Tomorrow is a big historical day…
So. As many of you know, Biznik has been searching high and low for a brilliant software engineer to lead our development effort for quite some time. It’s been a long search. We’ve interviewed many extraordinary candidates. Their qualifications where outstanding. And deeper we went into the process, the more we realized it was perhaps THE most important job we’ve ever had to fill.
In the course of our search, we realized that we needed not only someone who understood technology inside and out, but someone who understood people and their relationship with technology. Someone who was as comfortable brainstorming ideas at a whiteboard as they were comfortable writing Capistrano deployment scripts. In short, we realized we needed a CTO (chief technology officer).
Three years in the making, Biznik right now feels like a big airplane hurtling down a runway, looking to get airborne. So is it any surprise that the person we’ve chosen for this critical role turns out to have once been a Naval pilot and mission commander? Is it any surprise that our guy was an engineering manager and group program manager at Intel? Would you be surprised to learn that he was a senior technical manager at Amazon? That he was once director of product development at a company that was acquired by Kinkos? Or that he’s been VP of engineering and CTO at two other companies since then?
I’m happy to report that tomorrow is a big, historical day. That’s right, Biznik is poised to swear in our first CTO tomorrow. Yes, I know. I’ve heard there’s some other amazing guy getting sworn in tomorrow, too. But this community is built on the idea that collaboration beats competition, right? So we’re staying the course…and sharing The Force!
Stay tuned for updates live from Inauguration day is finally here - let’s watch history happen together!
January 19th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Biznik is ready to soar! Looking forward to celebrating your new CTO’s arrival and what’s coming together for all of us by doing it differently.
Looking forward to introducing Biznik to the San Juan Islands business communities this week, too. See you on Orcas.
Gretchen
January 19th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Looking forward to it, Gretchen. Thank you for organizing the Orcas and Friday Harbor events that you’ve put together. Lara and I are totally thrilled to be getting out of Seattle for a day and a half in the islands
January 19th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Um. So, with all this hype, Dan, we have to wait until TOMORROW to find out who will be sharing the (Biznik) stage with Barack Obama?
January 19th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Very exciting, Dan. I am sure your (our) new CTO will get you airborne and then some. I always found it very exciting to hire brilliant people. I am excited to be a small part of Biznik here in Silicon Valley and I can’t wait until this time next year when we can do a “State of Biznik” and have some champagne to celebrate all of the new additions to Biznik. Go Obama and Go Biznik. Wooo hooo! (I sometimes miss the corporate world here in Sillicon Valley…and the start ups….and all of the exciting and sexy technology….follow Biznik’s growth is sort of like being a part of another kind of start up.)
January 20th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Well, I think of you, Tshombe and Chrystal, as the the leading edge of the wing that Biznik is lifting off from. Tomorrow when we’re toasting, we’ll be toasting you.
January 20th, 2009 at 5:09 am
ooo the suspense!
i’m excited to find out
January 20th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Dan, what a great post. It highlights part of what makes Biznik different (and cool!). You guys *could* go out and look for a developer who is brilliant at developing and not much else. There are an awful lot of folks in the world skilled at “their one thing” and not much else!! But having a developer that gets the people who are USING Biznik will make the user-interface side of things SO much more user-friendly and intuitive for us. Thanks for making Biznik even better for us all! Can’t wait to hear the news of who your new CTO will be.
January 20th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Dan, what an amazing photograph that was chosen to portray BizNik’s historical hour!