I’m joining Betable, to disrupt gambling
tl;dr - I took the job as VP Engineering at Betable, and I’m really excited about it.
It had been a long time since I last seriously considered a new job opportunity. The last time around my priorities were focused on product considerations; open source, developer tools and cloud services. But this time around, I spent a considerable amount of time re-calibrating and identifying what I needed out of my next chapter. My first initiative is to continue growing and developing my leadership and organizational skills (time to make all new mistakes!). And secondly, after 5.5 years of developer tools — it’s time for me to learn a completely new product space.
My Criteria
- Early stage, small companies are more dynamic (Series A)
- Modern technology, carefully crafted architecture
- Collaborative executive team
- Solid marketing and business operations
- Proven product and revenue
- Clearly stated values, taken seriously throughout the organization
Disruptive (Like actually, not the kind you see in every start-up pitch)
Above all else, I wanted to join a company poised to transform an industry and none is more ripe than the real money gaming space ($500bn). You might be surprised at how few companies out there are attempting to redefine an industry, mostly because the friction and barriers to entry tend to be very high. Uber is a great example, in addition to their huge success, they are also on the front lines of the battle — fighting those with opposing interests, as the world tries to figure out how it should be regulated.
There are a lot of great companies out there with cool products, great teams and trendy offices with free food, but at the end of the day — the vision and ultimately game changing potential is what matters to me.
The vision at Betable is to transform the whole gambling ecosystem. This means, enabling developers to build legal gambling games (without thinking about licensing or legislation) and operate them globally in all the technology environments that people use for playing games.
— My interpretation of the Betable vision
Unless you have experience working with gambling you probably don’t understand how huge that vision is. The legislation and compliance around online gambling is insane, and super interesting technologically. Betable wants to transform this massive, opaque, misunderstood industry and drag it’s inner workings out into the light. I want to be a part of that. I’ve been asked whether I have any concerns about operating in the “SIN” vertical — NOPE. I’m a big fan of entertainment, and it’s a whole lot more interesting to me than building another cloudified big data advertising mobile analytics platform for unicorns. ;)
Mission
I’m excited to dive in and use my experience to help develop the engineering organization into a powerhouse of thought leadership.
Of course, my focus is and has always been about building world class teams and culture around engineering. I want to be surrounded by empowered and productive individuals focused on defining the future.
If you want to help me do that, please get in touch — I’m hiring.
