Damien Mulley

Tune in to see their interview with Pat.

Meanwhile here’s a Q&A I did with Patrick earlier in the week:

So what will you and the other lads be doing with Live Current in Vancouver?
I’ll be overseeing the engineering side of things generally, and working with all of the individual product teams to get design, infrastructure, etc., done right. Harj and Kul will head the development of different products, and oversee the creation of the next batch of successful products for Live Current.

You were mostly based in Silicon Valley though of late worked out of Vancouver too. What are the differences between them in terms of tech culture and culture in general?
Obviously, the biggest difference is that Vancouver can’t even begin to compare with the size of the Silicon Valley tech ecosystem — and this impacts culture in everything from fundraising to hiring. More generally, though, Silicon Valley is very single-minded and growth-driven, whereas Vancouver tech folks seem to take life a bit easier. Perhaps because of that, they tend to have a slightly longer-term vision. Both lifestyles have their attractions.

Is this the end of 23 hour days for Patrick Collison, I really can’t see it to be honest.
Judging from things so far, I think any answer other than “no” would be some sort of clinical denial.

With your new free time what do you have planned?

I’ve always loved the idea of learning to fly (I was really disappointed to read that the airfield at Coonagh in Limerick is to close). So I’ll hopefully do some of that.

You routed around the “system” in Ireland and went to the States to build Auctomatic. Is it much easier to build a tech company over there even if you are a blow in from Ireland compared to being a native here in Ireland and setting it up?

Without a doubt. You’ve got to be careful here — on hearing this line, people will always say, “but look at successful Irish tech startup X”. Yes, there are successful startups here (and they deserve a lot of credit). But, with that said, I think it’s almost unarguable that it’s easier to build a successful tech company in the US. Things like the huge pool of talent, easy access to funding, chance meetings, and so on, are all mostly absent in Ireland.

People usually dislike this criticism because it seems unpatriotic. I don’t think it is. Nobody (that I know) is saying that Ireland _can’t_ match Silicon Valley — just that we need to do much more. Ireland certainly has its own unique advantages, and addressing some of our shortfalls could make a big difference very quickly.

Teenagers and early twenties entrepreneurs powering all the innovations on the web or that’s what it looks like. Do you think your age and not being tied down is an advantage?

The lack of responsibilities and commitments is certainly a big advantage. I don’t think youth per se makes a huge difference, but anyone who has mortgage payments, kids, etc., will certainly have to think more carefully about risky opportunities — and probably forgo some that might have led to big things.

How many random girls will now start adding you to Facebook, do you think?

I’m still waiting. It’s all just a matter of time… right?

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 7:03 pm and is filed under business, irishblogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.