journal features

the entrepreneurs

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2019.11.21

Today I had a meeting downtown with an entrepreneur who's built a thriving software business; within a couple of years of their start they now have four products in production with different clients. He has some software that allows analysis of sensitive information on people's end-points (phones, laptops) without the data leaving the app on the end-point. It's possibly by having the analysis done on the end-point as well. I know some people in the pharma space, so I'm putting them in touch. He has a few leads for my job search as well--here's hoping.

In the evening I had two interviews with a firm in Tokyo. The first was with a technology VP, the second was with two of the fellows currently with the team I'd be leading should I be selected. It's been nine years since I left that city, and I'm amazed that events might lead me back: I certainly haven't kept up my language skills for one thing. However, I'm happy to learn that I still have a functioning network of contacts over there. The job is related to this sort of thing:

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

—Jorge Luis Borges