The Inflection Point

Do you remember life before the internet?

Certainly, I remember life before the Internet but right now I’m going to talk about the inflection point, in my life. I was working as a finance person in Washington DC and I got a job offer from a database company, which became one of the most profitable companies in the digital age. My actual job offer was signed by Larry Ellison.

At The Cutting Edge

It didn’t take long for me to become a database programmer. At that time Oracle with a free spending company. We tracked our vacation days on a bulletin board in Jessica’s office. To make travel arrangements we had to call travel agency.

But one day we started getting electronic emails. We sent emails through the operating system which was Unix. But changed it did happen fast. Oracle moved me to Seattle, at the time and Microsoft was a big part of the community..

Our daughter had a giant tracking ball she used as a mouse when she was only a year and a half old. She played Freddie Fish and other games using the Internet.

Eventually, my status reports were done over the web, and yes, my performance reviews. I took a little while to have the distraction of the web.

Which is a good thing at the time as I was new to consulting. The clients were paying big money for me not to surf the web.

Certainly I remember plenty before the Internet. I write about it often. And in a backwards type of way, it does label me as old.

However, adopting to the technology also allowed me to retire comfortably.

Precise Inflection Point.

I remember walking across the campus of Oracle on a spring like day in Redwood Shores, California. There was always construction and cement set out to dry.. There in the cement, someone recently carved in some computer code into the slowly drying cement.

“Select ‘this is happening”

from dual

Where 2=2.

The technology arrived and so did I in a way. Writing computer code sure beat balance sheets and ledgers. I opened up an entire new world for me.