I am a child of CB radio. My father worked for IBM, and one of his customers was the DARC, the German amateur radio club. He took me along a couple of times. I was in awe. I read CQ DL from cover to cover, but I had no way to put a rig in the house, so I secretly ran an 11 meter antenna into the attic and worked CB.
Much later I became a victim of a reorganization. Instead of laying us off, my employer gave us time to find another useful position. I floated for a little while, and then, together with my former VP, I built a new organization around quality issues in one of our product lines. I used the time wisely and studied: within a few weeks I passed Technician, General and Extra. I am a fast learner.
What I enjoy most is the tinkering. My favorite event is the yearly Field Day, and every year we try to contribute something new: a new antenna, a new rig. This time my quest was autonomous QSOs.
I am a venture capitalist. After hundreds of conversations with founders I have learned a little myself, and I wanted to put that to the test. In the new AI economy, what matters more than coding skill is architecture and know-how, and that is where I have seen the most across the startup universe.