Category: Life, The Universe and Everything

As someone who’s spent most of his career working in “at will” America, I find long notice periods… a little strange.

It seems sensible to keep your departure on the Q.T. for a while, so only people who “need to know” get told. But someone always needs to know, so your departure is never really a secret. And before long – and long before you’re gone – practically everyone knows.

Those days and weeks can feel a bit like attending your own wake, or listening to your own eulogy.

Some stop seeking your input, stop including you in conversations, even stop making eye contact. Some decide you can’t help them accomplish… whatever it is they’re trying to accomplish anymore, and stop involving you. Anything you’ve asked for tends to fall to the bottom of people’s priority lists, or on the floor, whichever is further.

People reach out to say farewell, or find out why you’re leaving, or both. And some, who regret that you’re leaving, try to get more shared time. Try to get more of whatever they think you’re good at, or good for, in the time that’s left.

It was one of those interactions that made me write this, and suggested its title.

A colleague, who I’ve come to respect as a co-worker and value as a friend, said some very kind words about the impact I’ve had over the time we’ve worked together.

All prefaced with “it goes without saying…”

And book-ended with “and the things that go without saying are often the things most worth saying.”

Absolutely true.

I don’t typically post about work, but then this isn’t really “about work” – it’s me wrapping my head around something. No offense, but you’re sorta along for the ride.

A few years back – as the pandemic was loosening its grip on the world – I had left Amazon, and was happily “bumming around London,” when I got a note from a Amazonian colleague. He had taken a new role at a company I’d never heard of, and wanted to chat about working together again. Over breakfast.

“Breakfast sounds great,” I said, “but I’m not really looking for a job right now.”

After breakfast, and video chats with a couple other folks, I flew to Seattle for what turned out to be the first on-site interview most of my panel had done since the pandemic. Looking for it or not, it seemed a new thing had found me.

When Axon extended an offer and asked me to join I couldn’t delay any more, I had to really decide what I thought about the company and its products.

My decisions about where to work, and what to work on, have always been guided by a few rules, the top one being “I don’t want my code to kill people.” When I had the chance, early in my career, to work on medical device software I decide not to – because I didn’t like the idea of my code killing people by accident. And I’ve never chosen to work on things that kill people by design, like weapons systems.

When Axon was founded, 30-odd years back, it wasn’t called Axon – and it didn’t do software. It was called TASER, and that’s mostly what it did. The TASER is a weapon, no matter how you slice it. A “less lethal” one for sure, but a weapon. I wouldn’t be joining to work on TASER – I’d be working on real time and situational intelligence tools for first responders – but TASER was a proverbial elephant in the room.

So I think it’s fair to say that the decision to join Axon was one of the most carefully considered career choices I’ve ever made.

I turned the decision over and over. Stared at it from every angle. I talked to friends. I got input from people I expected would tell me why joining was the stupidest thing I could do, and from people I guessed would argue the opposite. I didn’t always get what I predicted. I looked into the company. Its founder. The things they built. The customers they built those things for…

Ultimately, I decided that as much as I wish law enforcement didn’t need TASERS – or firearms – the TASER seemed like a tool that could make things better. And making things better seemed… better.

I’ve told bits of that story to hundreds of the candidates I’ve interviewed since joining. I’ve encouraged them to think about the implications of working on systems that are mission critical – and sometimes safety or life critical. One of the senior leaders sometimes calls it a “sacred responsibility,” and while I might choose different words, I understand and agree with the sentiment. The responsibility, and the associated ways of working it encourages, aren’t a good fit for everyone. They demand thinking critically about choices and tradeoffs, and being willing to fly in the face of commonly accepted industry best practices – what’s right for selling consumer goods and services, or selling advertisements and sharing cat pictures on the internet, isn’t clearly right for building systems people rely on to keep themselves and others safe. Moving fast and breaking things is a terrible idea when it puts people in harm’s way.

My time at Axon has taught me a bunch.

About public safety, and the people who choose to walk that path.

About the tools we ask first responders to use while doing their jobs.

About how it feels to go 70mph – the wrong way on a 20mph street – in the back of a Met patrol car, lights flashing and siren screaming. Whenever I think “I’m a pretty good driver,” I’ll think about the police constable who was weaving the patrol car through impossibly tight spots that I swear didn’t even exist until he was in them; and for whom this race through London toward danger was just a Tuesday…

And along the way, I learned some things about myself.

