, working in a startup there funded from here, which has already started booming. So, I needed to round off my wireless experitise by getting a chance to work in the actual driver/madwifi level. And also get to know more people, which will definitely be useful in the grander scheme of things.

A while still being a startup offered some of the things which I deemed as necessary, namely, the process that is needed in growing a big company, and some of the discipline. Also, as it was growing very fast, they would be looking to expand into a variety of related fields, like mesh and sensor, which are close my heart. So, while still getting the startup thrill, I would get the biggie experience.

Plus of course, A was going IPO soon, and it meant big bucks, along with a really nice raise. While I was (and still am) confident of M's future, it seemed too far off, and I needed to get one of opportunity before leaving for bangi.

So, when I was courted by A, I finally responded and interviewed, and liked the people. They liked me too. But, I had committed to take part in a challenging project for M, and I wanted to complete that. It was going to be in Bangalore working with M's team there, providing me also with an oppourtunity to get to know first hand my soon to be home. But, primarily it was the project - a very challenging and innovative one, one that would provide me with intellectual stimuation. So, we finished the project in the next 2/3 months, and gave a demo at a sales conference. That being done on wednesday, I left for Portland for a day to solve an issue we were having with Intel. These were the 2 things on my plate, and having completed them, took that as a swan song and resigned.

At M, I had the opportunity with some fantastic collegues and awesome bosses. That definitely is something I would treasure; the amount of mentoring I got from my boss who hand-held me into industry will always be an inspiration. That definitely made is harder to leave M, as I was indebted to him. And I felt completely emotionally drained when I was trying to explain my reasons on that fateful day I resigned and walked out. But, when my boss blessed my decision, I felt elated. I had nothing I cared about M more.

One minor aspect was, some of the M thriftiness in terms of equipment, etc was rubbing onto me. This is of course very natural at a startup M's size, but I was clearly not used to it, and it was hampering my productivity. At A, a big flatscreen, a sniffer laptop, a IBM thinkpad all awaited me, along with a whole of of different APs and switches. And I got all the equiments I wanted immediately within the hour or day. When I mentioned it to a M friend, he mentioned that's that norm actually; M had lowered my expections so much that i felt happy with anything. I guess, this was also brought about in part by my spending 5 years at one of the richest private universities in this country, under a super-famous and hence super-rich advisor.

One more interesting difference in the otherwise strikingly similar companies was the people. At M, other than the core founders, there was only a bunch of people who had been there more that 2 years. Most had resigned, some sacked. This was in stark contrast to A, where almost everyone who had joined since day 1 had stayed on. And I am not drawing any conclusions here, but a moot point. One nice thing was the very open and transparency here; the ceo/founder/execs come over every friday at 4 and talk about whats happening, sharing with us all the ups and downs.

And the IPO when it happened on 27 March was a treat to watch. The shear joy and pride on that fateful day on all the founders and early engineers faces was so evident. It brings a aweful lot of money. But, it's much much bigger than that. It's the pride of having identified a gap, conceptualized an idea to fill it, working asses off to realize that dream, and then giving birth to a public enterprise. The whole morning was awash in celebrations, champagne, and folling the stock on a big screen. We were all made co-founders of A - the public company; a very nice gesture from the founder.