Category: Uncategorized

First thread: I try to go out of my way to help current and recent military members to transition to civilian jobs and careers. I remember how tough it can be to translate the very rich experiences I had in the Navy to something that most employers could understand. And it’s usually tougher the longer you stay in the military.

Second thread: What I see pretty much each day at Techstars is the value that startups place in execution. The people who can consistently get things done and fight their way through difficult situations are hugely valued. They can get far more done per dollar and thus have a greater chance to both survive and thrive given each incremental investment dollar.

These two threads collided for me today.

Special Forces?

I’ve gotten to know a few different special forces operators in my time during and after the military. My boss for about a year was a Navy SEAL that went on to command a Navy SEAL team. They’re both tremendous individuals, but also strangely normal people, too.

Today I met a Special Forces operator, with over ten years in the SAS. (Equivalent to Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, etc.) He’s a really smart and accomplished individual, who for years has done nothing but operate. He’s gone on virtually no notice to countries where he and a team would be required to evaluate current situations, make plans, and execute those plans, often under tight time pressure and imperfect information. And in places where if you screw up, you (and others) could die.

This person is also interested in branching out from the traditional security/policy/government roles that recent military retirees often fall into. (This is a bit unusual, but I think very highly for him in proactively thinking and researching how to make the switch.)

I think this particular person is a specific example of a broader idea. Special forces operators regularly “retire” from the military in their 20s, 30s, and 40s with incredible expertise, but often little commercial experience. So while the guy I talked to today could probably easily step into a COO role and has the operational expertise to warrant the role, his lack of direct business experience means that he wouldn’t ever be reviewed. It feels like the world of startups is missing out on a category of potential key employees, that could radically improve their chances for survival, because they can’t translate individuals’ military experience into something startups understand.

(Side notes: Techstars operates Patriot Boot Camp for US military and military veterans, and I think highly of the program. We’ve also invested in at least one company that was founded by a Navy SEAL: FitDeck, founded by Phil Black, which went through the Nike+ Accelerator, powered by Techstars.)

My questions

Broadly — How can/should startups think about hiring people with non-traditional operations expertise? Would startups be willing to hire special forces operators? Would they be willing to take someone on for a 3–6 month trial to evaluate their operations ability? What would it take for startups to seriously consider special forces operators on a regular basis?

Specifically — What roles should a person like this consider? What are the job titles he should be on the lookout for? Should he go get an MBA and use that to help transition?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

definition of regret:

re·gret — r???ret/

verb

1.feel sad, repentant, or disappointed over (something that has happened or been done, especially a loss or missed opportunity).

One of the principles I use to live my life is simple: have no regrets. I believe this has made me a happier person, and has allowed me to turn decisions that might eat away at me into lessons that I can use to make better decisions in my future.

An example

A big decision that I made relatively early in my life that has had massive consequences for me was the decision to accept a Navy ROTC scholarship in the senior year of high school. Doing this meant that when I graduated in 1999 I entered the Navy, instead of potentially going to work in the nascent internet industry (or somewhere else). I was effectively locked into six years of Navy service instead of participating in one of the craziest times of the internet’s growth.

But while I could regret the opportunities I passed up, I also have to recognise the transformational experiences I did have in the Navy. At 23 years old I was put in charge of a nuclear reactor. At 24 years old I was running a $2billion submarine and responsible for safety of 130 crew members’ lives. And because I had my ROTC scholarship, I graduated with zero college loans or any other financial burdens. So while I might have been able to be a part of the internet’s wild ride, I actually did start my career with some very unique experiences and a decent financial footing.

(That said, at the time I was a huge Google fan and user… partly because I got to Michigan just after Larry Page left and knew people that were friends of his. If I had managed to convince Google to hire me around the time I graduated in 1999, I would have been anywhere from employee number 15 to 60. That could have been… lucrative.)

How I think about potential regrets

So while I have made a number of decisions in my life that if I look back I might do differently, I remember that each decision was made with the best information I had available at the time. The benefit of hindsight is information that you never had when you actually had to make the decision! Where I would have chosen to do something differently I analyse what I wish I would have known to figure out if there are ways I should systematically do more research or think differently about categories of decisions. Then I can take any lessons from those situations and apply them to future decisions.

Having this attitude has made me a lot happier. I have made a conscious decision to have no regrets, which allows me to focus on the benefits I’ve had from the decisions I’ve made. The only control I have in life is over the decisions I’m making right now, today. Regret is simply a waste of time and energy.

I originally heard about “The Martian” via this tweet from Clay Bavor, a VP for Product at Google. As he wrote:

If you’re an engineer, you must read The Martian.