Three years on Axon and I have reached a fork in the road, and our paths are diverging.

There’s no one simple reason. The London R&D center I joined to help grow from nothing has grown – to over a hundred in and around London. And the company continues to grow globally year over year. What a company needs changes as it grows. And I started getting the distinct feeling that what I’m good at – and the ways I most enjoy contributing – were falling out of alignment with the company’s needs.

I was growing less and less confident that I was in the right place, doing the right things, right now.

I still looked for ways to stay. I worked with leadership to create a new role that we were optimistic I’d be both happy and effective in. Sadly after the first couple months in that role it was clear to everyone it wasn’t going to work out as hoped.

I tried to convince myself there was at least one more viable thing to try, but evidence was piling up that I was trying to fit a me-shaped peg into a someone-else-shaped hole.

In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that deciding to leave was just as difficult as deciding to join. But it was difficult, and I was surprised. Deciding to quit was hard, for a bunch of reasons – all the “normal” ones, and some I struggled to put words around.

Lots of companies have a mission statement. They hang it on a wall in a lobby, or the executive offices. They trot it out in shareholder letters, or during shareholder meetings.

Axon has a mission.

An audacious and seemingly impossible mission. We’re out to obsolete the bullet, and incredibly, impossibly, we’re actually making progress.

(I know, it sounds impossible, or maybe just charmingly naive.  I've become convinced it's neither of those. Axon's founder and CEO Rick Smith talks about the company, the vision and the mission with Joubin Mirzadegan in this episode of Grit - give it a listen, see if he convinces you, too.)

And I had no idea, when I joined, how much having “a mission that matters” would matter to me.

Still, that didn’t change the situation on the ground, and failing to find a better path, I handed in my notice.

I’m parting ways with some great colleagues, and folks I hope to keep as friends. And I’m leaving a company I feel more emotionally invested in than most anything else I can point at in my career.

I don’t yet know what comes next. Some time off, catching up on things work displaces in life. Hopefully more travel.

And if I’m very lucky at some point the next thing will find me. Again.

I want Axon to succeed in its mission to Protect Life, and I think the best way I can support that right now is to help Axon find people who contribute to that success.

So if you or someone you know are looking for a place to have outsized positive societal impact, and are based in Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix, Atlanta, Boston, London, Brussels, Tampere, Ho Chi Minh City, or anywhere Axon has a hub, drop me a line. I’m more than happy to make introductions.

Remember when the president of the United States didn’t routinely sound like a petulant 3rd grader?

Yeah, me too.

I’ve been thinking about the ozone hole lately. You don’t really hear much about the ozone hole anymore, but if you were alive in the 80’s you couldn’t not hear about it.

I hadn’t thought about this particular Sword of Damocles for years, until we watched the “Fridge” episode of The Secret Genius of Modern Life the other night.

And now it won’t get out of my head.

Not the ozone hole itself, or the chlorofluorocarbons that were humanity’s contribution to the problem. I keep thinking about the research and scientific testimony in the mid-seventies that drew attention to the risk, the observations in the mid-eighties that focused us and catalyzed action, and the Montreal Protocol that coordinated a global response.

I keep thinking about the scientists, the civil servants and politicians, and members of the public who all had a part to play.

I can’t help but wonder how the same thing would go today.

If that’s not enough to keep you up at night, that’s usually the point where I find myself musing on what imminent calamity we’re currently oblivious to because we are – right now – defunding the basic research that would be our best chance to discover and understand it.

And then I come full circle and wonder how the hell we managed to dodge that bullet when the only evidence that the problem even existed was some false color imagery and scientific papers largely incomprehensible to the general public and world leaders.

And yet, we acted. Globally. And our actions made a difference. And we didn’t abandon the plan, or take our proverbial ball and go home, even when it would have been easy to.

I’ve been trying to imagine what it would take, today, to get the same outcome.

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I believe it’s even possible.

I hope I’m wrong.

Living on opposite sides of the country didn’t offer much opportunity to get to really know my grandparents. My parents moved from the east coast – where they had both grown up – to the west coast while I was young. My dad got a job with a firm that he would ultimately work for until he retired.

