For as long as I've been alive, I've been entrepreneurial. Excited, eager, always wanting to start things. Someone I've known for a long time recently described it as a compulsion. It is.

About 12 years ago, I started a non-profit in Mumbai that taught underprivileged children how to code. (Here's that story.)

This year, I handed it off completely to the local team. They took the bones of what we built and turned it into an excellent local organization, Tinker Qubits.

I have often found myself seized by an idea and then having to act on it.

• Nearly 20 years ago, I decided to start a DIY travel show of my time in the Middle East
• I've started a web dev agency, games dev agency, a startup in Indonesia, a migrant worker dinner series, and many more
• There was also an ice cream shop somewhere in there
• Honestly not an exhaustive list: I don't remember all of them

I'm not motivated by 'make money' (although I should). I'm drawn to the idea that if there is something I care very much about, figuring out how to make it real is basically my mission. It's what drives me.

I've spent the last few months working with an old friend and career coach. We landed on: my non-negotiables with my career are (a) I must be doing something cutting edge in technology (b) it must be something new and not very widely known (c) I enjoy being the 'cartographer' and 'pathfinder'.

This is why I've been so drawn to founding startups, and also starting things in general. "If the job description exists, I'm already bored." (Something I wrote in coaching)

My brief foray into the food business was similar: I love creating new things! I don't want to make the same thing every single day.

Some people excel at doing that, so I should find those people, and hand things off to them.

Big questions, undefined paths, unclear routes, especially on the intersection of computers, technology, humanity and society: that's what has always excited me.

For the last eight years, I was in a weird stasis: cannot easily switch jobs, cannot found a company, cannot take money from a non-primary income source, cannot lose a job (because of visa issues), cannot take off and leave and do nothing.

To say that it killed me slowly inside would be an under-statement.

I tried so hard to make the most out of my situation — after all, the Bay Area is a lovely and wonderful place to get 'stuck' in! But I wasn't able to be who I truly am, which was especially difficult given that San Francisco is the best place in the world to do the sorts of things I love doing!

All to say, that part of my life is over, I can do anything I want now, I've spent the last couple of months collaborating with incredible folks, and I can't wait to be able to share what I've been up to.

In the meantime, my AI testing and evaluation consulting business and my evals training are keeping me plenty busy. (Believe it or not, these are NOT the things I am starting..)

We're taking a couple of weeks off life and work to return to Asia, reconnect with friends, family, and places that we were not able to see for the last couple of years. So far, our travels have taken us to Singapore, Malaysia, India and Nepal.

Being in this part of the world is where I am happiest. All of it is home, to me.