Setting the scene
I was a second year undergraduate (the year of internship ‘hunting’) studying business at the University of Warwick as well as running a startup called Unibubble (a campus discovery tool — now shut down).
I told myself that before I plunge myself into anything I want to know what I am saying no to (i.e corporate job or startup life) — so in order to make this decision I needed to experience both. Since I already worked on startups since high school I now needed to get the ‘corporate experience’. Intel was where I chose to go.
What I did for Intel
I was fortunate enough to work under a very experienced, humble and kind manager who took it upon himself to make sure I got the most out of my year with Intel, so instead of making me stick to the job I was hired to do he let me choose my path. I immediatley got myself involved with a pilot project with a small and very agile telecoms customer — we wanted to prove new service use cases, we called it services transformation. This project led onto another which gave me the chance to move to the states for two and a half months bouncing around Arizona, Colorado, California and Washington. Here I worked with another very good person who took me under his wing, mentored me and invited me into his family for the duration of my U.S trip.
When I came back from my rotation I slotted back into my old team working on datacenter deals in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). I led what we called the DFTT team (Deal Funnel Tracker Team)….Intel loves its acronyms. I did this up until my last day.
What Intel did for me
From having worked in startup environments since I was 15, I had a ‘benchmark’ to compare my corporate year to. Intel being a technology company, the culture is very open-door, welcoming and relaxed. It’s a great place to work, but for me I noticed that I don’t really fit in. It’s hard to explain why but I think the best way to explain it is by saying that some people are good at being told what to do, and do it well. Whereas others (like myself) would rather find what to do by themselves, take on the challenge of setting out on something completely new and raw and seeing it through.
I am not saying that one is better than the other. Not at all. What I am saying is that everyone is different, everyone has certain things that they are good at — but what makes you successful in life is knowing what you are good at and applying it in the right environment. For some the right environment is a large company where they can add value to, whereas for others the right environment is one they create for themselves.
What I got most out of this year was that I finally found out what environment was the right one for me. I knew my skills but what was missing for me was the second half of that equation, where to apply those skills.
I am currently working on a startup called Nuklius, with my partner in crime and best friend Alex Dobinson. We are creating a platform which matches startup ideas with the people & skill-sets needed to realise them.
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