There were infrequent visits, but between visits the distance was much more of a barrier, only a few decades ago, than it is now. Regular long distance (expensive) phone calls, and passing the phone around. It wasn’t the telegraph, but it sure wasn’t FaceTime.

So I didn’t know my grandparents well, but I did know things about them. My maternal grandfather had been a machinist. His wife, my grandmother, had raised a large family and was a proverbial “force of nature” to be reckoned with. I knew my paternal grandmother had worked in the county courts, and that my paternal grandfather was a watchmaker.

I have early memories of his desk – full of the specialist tools of his trade – in the office and workshop in the front room of their New Jersey home. But I was too young to be interested in “talking shop” with him.

He gifted me a watch, many years ago, and I remember him saying that to him a watch was no more or less than the quality of its movement. Everything else, he said “was just complications.” And that if you took care of a good watch, it would outlast you.

Before cell phones (and later smart phones) became ubiquitous and meant nearly everyone was carrying “a watch” in their pocket, I carried a pocket watch.

I liked that my pocket watch didn’t sit on my wrist and interfere while I was typing – something I spent (and still spend) a lot of time doing. When I started riding motorcycles, I liked that my pocket watch didn’t sit right where my riding jacket sleeve closure wanted to be.

And – if I’m honest – I liked that carrying a pocket watch was “a little odd,” and more than a little anachronistic.

When my phone started fitting in my pocket, for a while it replaced my pocket watch and was the only time-piece I carried.

I went back to carrying a pocket watch for a bit after seeing H4 at the Royal Museums on a trip to London, but it didn’t stick.

At some point, I bought a wrist watch. I don’t remember exactly when, or what prompted the purchase. Maybe Dawnise bought it for me. In any event, things have… escalated… since. These days I find myself with more watches than I have wrists to wear them on, which I think is a rough definition of a collector.

This all came to mind while I was looking at the details of a watch – its movement, really – and was stuck that it was accurate to “5-6 seconds per day.”

If you know nothing about watches, that probably means nothing.

If you do know something about watches that probably strikes you as either “pretty good,” or “pretty terrible.”

You might see it as “chronometer accuracy” or “much worse than a cheap quartz watch,” which are typically accurate to a few seconds a month.

Turns out both of these things are true, so “you’re right.”

Compared to a mechanical watch, a quartz watch is more convenient, more accurate, more reliable. Not to mention less expensive. And aside from changing a battery every year or so, they demand basically no maintenance.

Mechanical watches are something of an anachronism.

And to me there’s something fascinating, almost magical, about a mechanical watch movement. They’re delicate. Intricate. Mesmeric.

Springs, wheels, balances, escapements, all doing what they’re supposed to do, many times each second. Self-winding movements, with their semicircular rotor, are even more fascinating- reminiscent of our fascination with perpetual motion machines.

I mean, just look!

Still not impressed? Look closer…

The first mechanical watch I bought was a cheap open heart with an exhibition caseback – ‘cause even a cheap movement can be captivating to watch. I still have it, but I haven’t worn it in… forever.

Since then I’ve become more discerning about what I buy and wear. They’re something of an eclectic mix – often from small makers – the only thing they have in common is that they grabbed me.

Sadly, my grandfather died before I really “understood” watches. I sometimes wonder – as I did while writing this – what he’d think about the pieces I’ve collected.

I’ve been watching the incoming US administration flood the zone with shit mostly with my hands over my eyes, like a kid at a horror movie. The level of idiocy on display has been mind boggling, and I’m finding it impossible to imagine where this continuing for (at least) the next four years will leave us.

Dawnise and I used to say “stupidity should be painful,” and it occurs to me that maybe we should have been more… specific in our ask of the universe.

‘Cause this stupidity is painful. But it’s painful to the wrong people.

What’s really getting to me, above all the jaw-dropping stupidity, is the casual cruelty.

I can’t say I’m surprised. Groups tend to adopt and exaggerate attributes of their leadership. That’s true even when the group isn’t a group of toadies, and when the leader isn’t an unhinged narcissist. And this group is, and their leader is. And that chosen leader has been openly casually and repeatedly cruel for decades.

So this is very much what was asked for by those who asked for it.

And that’s the part I think I’m most struggling with.

That America has decided it’s ok to act like a prick.

