So this is my new blog. And what better way to start than to talk about beginnings.

The beginning of the end

I still remember the day that I decided to join Ripple, or as it was called then, OpenCoin. I was sitting in my hotel room in South Korea, writing a report. I hated writing reports.

The company I was working for at the time had recently been acquired by Samsung, and I had been sent on an assignment to South Korea to oversee the integration of our SSD caching software into Samsung’s tools. It was mind-numbing work and that served as a catalyst that helped me reach the conclusion that I needed to move on.

Gambling

I had known about OpenCoin from the very early days through my good friend David Schwartz. It was the polar opposite of what I was doing at Samsung. Exciting work that promised big challenges brought on by even bigger ideas. It was my kind of thing.

That’s not to say that it wasn’t a huge gamble to take… it was. The thing is, huge gambles are my kind of thing too. If they’re rational.

OpenCoin had a vision, it had amazing technology and it had amazing people. I knew this company was going places. Laying in bed, in my hotel room near Samsung’s R&D center in Hwaseong, I decided to take a huge but rational gamble.

I spoke to David and a couple of others over Skype, then turned in my resignation before boarding the plane home. Before I even had an offer from OpenCoin. Hey, if you’re going to gamble, then really gamble. A few weeks later, I drove over to OpenCoin’s office in San Francisco to sign on the proverbial dotted line and just like that I was OpenCoin’s employee number eight.

The new beginning

It’s been almost five years since then and I just have to say: what a wild, awesome, fantastic ride it has been!

If you’re worried about where this is going, then let me reassure you: I’m not leaving Ripple. I love the people I work with, I love the vision we’re working towards and, honestly, I love the codebase. The wild, awesome, fantastic ride will continue.

But I also have some cool ideas about things that I can’t really do at Ripple. So it’s time for another gamble: a new startup.

Starting a company is easy; file a form, pay a fee and done. The hard work comes next, and it is hard and all-consuming. Trying to make a startup successful is a battle and the odds are stacked against you.

Luckily this isn’t my first rodeo. Back in 2006, I co-founded CodeLaboratories, which has gone on to manufacture the DUO, an amazing sensor which you really ought to check out if you’re into stereo or machine vision.

I am incredibly excited about the future of this venture. We have an amazing team and a great idea. Executing will mean more hard work and less free time for us, but I think that the product we will deliver will be worth it.

I’m not ready to share anymore right now, but I will as soon as we are ready.