Bob Baldwin has a checkered past and a long resume, due to the fact that he can’t settle down. He’s quit a bunch of jobs, got fired from a few, and although the past haunts him, he still hopes for the future.
Mr. Baldwin entered the software business way back in the dark ages of the early eighties, when programmers “desk checked” their code and typed JCL on a card-punch machine. Since then it’s been a wild ride. He’s developed all kinds of software, from slovenly rendered ERP systems (still in production around the world), to automatic stock trading systems that never saw the light of day (thank GOD!). He’s done several tours of duty as a ferocious road warrior, endured the mind-numbing boredom of an insurance company’s MIS department, created completely fraudulent demos of software that didn’t exist for trade shows, created secret nicknames for every person he’s ever worked for, experienced the joy of seeing his software running on someone else’s computer for the first time, felt like the smartest guy in the room, discovered that he is dumbest guy in the room, conducted a layoff or two, been laid off, managed a depressed, embittered development team into a high performance software juggernaut ready to take on the whole world, managed a software juggernaut ready to take on the world into a depressed, embittered collection of sad sacks.
Baldwin suspects that he is bi-polar. His employers and colleagues are certain of it.