To tell those who put themselves in harm’s way to protect others that the people who attacked them were patriots, were heroes, when those attackers were observably and objectively criminals. To jump around on stage like a ketamine addled teenager who never got past the idea that it was all about “winning.” To decide that the president is above the law.

To take actions while ignoring, or being incapable of predicting, likely consequences that will affect millions.

And I come back to the deeply depressing thought that it’s entirely possible that America has always been this way. Any marginalized group will tell you this isn’t new. There’s just an ever shifting set of scapegoats.

Still, I think something fundamental, and dangerous, changes when enough of us lean in to darker instincts. When we encourage our deamons to step out of the shadows and into the light, to stand proud. When we decide that it’s ok to openly exclude or subjugate the “other,” ignoring that we’re all an other to someone.

History shows us that over the long term these shifts are temporary. Sometimes it takes decades. Sometimes it takes generations. Sometimes it takes tipping into open conflict.

But ultimately things change.

They don’t go back to where they were, they converge to some new thing.

Until they change again.

Changes aren’t permanent, but change is.

I’ve tried writing something about the cognitive dissonance today being both the presidential inauguration and MLK Jr. day is causing me several times. I started aiming to say something profound, when that didn’t work I tried to say something constructive, and when I couldn’t manage to even say anything coherent I gave up.

Since I couldn’t think of anything new to say, I’ll just repeat myself.

Democracy is Coming

Fragile Mores

Tired of Being Angry

News outlets are all reporting on Trump nominating Robert F Kennedy as US secretary of health and human services. And these outlets typically describe RFK as a “vaccine skeptic.”

A skeptic is “a person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions.”

Skepticism is a powerful force against groupthink. I’m a practitioner, and a fan.

Someone who questions or doubts facts demonstrable well beyond a shadow of a doubt – like that vaccination saves lives – isn’t a skeptic.

They’re just wrong.

Jung said “you are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”

So, when the gamblers and bookies do things that disagree with the pollsters, my money’s on the bookies.

Sadly, the bookies basically called the US Election weeks ago.

This morning brought resigned sadness, but not much surprise.

I read the idea, somewhere, that politics and policy affects us in two ways: by what it does to us – the liberties provided or restricted, the taxes and tariffs levied – and by what it says about us – how our sense of self is reflected and affected.

What our tribe’s politics and policies say to people – especially those outside the tribe – about who we are, what we believe, and what values we hold dear.

It’s mostly through that lens that I’m despondent about another Trump presidency. Because of what I believe the choice says about the beliefs and values of the tribe that chose him.

A tribe that I’m part of. A tribe whose decisions cause ripples in every direction, and into the future.

Electing him to lead, and to represent the US on the world stage, is a decision that I fundamentally do not understand and deeply disagree with.

I didn’t understand it the first time. We knew plenty about Trump through how he ran his businesses. He had a long history of mistreating people who worked for him. He didn’t dispute it. He was proud of it. He berated belittled and verbally attacked people who disagreed with him. He weaseled out of agreements. And he styled himself a “self-made success,” despite starting well up the ladder thanks to inherited wealth. (You may notice that Trump’s current favored sycophant suffers from the same misapprehension.)

I was confused the first time. I’m utterly incredulous the second time. We had four years to see his reprehensible character and behavior amplified by the office of the presidency. Four years of him acting like a petulant child who needed nothing more than his mommy or daddy to send him to his room until he learned to behave like an adult. Four years of him putting his immediate family into positions of authority and responsibility for which they were no better suited or prepared than he was.

And there was a veritable conga-line of close former advisors and collaborators vocally, publicly, and voluntarily shouting that he’s unfit to lead.

And yet. Here we are. At least another four years.

So now what?

Well, mostly things are the same as yesterday.

He’s a bloviating cretin who spews an incomprehensible amount of nonsense and cruelty and who has historically broken more promises than he’s kept.

I don’t expect him to change.

So it seems there’s little choice but to see which promises he tries to keep, and do what can be done in response.

He’s stacked the deck pretty strongly in his favor, so stopping him will be … hard. The Supreme Court seems unlikely to help. The media is basically why we’re in this mess in the first place, so don’t look to them for help either.

I’m honestly not sure what that leaves.

What I am sure of is that there will be people who will need help. Will need support and defence against this “new world order.”

So we’ll help. Because, what we do matters.