In the rearview

I’ve often told people: “I feel uncomfortable being comfortable.” Back around the new year, I started feeling comfortable again. I couldn’t recommend Mux enough to prospective employees, but I started to crave a role with outsized responsibility given my scope as an engineer. I wanted to burn the candle from both ends and inch slightly closer to maybe founding a company of my own – so I left.

The question then became: “where to move?” I made a truth table of “big 🡘 small” and “video 🡘 non-video” and filled in a number of companies I’d consider working for. I noticed two patterns:

• Big companies dominate the OTT market. A switch to a market leader would feel like a lateral shift while also losing years of rapport I’ve built at Mux over the years. Not to mention, I’d feel like a smaller fish in an ever-larger pond.
• I was craving something small / early which, contrasted with the above bullet, made my decision clear and uncomfortable. I had to leave the video industry (for now, at least)

As someone who identifies as an AI-curmugeon, it might sound strange that I joined Browserbase. When you break it down, though, you can see how it fits into the overall trajectory of my career.

• Distributed systems at scale. These problems, in my opinion, are the perennial problems of our industry and some of the most interesting.
• Developer-first services. Heroku, Mux, and Browserbase are all “for developers, by developers” companies where engineers blend into product managers because, in the end of the day, we are the target audience.

But what about video? I just spent the last three years dissecting containers and onboarding as much knowledge from the OTT problem space as possible. I spoke at meetups, I organized conferences, and then I left – ish. My plan is still to volunteer in the community. I’ve always described myself as a steward anyway. The value I derived from organizing was in seeing others benefit from the space. That joy remains.

Media diet

My information diet has changed a bit over the last few months. I’ve gone to a few more live performances than before – Rezz’s new Portal tour is bananas and the Deftones gave me permission to mosh like it was 99.

Most of my short-form reading has been pulled from the front page of lobste.rs and signal-boosted over private channels.

I continue to attend my Foreign Translated Works bookclub and am starting a new club centered around urbanism, public transportation, and the environment.

Almost any and all time spent watching videos has been in support of my film photography – as always.

Looking forward

I’ve been told a few times: “don’t talk about a new habit until it’s 6 months old.” Call me superstitious, but I absolutely subscribe to that mantra. Habits form from repeated and intentional praxis – that takes time. So I’ll save myself the embarrassment of walking back any resolution declaration of habit and instead talk in vague terms.

Let’s just say, I’ve been adding hopefully sustainable practices that will keep my mental and physical health level and supported. Switching to an early stage startup has raised my stress floor 30% or more. Between my work and personal lives (if you can truly separate those), I’ve never been busier. Nobody has time to get stuck in a maze of anxiety.

So where to from here? Onwards and upwards, I suppose. More of the same. I would love to stabilize my day-to-day but more importantly I’d like to find time to fit everything and everyone into my schedule.

If you’re looking to speak at SFVidTech, we’re always looking for speakers. If you’re looking to work with a stellar team on distributed systems, stateful websockets at scale, and browser automation, don’t hesitate to reach out.

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