If you’re into space, you must read The Martian.

If you’re an engineer AND into space…

That was intriguing enough to pick it up, and I’m so glad I did. It was a brilliant read, and the story has stuck in my mind ever since.

The premise of the book is simple: a team of astronauts travel to Mars. But they have an incident and need to leave quickly. One of the crew looks like he died in the incident, and they are forced to leave without him. Except he wasn’t dead, and he has to learn how to survive until he can be rescued.

For an engineer or anyone who enjoys some of the technical details of space travel and survival, this book is incredibly well researched and has just the right enough depth of detail to make it very realistic, but without going so far as to come across as a textbook. But it doesn’t just focus on what people might assume would be the problem of survival on Mars (air, water), he also deals with the smaller but critical systems, too.

The story itself is a thriller… it has just as much or more momentum than a Baldacci / Lee Child / John Grisham novel. The story takes place on Mars, on Earth, and in between with the crew members that left. It’s very well crafted, and you literally never know what’s going to happen next. The benefit of the setting of survival on Mars is that the writer was completely free to think up highly plausible scenarios that could kill any astronaut… and he does!

As it turns out, The Martian (the book) is being made into The Martian (the film), which started filming a month ago. For the Interstellar fans amongst you, the film will star both Jessica Chastain and Matt Damon. 🙂 I can’t wait to see it next year.

Like Clay Bavor, I simply can’t recommend this book highly enough for anyone that enjoys space, engineering, technology, or thrillers. Seriously… go buy it and start reading it today. (Get it at Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk)

Earlier this summer I read two posts by Jake Knapp (a design partner at Google Ventures) about his “distraction free” iPhone: how he started it, and what it felt like a year later. In a nutshell, he found himself getting constantly distracted by his iPhone, and consciously made choices to take key applications off his phone: Safari, Email, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

I decided to try it for myself and my Nexus 5 Android phone. I didn’t want to be that guy that always had his phone six inches from his face, even when out to dinner or playing with my daughter. So these are (some of) the apps I deleted from my phone:

• Chrome
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Kindle
• NYTimes
• Google+
• Facebook

All of these were apps that had a strong risk of the “infinity” effect, where once you get started you just get lost. I had a particularly bad habit with opening tabs in Chrome (from Twitter, e-mail) that I then left open, always meaning to go back but never actually closing.

Apps I kept include: Calendar, Music, Maps, Camera, Photos, SMS, WhatsApp, Hangouts, USAA, Todo.txt, Voxer, Slack, Beeminder, Runkeeper, and a few others. The one app where I chose differently from Jake and did keep was Gmail (and now Google Inbox). E-mail in my job is just too important, and living several time zones away from the majority of the people I work with means that I can’t rely on just dealing with e-mail during the UK business day.

What I’ve learned

I’ve noticed a few things from this experiment. First, I’ve started to see how critical a web browser is to a mobile phone experience. Disabling Chrome means that a small number of apps (that aren’t well designed) just don’t work well, if at all.

Second, Google has made Google+ a key layer of infrastructure. I can’t use the modern, built-in “Photos” app on my mobile because it requires the Google+ app to work. Instead, I use a previous version of the stock Android Gallery app to view my photos.

Third, it’s fascinating to watch human behaviour. Pulling out a mobile phone, even when out with good friends, has become a reflex for (seemingly) everyone. The number of times that a conversation over dinner goes down a thread where once person checks their phone (to look something up or Tweet something), and then a second person does, and the next thing I’m looking at a table of people that are all staring at their phones instead of interacting with each other. I even find myself feeling like I should join in, but then realise I don’t have to stress out about it and can just enjoy the moment… even if no one is paying attention to me or each other! 🙂 I’ve become comfortable with momentary moments of boredom.

Fourth, you have a different relationship to a mobile phone when it’s purely a tool for messaging, navigation, health/fitness and not a tool for broad media consumption and broadcasting. I liked feeling that I had a less “emotional” tie to my phone.

How I cheat

It’s not like I’m no longer using a web browser, or Twitter, or reading Kindle books, or checking Facebook. But I decided that I would make my Nexus 7 tablet my “distraction” device. I have all of those apps there, and so then I make a conscious decision to consume media and be distracted.

Also, when I’ve traveled to the US I’ve had to cheat and re-enable a bunch of apps. I don’t want to have to buy and use two SIMs, one for my phone and one for my tablet, and I need to have a phone connection when I’m traveling.

Going forward?

I’m definitely going to continue this going forward. I may re-enable Google+ just so that I can use the full functionality, and because I think I can resist any G+ distractions. But I like constraining myself to use my mobile phone purely as a tool and not as a magic sinkhole of time.