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Today is a sad day for me.
It’s been a tough few weeks building up to this.
I think it started on Christmas eve.
Dec 24 The Hornster asks to meet.
Nice. Clearly he’s set up time to thank me for a great year and to wish me a Happy Christmas.
He’s probably bought me a gift. I suspect a Liverpool FC shirt to apologise for breaking the Code of Conduct. Twice.
No. Wait a minute. There’s no shirt. There’s no apology.
He’s been offered a Head of Product role at some scale up that is building low / no code Shopify applications. He wants to meet to tell me he’s off.
OK fine. This makes sense.
As a Chelsea supporter I can understand the risks he faced staying at EXPLORE. One more wrong move, one more contravention of The Code and he would have been fired. That black mark would have stayed with him for life.
I would have left too if I were him.
OK. Fine.
January 27. Meeting with MacGregor. Clearly he’s set up time to ask for career advice.
BA vs Product vs Data Science.
He’s a talented guy and could do all 3 well. I’m going to tell him to pick Product — can he be the best Data Scientist in the world … probably not. Can he be the best Product Guy in the world … ja: he can do that.
No. Wait a minute. He doesn’t want my advice! How can that be! (?)
He’s off to sail around the world. A year on a boat drinking Pina Colada. Every week or two a night in France.
OK. Fine.
He did grow up in Kloof. People from that area are a bit loose, a bit all over the place. I can understand why he’s exploring with reckless abandon.
He’ll marry a girl from Kloof soon. She’ll sort him out.
February 3. Keagan wants to chat. We’ve been loosely playing with the idea of building an EXPLORE | Flow platform. He’d be perfect to lead that effort. He’s a future business builder. I’m almost certain he’s going to pitch me a plan to run with this.
No. WTF. He’s leaving too!
He’s going to help set up some business in Hungary as an early employee.
It seems whenever I take a meeting with someone they resign.
New rule: no more meetings.
Today is a sad day for me.
Jacob is leaving.
This one really hurts. It cuts to the bone.
He’s going to help set up some new business based in Munich with one of his mentors.
He was one of the first to start at EXPLORE. He joined in 2018 when this whole crazy thing started. He came in with a beanie, great sense of humour and a particular disdain for Microsoft.
He’s carved into EXPLORE history. It would be a different place today if he did not join. At the very least we’d be using Azure in the Academy.
Who knows — maybe Excel would have even snuck into the curriculum.
I can understand why he’s going though.
Salt River ’19. Shoh.
That was a proper adventure.
350 students. Jacob. Bryan …
We don’t talk about that anymore …
Today is a sad day for me.
It’s my birthday — it’s supposed to be a day of celebration — I suspect this is Jacob’s way of getting back at me for that Java course we sold but hadn’t built yet …
It’s a sad day.
It is also a happy one ..
I work at a company that is stacked with great people. I work at a company with Jacobs and Hornsters and Macgregors and Keagans. And close on another 200 like-minded, talented and great EXPLORERS. And 1,000 students on a similar trajectory.
I work at a company that celebrates growth, progress and adventure. I work at a company where EXPLORERS leave to do PhDs, start new companies and travel the world.
I work at a company that attracts the best and then retains 95%+ of them each year because the work here is challenging, the mission meaningful and the people inspiring.
I work at a company that finds the best, teaches them important skills and then watches a world of opportunities open up before them.
That makes me happy.
Jacob. I’ll miss you.
MacG, Keagan, Hornster, Ruix, Zaheer: good luck, stay cool, knock it out the park.
SD
11 February 2022
Ps Can somebody check if any of these images are copyrighted
PPs If copyrighted please shut down this account immediately
PPPs I’ve forgotten my password so I wouldn’t know how to shut it down— please reach out to Jacob and ask him to sort it out
