Existentialism & Turkey

It’s been nearly two years since I moved into the embodied AI space. Two years of existentialism trying to find the right problem to marry. Two years of exploring the state of the art in embodied AI systems.

That’s a long time.

I recall back in 2014-2016 I had a similar period of existentialism. There was consternation in the family at the time because I left a Fortune 100 engineering job and was all over the place. I wrote half a novel, I made a board game, I studied programming, I did carpentry, and more.

At the time, from the outside, it wasn’t clear I was headed anywhere. But, I was eliminating possibilities with 30 day sprints. One by one I dated every possible future I would regret not exploring, until all that was left was enough burning conviction to marry just one.

In the case of 2014, it resulted in becoming:

Relative to some this is a modest trajectory, but it’s success was highly predictable.

The 2014 me couldn’t have done that without the financial and moral support of friends and family. The Mentele’s, my brother Eric, and the Pizana’s all hosted me. Friends like the Quisenberry’s invested in me financially. For that and more I will be forever grateful.

Thank you.

I am in a similar period now and while I haven’t succeeded yet, I am turning the corner on another product release which is a success of it’s own.

So, I wanted to say thank you to everyone for their support over the last two years. Thank you to my wife Bri for holding it down. Thank you to Edward & Michelle, Tom, David T., David P., Bhavik, and Ben for investing in me. Thank you to Robin and Michael for the weekly WAMs. And thank you all for the encouragement and engagement with these occasional notes.

Your belief means to the world to me.

I expect, eight years from now, this period it will feel similar to that formative time from 2014-2016. What exactly will be accomplished is less certain but I look forward to finding out.

Together.

Happy holidays,

— Michael