Happy Holidays! I hope all of you are having an amazing holiday season. In the spirit of giving I was hoping to steal a minute of your time for the retelling of my tale of woe, and then ask for a favor.
My tale starts on a rather windy and hot November Friday, Friday the 9th, to be exact. We were at my parents’ house in the Santa Monica mountains visiting them so we could see our favorite dentist in the area. I woke up, still with some pain in my mouth after a root canal the day before, to the worried look of my wife who showed me a picture of smoke outside and asked me if it was serious. One look and I knew it was.
We went outside to see a literal tsunami of smoke slowly heading our way, and then the moment that sent chills through my body and down to my toes wrapped in my fuzzy slippers, a lick of bright orange flame, 100+ feet tall, momentarily peeking from behind the smoke. It was time to pack, and fast.
I woke up my parents, grabbed my dad to help me board up the windows with fireproof boards and left my mom and my wife to pack some of the essentials. My parents’ house was well protected with an outside sprinkling system on top and just the minimum of windows to the outside. Many people don’t know this, but in a wildfire situation most houses burn from the inside out. The tremendous winds that accompany the flame front blow the windows out, and then the fire does what it does best, devours things.
Of course, as luck would have it, the sprinkling system got stuck pointing to the front of the house only, and we only had time to nail up the left side of the house, the side from which the flame front was coming. We had to bug out 30 minutes after mandatory evacuation. As I drove away and waved goodbye to my childhood house, knowing full well that it might be for the last time, I could see a wall of flame, 100+ foot tall and as wide as the eye could see, only 200 feet away and approaching the house quickly.
While our window defenses withstood the first onslaught, 15 minutes later the wind turned, and hit the house from the unprotected right side, and … the rest is history. The flame burned so ferociously that it destroyed the foundation and warped steel beams. It left nothing behind to be saved.
That day my parents lost their house and their business. The house had only the bare minimum of insurance on it and now my parents are facing the daunting task of rebuilding in LA county with little to no money. But they have to rebuild because if they don’t, the land is worthless as no one will ever be able to rebuild there again.
To help my parents hard choices had to be made. We decided to close our small personal fund and help them rebuild. This brings me to that favor I mentioned in the beginning.
I am now looking for a job, preferably in the tech startup, venture capital, or financial industry. My personal network is unfortunately rather small, but I am hoping that through the magic of the 6 degrees of separation maybe someone who’s looking for a person like me can end up with my resume in their inbox.
My strengths are in solving business problems, understanding complex technologies and on occasion being able to explain them to others. I can also write, present, pitch ideas, and I have been known to code and do AI projects on the side, as well as many other seemingly unrelated skills that I have picked up along the way in my eclectic work life. I am looking to preferably stay in the Southern California area as to help the rebuild process for my parents, but beggars can’t be choosers. Ultimately, I’ll be of most use to an early stage startup or VC company where they may need one person to fill multiple positions, from legal to tech, and anything in between.
If you know anyone who might be looking for someone like me, please pass on my resume. Thank you so much for your time, I truly appreciate you reading this, and I hope you have an amazing holiday season with your family, as I will with mine. Because at the end of the day, things are just things, but it’s the people you are close to that truly matter.
– Bogdan
PS: Here is a link to my current resume.
