What was I thinking?

Some of you know me. Most of you probably do not. So, for the benefit of the "great body of uninitiated," who have never had the benefit of my prognostications and observations, I'll give you a little background here.

Background.

I've been in a number of industries. I've spent most of my career in some type of technology business. I've done the usual techie stuff: programmer, analyst, VP of IT, etc. Then, I got tired of technology. I was tired of being a geek!

I had spent a lot of time, when my children were young and I was poor, hanging round universities as an adjunct professor. I decided to make some money and capitalize on those skills with commercial education. I was VP of consulting and/or education for a couple of firms.

Then, in October of 1989, I joined an amazing company -- GartnerGroup.

(Aside: One day, midway through my career there, the founder, Gideon Gartner had left and some bright eyed marketing executives decided the Gartner Group sounded pretentious and renamed the company Gartner, Inc. given that today, more than 10 years later, people still call it the Gartner Group, it was a huge and foolish waste of money.)

I spent the next 11 years there working my way from analyst to division president. Eventually, all my old friends and business associates left, including my "patron saint"at the time, the firm's third ever CEO, Michael Fleischer. It was time to move on. I just had no idea what to do with my life.

An old and dear friend.

Long before Gartner Group, I befriended Dr. N. Adam Rin (... and yes, I will figure out what the and stands for one of these days!).

Adam and I probably knew each other for 10 years or so before Gardner. The truth of the matter is, one of Gartner's VP's, Peter Levine, tried to hire me in 1988, the year before I joined. I didn't. That was not one of my better decisions, in retrospect. But anyway, I had known Peter for a while, and he asked me if I knew Adam. I told him of course I did. Peter asked me what I thought. I told him Adam was a great guy and a consummate professional. Peter hired Adam in 1988. I caved in to Peter's pressure, in a rare fit of sanity, and joined Adam there in 1989.

Adam climbed the ladder faster than I did, because he was willing to play their game long before I was. As he became division president of Gartner | Research before leaving to join them CEO, Manny Fernandez, full-time at Gartner's venture company. While Adam was nearing the end of his tenure as division president of Gartner | Research, I became division president of Gartner | eMetrix (that was back in the day than if you were cool, you had an E in your name).

Off on our own.

Knowing that Michael was leaving, and having, for the fourth time, a wad of cash waived before me big enough to choke a horse (or maybe an elephant), I bid adieu to Gartner.

I pondered my future, and did some consulting, and caught up with Adam a couple months later. We talked. He left Manny's investment firm. We've been partners, ever since! our biggest successes are Training JumpStart Ltd., which we started with a third partner, Dr. Hadas Rin, and InfoTollgate Ltd., both of which are alive and well. Visit them on the web!