Update on my participation in Gillmor Gang

It’s time for change.

In a second I’ll explain why I am changing my participation in some things, like Gillmor Gang.

I’ve been making a number of changes under the surface of my life all year. Working to get to the place where I can start new businesses. As the year has gone along I have gotten more and more passionate about augmented reality (or the next generation version of that, which I, along with many others, including Microsoft, call “mixed reality.”)

Now I’m looking at my career going forward and everything I see is telling me to refocus my life on mixed reality. The fact that our book on the topic “The Fourth Transformation” is getting critical acclaim puts a punctuation mark on what I’m seeing from my perch at Upload VR. Please post a review on Amazon if you have the book, especially if you got a review copy from us.

Why am I refocusing?

Well brands are calling. Shel Israel and I are seeing big companies wake up to the fact that they now need to at least give lip service to augmented reality and the best brands, like NFL, Sephora, Marriott, and many others are rethinking the entire experience of what it means to be a customer of theirs due to the technologies that are coming in the next three years.

They now can see that if Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Magic Leap, and others succeed (and I believe they will, the Microsoft HoloLens alone is a stunning product that when I show it off gets everyone to say “wow”) that they will need to rethink their company.

Plus, I’m seeing that conferences around the world are needing much more augmented reality content, which is why I’ll be on stage at SXSW with Gary Shapiro, who runs CES. Already my travel schedule for 2017 is getting stacked up.

Some other datapoints: the podcast that Austin B. Smith, Jason McCabe Calacanis, and I are doing together saw rapid growth in its first few weeks, already at about 10,000 subscribers. Subscribe to that at http://vrpodcast.inside.com

Our newsletter, at https://inside.com/vrar has more than 20,000 subscribers already too (it just started this year and I’ll be involved in 2017).

Upload itself is seeing sizable increases in traffic every month as more and more people get into VR and AR.

Anyway, this is just a way of saying I’ve started breaking.

I’m letting a bunch of stuff hit the floor.

Part of that is the huge amount of travel I’ve been doing to put food on the table this year. Part of it is the politics of the year that did distract me (and still does). But a big part of it is Shel and I hit a mother lode. We’re in the hottest area in the tech industry and that causes new kinds of opportunities and challenges. And a HUGE amount of inbound that I’m struggling to deal with (and I don’t yet have a business generating cash to hire assistants, which I really need).

I’ve been turning down a lot of entrepreneurs who want to pitch me things for same reason, saying I’m refocusing my life on just VR/AR. This is a bigger industry that when I started blogging 16 years ago this week. Back then one guy could see everything, do everything. Now? No way. One person can’t even keep up on what’s coming out of the VR/AR world, which is why I have started joining teams and working on building such, because these things are bigger than me.

Finally, I’m under pressure to get my business life figured out. Why? No business, no eat. I’m not wealthy like some think I am. Plus my autistic son is getting older and needs more and more expensive instruction, not to mention he’ll probably need more financial assistance than many of you do, and I’m not in a place to give him that assistance, and that’s wearing on me and forcing me to make changes that will potentially get me in the place to make enough to take care of him.

Which gets me to Gillmor Gang. Yesterday I told Steve Gillmor I’m going to take a break off of the show. I don’t know when, or if, I’ll be back.

It has been one of the joys of my life to be on that show, talking with great people every week about tech. People like Kevin Marks, Danny Sullivan, Keith Teare, John Borthwick, John Taschek, and many others. Plus it’s awesome that it’s on TechCrunch every week.

But lately it just isn’t fitting into where I’m going, and all the travel. It’s time for a change and it won’t be the last one in my life as I focus my businesses onto mixed reality and continue working on being a better human being.

For those who didn’t know, I did it for free all those years because it was fun. Lately the two hours a week it took, even as minimal as it might seem, was taking me away from these other opportunities, so time for a change.

That said, I’m very sad tonight. We’ve had quite a few memorable moments on the show and it feels like breaking up with someone you love. Thanks Tina Hall Chase Gillmor and Steve Gillmor for all the wonderful memories!

You’ll see me make similar changes elsewhere, too, soon. My job as entrepreneur in residence at Upload is all about redefining myself and getting a business built for this new world that’s coming. That process has taken a bit longer than I expected, but 2017 is looking like one hell of a year.

Unfortunately putting myself in play for that means cutting back on stuff that isn’t focusing me on that future, or on putting money into my bank accounts.

Thanks to everyone for all the support you have given me, and Gillmor Gang, over the years. It really is appreciated by all of us.