I can’t believe it’s been a month already over here! After basically spending most of it as a hermit, the biggest thing has been trying to actually see what interesting things people are up to.
The following is just ONE EVENING sitting by the fire at the apartment complex. One of my favourite ways to spend the evenings is to grab a hot chocolate and sip it by one of the many fire pits around the property.
There was already a group at the fire this time, 2 women working away on their laptops and 1 guy playing the guitar. They were all friends finishing off some last-minute tasks. The guitarist, being the simply strumming along ended up introducing everyone after I said “hi” and was a neuropsychologist who was also a pilot and hence is working at an autonomous flying car start up.
Talk about a unique combination of interests/skills! We had a great chat about flying in general and the challenges his company is facing. Since that chat, I’ve seen him around multiple times and this place has started to feel more like a community.
That group of friends left and after about 5 minutes of sitting by myself, watching the flames, someone else asked if they could join. This older gentleman turned out to also be a doctor from the UK who had settled in the US decades ago. But he hadn’t really practiced clinical medicine: he in fact, ran a VC firm!
The odd thing was, the day prior, I was invited to chat to some of the Stanford Medicine team that are responsible for Quality Improvement. One of the staff there is a VERY accomplished guy who has done so many things that it’s hard to not just feel so inadequate professionally. He’ also one of the nicest people I have met this trip. His advice was for me to actually think about starting a small fund.
Now, I know close to nothing about the VC space and didn’t expect that would be actual advice but what were the chances of sitting next to someone who’s done EXACTLY that: a doctor turned VC?!
Don’t worry, I don’t think I’m leaving the day job anytime soon, but it did impress upon me just how many interesting characters you’ll encounter if you happen to just say hi…