Zip It Up

FROM: LinkedIn Updates
TO: You
SUBJ: Flavian Martony recently posted

Flavian Martony
Founder & CEO @ Activated AI Solutions; senior canine ambulatory technician @ Wags4Life

This past Monday was not just any day.

It was an opportunity for growth.

It was a chance to implement.

It was a boundary waiting to be pushed.

It was back-to-school day.

After a summer interning under me, my son was going back to school to start third grade.

Before he went to get the bus, I got down on a knee.

“What’s the most important thing?” I asked him.

“ROI,” he said.

“And what do we strive to do every day?” I asked him.

“Move the needle,” he said.

“And do we raise our hand before we ask a question?” I asked him.

“No,” he said.

“And why is that?” I asked.

“Because we seek to disrupt,” he said.

“You’re going to do great,” I said.

But my son seemed tentative.

“Dad?” he said. “I don’t feel ready.”

I sighed.

It can be so hard for me to remember: he’s not just my intern and temporary CFO. He’s a boy.

I asked him if he thought Mark Zuckerberg felt ready when he launched Facebook. I asked him if he thought Elon Musk felt ready when he took over Twitter. I asked him if he thought Steve Ballmer felt ready when he made the daunting move from tech leadership into sports ownership.

No, I told him. They didn’t.

And look at the magic they had made!

“A cliff is only a cliff if you step off it,” I told my son, “but it’s a bridge if you walk over it.”

My son pondered this. And then he said, “But I meant that I don’t feel ready because we didn’t do any back-to-school shopping. I don’t have any notebooks or pencils or folders or even a backpack.”

I sighed again.

I told him we’d been over this: once my company gets into the black, he can have all the school supplies he wants. But he won’t need them. No one will, thanks to the power of AI.

Still, I had to remember: I’m not just a CEO; I’m a dad.

So I bought him a backpack.

No Paw Patrol characters. No color. Just Steve-Jobs-turtleneck black.

And at a great price, too.

It should get here just a few weeks into the school year.