After nearly 15 years as a Californian, it’s time for a change.
I moved to San Diego in 2004 after a particularly brutal Boston winter when a couple friends and I threw our hands in the air said “screw it” and drove cross country to beautiful sunny days and perfect weather. After 10 years of perfection I yearned for something different and moved to Silicon Valley to work at Shape Security. Over the course of that run I’ve added a wife and 3 kids to the equation and, now, my family and I have moved all the way across the country to settle down in the beautiful town of Cary, North Carolina.
Why North Carolina?
This is the question I get asked more than any other and it makes sense, North Carolina was nowhere in our top list of places to move until we ran out of places to consider. We looked at Seattle, Portland, Denver, Boulder, Austin, Dallas, Park City, Salt Lake City, Toronto, and more and we just hadn’t been thrilled with anything. Don’t get me wrong, those are all fantastic places but we weren’t excited at the thought of moving to any of them. Kate and I ended up flying out to North Carolina on a whim to see what is was like and it was beautiful! The houses were extremely affordable, the towns were beautiful, the people were nice, and there was a lot more tech companies out there than I was expecting. We committed quickly and now we’re settled in a nice neighborhood.
What about Shape?
I’m still at Shape and am very excited about a new role where I am able to focus almost exclusively on messaging and public awareness about modern security threats and identity fraud. We’ve built some absolutely amazing technology and are solving some of the world’s most pressing problems but we’re so far ahead that we need to go back and help the world catch up. I’ve got some big plans and need to cut off bite sized chunks and iterate quickly, there is an overwhelming amount to do.
I’m looking forward to re-learning how to east-coast and if you’re ever in the North Carolina area, please feel free to reach out for coffee sometime! If you happen to be a NC native already, then any pointers you can send my way would be helpful as well!
Image courtesy of https://unsplash.com/photos/wxdgzJlKgoo
