I turned 56 on October 8. On every birthday, I take a moment to look at who I'm becoming. Here goes.
I think these are the best years of my life. For now, my health is more or less fine. My family is on track. Money is no longer a day-to-day worry. I know who I am, and who I'm not.
As for the rest...
I'm building Nimbus with my son, and my second son is joining us now.
On paper, working with family looks like a bad idea. Roles get mixed up. Work follows you home. Half the time, nobody's quite sure who's talking: the father or the partner.
In real life, I'm having more fun than ever, and it seems to work for Killian too (too early to tell for Aloïs). I watch them find their place, and I think how few fathers get a front-row seat to their kids' lives every single day.
There's also a question that keeps running through my head. It may sound strange.
At 56, some of my friends are counting the years until they stop. And I've already lost a few who passed away.
I'm wondering if I'll have enough time.
Let's say that if I'm lucky and my health holds, I can work another twenty years or so. That takes me to 76.
Twenty years sounds like a long time. And yet, when I look at what Nimbus could become, I'm not sure it's enough. Our industry moves on a long clock. A minute in tech is a week in hardware.
A lot of people look at what we've built in 3 years with some admiration (or maybe they're just being kind). I find us incredibly slow.
My problem is that the things that matter in a company like Nimbus don't speed up much.
A product you improve version after version has to be tested. A customer has to put miles on it before they're won over and start telling their friends. Someone who joins the team needs months, sometimes years, to really master their role.
We can work harder and put technology everywhere it makes us faster. We can't really shorten that kind of time. The long kind.
So I'm living this adventure a bit like a very good book when you start counting the pages left. I'm not sad about it, and I'm not resigned. I just don't want to waste a single page.
That's where having my sons beside me changes the math. Twenty years may be short for me (and that's the best case). For them, it's just the beginning. Maybe my real job in this project is to build, with them, something solid enough for Nimbus to keep growing, for them and for whoever comes next, long after I'm gone.
So today I'm not taking stock, and I won't dwell on “how much time I have left.” 56 is an awkward number anyway. I'd rather look at what's left to do. There's a lot. Good. We won't get bored.
What a time to be alive!