Splitting light

Season 2 Episode 15

Internal identification If you are no longer interested in the newsletter, please unsubscribe​

End of May 2018 had arrived. I had an appointment. After doing a tattoo on my arm, I continued to look into tattoo art. Looking at different things and identifying more symbolism that I wanted. I remember reading Revenger by Alastair Reynolds, a mix between new space opera and pirates of the caribbean. Spaceships with light sales. I finally contacted the tattoo artist that had done my arm again back in January for a new project. Now it was time to get inked again.

The space enthusiasm was at all high. There’s one thing you have to credit SpaceX for, they are really good ad the marketing and pumping the hype. I remember watching almost every launch and staying late at the office to watch some with co-workers.

My Mac’s screensaver was a live feed from the ISS. It was broadcast on Ustream, later acquired by IBM. Alternating light and day every 45 minutes. That is, until you had to confirm cookies and which broke it completely.

At that time, I knew what defined me. I loved music, books and space. So when she mailed me the design, I knew it was just right.

The first session lasted 5 hours and the second about 4 hours. It’s a moment when you have to embrace the pain with the machine buz as a background noise. You talk with the artist. You kind of get high on the pain. Then for at least two weeks, you have to put cream every 2 hours. Imagine me, in the office bathroom, doing my best to spread cream on my back. Quite an awkward moment.

Unlike my first tattoo for which the meaning is almost encrypted, this one is open to all. You understand immediately. It’s almost like an open book. It clearly identifies what defines me. My arm is visible but the message is hidden and my back is hidden but the message is clear.

My back represents who I am. What I love. What I do. It represents a snapshot of me. A facet in the prism for which other facets co-exists.

Now I remember 2018 as a race. It didn’t feel like one at the time. It was exciting and boring. It was glorious and miserable. Fulfilling and frustrating.

Beyond the technical side, leadership was not easy. I didn’t have any experience, guidance or mentorship. I had to push forward. I had to make mistakes and learn quickly from them. Repeat the flow. It felt like I was brute forcing it.

Scaleway was growing fast. Things were changing. What worked for storage at least, in my mind was a cohesion. No matter what happened we presented a unified front. Florent had done work to define how we interacted with other teams. Theo was pushing like hell to get the vendor and business part right. I was high demanding.

The team was a mix of very junior people and senior people. Now with time, I understand the value of it. I remember Arnaud telling me years later that we owed a lot to the juniors. I completely agree. The juniors were hungry. They pushed. Introducing new things. They were willing to take risks. Or perhaps did not understand the risks. The seniors pushed back and guided them.

Now I know that I was hard on people. I had sometimes too high expectations. I did not understand it then. I did not know how to bridge people forward. With hindsight, I could not have done better. In that moment, I was doing my very best.

​
I, we, were on a tight feedback loop.

​

(1) Screenshot from the a recording of the live stream, which used to be here : https://video.ibm.com/channel/live-iss-stream​

(2) Taken from Deexen's instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/p/BlXlSTQHY2O/​

(3) Photo by Emmanuel: https://photo.caille.fr/picture.php?/3829/category/301​

(4) Photos by the launch event photographer - if you know who it was please tell me

​

If you have missed it, you can read the previous episode here​

​

To pair with :

• The goose that got away - Objekt
• Revenger by Alastair Reynolds