I’ve spent my entire career in tech, from witnessing the rise, fall, and rebirth of dot.com in Silicon Valley, to building solutions on web 2.0 and the social internet, and now into the intelligent web. I’ve worked with startups, large companies, and everything in between, and always attack any problem with an entrepreneurial mindset. I usually say that I spend my working life helping small companies become bigger companies, and big companies think more like small companies.

Entrepreneurship and Startups

I love startups, and people trying out new takes on old problems (or new problems, for that matter). I’ve started companies, and have been a part of multiple startups in varying capacities, and I’ve been a part of an innovation and startup incubator for a number of years, where I’ve helped quite a few companies get off the ground. I’ve also held loads of talks about entrepreneurship and innovation culture and mindset.

Future of Work

Past experience tells me that the way most of us work today isn’t working. Too much is based on what used to work (but doesn’t anymore), and misconceptions. Everyone seems super-busy, but most of the problem comes from wasted time. Most countries’ population will say that they’re overworked and stressed, yet when we scrub the numbers for new technology and other obvious factors, productivity hasn’t grown with all this work. In various places I’ve worked, I’ve run numerous experiments to rid the workplace of the most obvious time wasters, and I’m hugely curious about the approaches of other companies that seem promising.

Scuba diving

I’ve been a scuba diver for more than 20 years, and currently hold both instructor and technical certifications. I’ve participated in scientific and documentation expeditions, including shark projects in the Red Sea, a manta ray project in the Maldives, and wreck mapping in the Mediterranean and Baltic Sea. I’ve also done expeditions of a more commercial nature, like the one to Jordan that the picture below is from, to help them raise awareness of the diving the country offers.

Me diving on the wreck of an M42 Duster anti-aircraft tank off the coast of Aqaba, Jordan. Not a bad way to spend a day. Photo by Thorbjörn Gylleus.

Photography

Looping full circle, I started out as a journalist, which included photography (as a freelancer you don’t have the luxury of a photographer on staff), and I’ve since returned to that on a hobby basis. I recently took down my entire gallery, but will be posting a few collections of photos soon(ish). As for hardware, I’ve generally been a Nikon (D)SLR guy most of my life, but these days I’m shooting mirrorless, and use a Fujifilm X-T3*, and quite often, my iPhone. After all, the best camera is the one you have on you when the decisive moment arises.

For updates on my work and projects, follow me on Twitter and Linkedin, or for the more visual stuff, on Instagram.

* = No, I’m not sponsored by them, I’m nowhere near good enough of a photographer to be the sponsored kind.