Oh my... Well, meh perhaps this is longer than it needs to be..

I didn't think my post to Erik's blog would be reposted here in entirety. I felt moved to post quickly on Erik's blog FWIW and didn't mince words. His post reminds me of certain aspects of thought regarding where I was at after my degree. The will to create is a mysterious thing.

As things go jrogers65 probably has no idea what I'm trying to accomplish or how far along I actually am or the personal funding I've sunk into this path (everything) over the years.. I too had a deep fascination w/ graphics & audio tech for some time and I knew in advance 10 years ago that I was choosing the harder path to innovate particularly through large scale 2D / 3D spatial audio, upping immersion in games / movies / all media in the home and venues, such that the path was fraught with a long term time span.

In pursuit of this path I assure you I probably have the best hacker den around while also supporting the R&D goals at hand. It wasn't cheap to build or now maintain while bootstrapping and is in a prime SF spot; can support upwards of ~6 initial employees; etc. Indeed this leads to a challenging month to month reality in regard to long term debt / build out costs and trying to free up time (IE rent $$$ in advance) to work in waves unadulterated at the tech at hand.

Besides relentless innovation often comes hand in hand with perfection, but sometimes there is simply just time to get things right. After the general economic dip around '08 it's clear I'm at earliest presently 5 years out to perhaps 10 years w/ my audio aspirations regarding product / market fit just from an economic angle; I can be more specific, but will save it. This general mismatch and the rise of Android being the fortuitous tech occurrence has given me the time to focus on creating middleware tools supporting the long term effort while "doing it right" and taking into consideration the next 10-15 years of software dev.

If one is going to commercialize middleware tools related efforts the bar is high when money is to change hands.. One is free to go the open / social path and release early and evolve an effort in the public eye and likely never gain revenue. This is a valid direction... I however plan to make a long term living from my efforts and the sweat spent now _should_ pay off later. It reminds me of a supposed African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.”

One can wish to get funded for something innovative / artistic / complex / before its time; one can wish to be independently wealthy and be free to pursue ones goals. Outside of those two general hypotheticals what is often left from there is just pure dogged persistence and yeah it's not going to be the most balanced life, but them the breaks. I at least love what I do and am fully committed to seeing my long term vision become reality not just for me (it already is here for me!), but for "you" / others; commercially too...

I hope Erik finds his path without losing the will to create something great; individually (at first at least) w/ commercial aims or more publicly via open source during the conception phase, etc.

In short... You do not know what you speak of jrogers65.. ;P