I broke up with the girl that I loved, moved out of our house, cut out a bunch of my friends and quit a promising career as a management consultant.
I was single, homeless, unemployed, and lonely, all in the space of a couple of weeks.
Why?
There are a few people in history that have changed the world with such impact that they will never be forgotten.
To name a few, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Napoleon, Julius Ceaser, Albert Einsten, Isaac Newton, hell even Jesus all had one thing in common.
They did not fit in.There are two types of people in the world: there are leaders and there are sheep.
Most people are content to work in a comfortable job from 8:30 until 5, go home to their beautiful house, enjoy a delicious meal prepared with their wonderful partner, and fall asleep watching the same television show all whilst they live in the same conformist mould as every other person in their street.
Perth is the most beautiful city in the world and features some of the most incredible natural wonders in the country supplemented by a laid back culture and enough wealth to make Melbourne and Sydney bitter with envy.
But it can be notoriously boring. Everybody takes a well paying job after they finish their studies, purchases a property, gets married in their early twenties and enjoys a life of content.
This model worked perfectly when Asia was buying more iron ore than anybody could mine and the world guzzled oil faster than my friend Scott gulps down a pint of Victoria Bitter.
But Perth is doomed.
China stopped buying iron ore, the oil price fell, and neither the national nor state government had budgeted for such a massive and long lasting shock.
As a consultant I tried to save giants in the mining industry using cost reduction strategies but I watched as they self-destructed, with board members and executives either jumping ship or being scrapped while share prices more than halved. I know of a Managing Director with a wife and 2 children, whose business collapsed and the thought of failure hit him so hard that he committed suicide.
And if we don't act quickly, the thousands of FIFO layoffs will continue to see the economy slide further into the red and the Perth's increased homelessness, violence and crack epidemic will only continue to get worse.
However, as an optimist and a visionary, I like to save people and companies, and I know how to save Perth.
I've only been alive 25 years but I can say with confidence that over the next 25 years advances in technology are going to change the world more than any other revolution in history.
To name just a few, virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, big data (I hate this term by the way) and robotics are all going to cause such a disruption across all sectors that most of the jobs we consider to be essential today will effectively be completed by computers. I would provide some numbers here but instead I will refer you to Google. Search for any of the above technologies (AI is probably the craziest) and your mind will be blown. I've virtually attended a Coldplay concert as the drummer and watched the fans go wild. I've seen an AI driven robot that within five years will be capable of performing orthopaedic surgery. I've watched a FIFO worker attend the birth of his third child from the other side of the country using virtual reality.
This used to be the stuff of science fiction and within the next decade will change the way we live.
Anyway, let's get to the title of this blog.
Perth faces a situation where we have a very large number of extremely wealthy individuals who reaped significant gains during the mining and oil and gas boom and are now sitting on piles of cash with no idea where to put it. Some are getting into property. Some are putting it back into the dying mining and oil and gas industries because that's what they've always done.
But the very smartest investors are seed funding Perth's entrepreneurs, and if you are one of those, I thank you.
I believe that with a relatively small amount of investment and a large cultural change, Perth can become the technology capital of Asia Pacific.
At the moment, if you are an entrepreneur in Perth, you generally are married with kids and to support your dependants and pay off your mortgage the only way to survive is by working full-time and then burning the midnight oil on your venture after hours.
I tried this for 10 months and it burnt me out.
Working in a stressful consulting job that required me to constantly fly interstate and work 60+ hours per week didn't help and eventually decided that if I was serious about my technology start-up, I needed to end some key relationships that were holding me back and one of these was with my old employer.
It's been nearly 2 months and while I'm still the same person inside I feel like my life has changed forever. I knew that jumping out of the corporate plane and into the entrepreneurial life was a big leap but I never expected it to be as crazy as it has been. I've met literally thousands of people including a number of politicians, international chief executive officers, media leaders and recently have even been contacted by a Hollywood movie director to provide an interview relating to the experience we are creating at Rottnest. Soon I will be flying business to North America, then to Melbourne and Sydney, and eventually to Europe to begin serving international clients, discuss international investment and establish offices in Europe, America and South East Asia.
I feel like one of those overnight child celebrities, who spend their life going to school and being normal then suddenly release an international best seller which leads to their life changing forever. While this certainly hasn't happened overnight, my dream of meeting Richard Branson, Bill Gates or Elon Musk within the next 5 years certainly seems to be getting more and more achievable.
Anyway, the crux of this post is that I honestly believe shifting Perth's economy from its traditional roots in mining and oil and gas to technology will enable us to compete with the likes of Silicon Valley, Berlin, London and Singapore. Here there is so much unused cash to be invested, a huge number of unemployed artists, programmers and suits and some incredibly intelligent and innovative start up companies that, if united, are capable of changing the world.
I'll be meeting the mayor soon to present these thoughts more formally and eventually I'll try Colin Barnett.
I hope you've enjoyed reading this post and if you'd like to here more about Immersia, me, or my plans for Perth city, please continue to follow my blog and add me on Twitter at @AdamJGeoghegan. Immersia can be found at Facebook.com/ImmersiaVR or Twitter.com/ImmersiaVR and our updated website will be available by the end of this week.
I'll end with a small pitch.
Immersia Virtual Reality is a technology consultancy that provides innovative solutions to commercial problems using cutting-edge technology including virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and data analytics. We have grown from a company of 2 in September 2014 to a team of nearly 20 spread across Perth, Melbourne, London and San Fransisco, and are close to moving into South East Asia. With 5 incredibly experienced board members and 3 of the most intelligent and innovative co-founders in the Perth, Immersia has partnered with firms in the mining (Rio Tinto), tourism (Rottnest Island), government (Landgate), mental health and gaming (Ranger Rhino will be released next month) sectors.
All the best,
AG
