The next blog posts has been in the works for some time coming now. For those that are closest to me or who have been following some of my most recent posts, you will probably have gleaned from that information that I have recently relocated to San Francisco after 9 1/2 amazing and beautiful years in Europe. You may have been curious about what I was up to out here on the West Coast of California and how that relates to my professional life.
Because I have the tendency to be overly wordy, I'm going to break this into a few parts. Today will focus on my departure from Atomico Ventures.
I have officially departed my post at Atomico Ventures as Entrepreneur in Residence. I had some of the most educational years of my life working with people that I consider not just business colleagues, but also friends. Niklas and Janus are some of the most brilliant and kind-hearted entrepreneurs and investors that this planet has ever seen. They built up Kazaa, Skype, Joost, Atomico and rdio through a sheer tenacity and passion that many people will not even begin to understand. I have been blessed to have been at Skype and then to join Atomico in its infancy through its first institutional fund. The people that I have worked with at both places are some of the best and brightest that Europe has to offer and I honestly am grateful for the experiences and lifelong friendships that I have made.
Throughout my time at Atomico I was given the rare opportunity to sit on the other side of the fence. The investor side. It was an eye-opening experience for me. The venture world has always been something that fascinated, yet scared the crap out of me. It was the great unknown.
The boys at Atomico were kind enough to recognise my passion for entrepreneurship, my love of product and building teams and invited me to join them on their new venture. The unfortunate part for them is that I am too much of a "builder" to be satisfied with watching other amazing companies have all the fun. Atomico allowed me the flexibility to work on some ideas of my own until I hit upon something that I was passionate about and they were willing to fund. It was pretty much the dream scenario for any entrepreneur.
Stay tuned for the next post – ie, what I am doing now.
