Open Ambition

I’ve been a member of the sales and marketing teams of three startup companies (LSI Logic and C-Cube Microsystems in Silicon Valley, Vivo Software in Boston), and a member of the team at RealNetworks in Seattle, during its explosive growth stage.  Each of these companies shaped the face of its industry as well as had moments of failure, and had the resiliency to learn, adapt, and succeed.

I’ve also had to make difficult decisions about career paths that resulted in not obvious choices: leaving C-Cube when it was a successful, public, semiconductor company to join the management team at Vivo Software, which was a struggling startup. After helping to turn Vivo around and selling it to RealNetworks, I relocated from Boston to Seattle as a part of the deal.

While there we bought a second home in a small town in Wisconsin, to be closer to my wife’s grandmother, and ended up taking a year off there in 2001/2002. At the end of this year, we decided to live in Wisconsin and for me to “commute” to Seattle. Fertile ground to encounter success and failure, and fertile ground to find meaning.

I was fortunate to be educated at some good schools (The College Preparatory School in Berkeley, CA), UC Berkeley (I got a degree there in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences – I took the six year path), and MIT (I got my MBA there). But, all education provides is the opportunity to apply yourself with a potentially more open and prepared mind than you might have had otherwise. You’ll still fail, regardless of if or where you went to college, and that’s where the education really begins.

I’m an active reader, cyclist, and beekeeper, and aside from blogging, am an aspiring writer. The commentary here is 100% personal and my own, and does not reflect any views of my employers, past or present.

Email me at peter.zaballos_at_gmaildotcom