hello

1. or “Why a career in IT is good!”
01/09/2015
Calling the next Elon Musk…

2. • Billionaire, philanthropist and one of the greatest entrepreneurs
of our time
• The founder of SpaceX and a cofounder of
Zip2, PayPal, and Tesla Motors
• Self-taught computer programmer at age 12
• Bachelor of Science (IT major)
• Age = 44
• Net worth = $13.6 Bil ($200m+ by age 29)
Who is Elon Musk?

3. A vision of the future…
• Options abound both locally, nationally and internationally
• Travel options for those that want it
• Many and varied roles and responsibilities
• It’s not even work!
• Recent experience in
Silicon Valley

4. Unicorns
• 4 unicorns in March 2013
• 81 earlier this year
• Welcome the age of the deca-unicorn…
? ?Market Cap: Ford Google (x6)

5. A little about me
• Engineering background
• Learnt to code on a commodore 64 when I was 13
• Founded / co-founded four businesses prior to current projects
• Now CEO of Sky and investor in six tech
businesses
• Travel monthly to the UK, Europe, US
and Asia
• Sold Sky Software in 2014 for $22m

6. Which leads me to Sky Software!
• Headcount of 83 (~60 staff / ~20 contractors)
• Geelong focus
• Business analysts, tech analysts, tech architects, subject
matter experts, project managers, coders, sales
specialists, support analysts, management
• Avg wage ~$75k
• Travel, travel, travel!
• Flexible hours + virtual working

7. Do what you were doing before I walked in…
• Business analysts: analyse business needs, conduct workshops, meet
with customers, write specs
• Tech architects: blueprint tech infrastructure and layout, technical
vision and roadmap, big-picture
• Project Managers: plan and oversee projects,
organise deliverables, engage with customers

8. What does the Future look like?
• 15,000 software engineering jobs in Silicon Valley
• Startup activity at levels not seen before, including the
dotcom era
• Jobs growth up to 20% by 2018 in Aus (Seek
Jobs survey 2015)
• Coders – focus on .Net / RoR /
PHP / mobile / etc

9. Where do you want to be?

10. Where do you want to be?