Let me begin with a brief review of my working life.
When I was 12, I got a paper route and started mowing lawns.
No, that’s going too far back. Here’s the TL;DR version:
- 39 years, 2 months, and 8 days (14,315 days total) at IBM
- 2 years (731 days) at ColdQuanta / Infleqtion
- 11 months (336 days) at The Futurum Group
Today is, in fact, my last day full-time at The Futurum Group. I thank Daniel Newman for the opportunity to learn about and work in the analyst and advisor business.
With that, I announce the Sutor Group Intelligence and Advisory LLC company with me as the CEO (and everything else, for the moment). I’m also pleased to say that I am working as an advisor with Charles Beyrouthy and his venture capital firm Forma Prime. I will continue to be a Non-Executive Director at Nu Quantum, working with Carmen Palacios-Berraquero and her talented team.
This day was a long time coming and involved a lot of personal planning over the last several years. I’m not retiring. Why would I when things are getting so interesting? In addition to the above roles, I have several consulting contracts and look forward to additional NED and investor advising positions (hint, hint). I also have ideas for a couple more books.
But let’s get back to the Sutor Group and moving forward. My writing up the About page forced me to think about what I have been doing and enjoyed in recent years. Here are some of the paid engagement topics I’ve listed on the website:
- Industry overviews, trends, and predictions
- Competitive analyses
- Technical and business advising and consulting
- Strategic plan development and review
- Technical and marketing messaging development and review
- Intelligence research and reports
- Internal seminars and training on quantum and AI technologies
- Client event speaking, panel moderation, and executive interviews
- Client podcast and webinar hosting and moderation
- Public conference and event speaking and panel moderation
Initially, I will focus on quantum technologies and AI, though not always at the same time, and I have ideas for several other areas the firm can expand into when the time is right.
Of course, I’ll have more to say about this. Thank you for being with me on the journey so far, and we’ll all see how things unfold in the next few years.
I’ve been a Bob Dylan fan for decades and wanted to work some of his lyrics into this announcement. The song “The Times They Are A-Changin’” seemed like an obvious if clichéd choice. However, it’s not a particularly cheerful song, what with all that sinking like a stone and such. Moreover, Dylan wrote it during the 1960s in the environment of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War.
I didn’t want to use it to discuss my career development, but we can interpret two parts in a modern way for people who comment on the industry in professional or amateur roles.
The first is this:
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
That’s a good one and should apply to everyone, though it clearly doesn’t always when it comes to Deep Tech, the stock market, and geopolitics, as we have seen lately.
The other part of the song is the second verse:
Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
’Cause the times, they are a-changin’
I’ll try to remember this as I continue to work in this industry. Early leaders may falter. Superior ideas and architectures will replace the best technology we have today. I won’t stop speaking, but we live in a time of constant change with uneven velocity, and I will acknowledge that after carefully doing my research and conferring with experts.
