That's a Wrap

I'm not very good at goodbye. Fortunately, today had no feeling of finality. It felt more like I was heading off for a short leave of absence. I guess with 14 years at a company, it stops being about the company and starts being about the people. Thanks to Linked-in and Facebook, those connections will remain intact.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about Sun and Oracle lately, checking and double-checking my decision to leave. One hears all the time that Oracle is evil and a terrible place to work. I don't actually think that's true. Oracle is certainly not the warmest, fuzziest company out there, but I think a lot of that is just a reflection of Larry. Oracle is actually a fine place to work. The benefits are decent. The working environment is very reasonable. It's a stable company, unlike what Sun was. It's perfectly OK. And that's why I'm leaving for Cloudera. In a decade or two, when I'm tired and burned out, a quiet, stable job will probably sound very appealing. Right now, though, I'm not looking for quiet.

I am so excited about starting work next week at Cloudera that I can hardly stand it. I'm trying hard not to let expectations get too high, lest I set myself for being let down, but I really see this as a huge opportunity. For the last couple of years I've been looking for something to hit out of the park, and now I'm finally walking up to the plate. Batter up!

And So It Begins

Hi. It's been a while since I started a new blog. Why start one now? Well, after tomorrow my current company blog, for reasons we'll get to shortly, will no longer be an option.

Let's start at the beginning. I joined Sun Microsystems about fourteen years ago. I saw the boom. I saw the bust. I watched our executive management team nose the plane into the ground. I then found myself working at Oracle as a product manager, where I've been for the last year. Having spent the last eight years immersed in high-performance and technical computing, the transition to Oracle was more than a little jarring.

Tomorrow is my last day with Oracle. Next week I will be starting work for Cloudera. I have to admit that I'm a little sad to be leaving behind fourteen years of relationships and product knowledge, but I'm also positively twitterpated to be starting something new, especially with a company as interesting as Cloudera.

My plan for this blog is to have a place to chronicle my transition and what it's like to work for a hot Silicon Valley startup. Maybe I've just watched Julie & Julia too recently, but this sounds like a good idea at the moment. And so it begins.