Both mother and child are exhausted and recovering at California Pacific Medical Center, and learning to know one another. I can only watch with rapt attention at the miracle of life unfolding, bursting as I am with joy.

At one point ten years ago, the owners of Orangina had agreed to sell it to Coca-Cola. This naturally raised an uproar and the deal was axed on antitrust grounds. Unfortunately, the brand has not been very well managed or marketed since and has lost much of its market share in France.

The chief quality of Orangina is that it is made with 14% fruit, unlike the synthetic garbage Coca-Cola or Pepsi sell, e.g. Fanta. It is interesting to note that in Italy, all fruit sodas are required by law to have at least 12.5% fruit content, so even Fanta is actually drinkable there.

One Italian resident who was a fan of Orangina is Mgr Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict XVI. At the end of his day’s work, prior to being elevated as Pope, he used to walk back home, stopping for the odd photo pose at the request of passing tourists, return to his apartment, enjoy a glass of Orangina and play Mozart on the piano for half an hour.

Between courses, I asked her to marry me. She said Yes. The only plausible explanation for this lapse in judgement is temporary insanity. I couldn’t be happier.

P.S. the ring is guaranteed to be De Beers-free and not a blood diamond, courtesy of the nice folks at Brilliant Earth, who by the greatest of coincidences are just across the street from my office.

Due to confidentiality reasons, I cannot give much more specifics, but Kefta was my first startup. I thought I would have mixed feelings letting it go (I am staying on board, of course, but in a different role now). That has not turned out to be the case, however. We started in 2000, a mere two months before the bottom fell out of the market, and managed not just to survive, but to recover and thrive. At the moment, I am too excited considering the possibilities to wax nostalgic. There might be a few bumps down the road for this blog as I now have to extricate my personal web presence from Kefta’s machines (my new hosting platform is a Solaris-powered Joyent accelerator).

Update (2007-05-16):

It seems I was acquired again. Once is good fortune, twice is negligence…

I carry the following in the pockets of my jacket:

• PalmOne Zire 72: far better ergonomics in practice than my previous Sony Clié UX50
• A pair of Maui Jim sunglasses (changed recently from a pair of Serengeti driver’s). The shades are polarized and mirrored to minimize glare, and have an incredibly flexible and lightweight “Flexon” nitinol memory-alloy frame. I got mine in bronze tinted glasses — they are also availabe in a darker neutral gray, but the warmer tint was more comfortable.
• A Sony-Ericsson T68i cell phone, somewhat dated but perfectly functional (this means a synchronized phone book thanks to iSync). It alsod provides my Zire 72 with Internet access via Bluetooth and GPRS.
• A PQI Intelligent Stick 256MB USB flash drive, small enough to fit in my wallet
• Three fountain pens in a leather case, a Montblanc Meisterstück (Aurora black ink), a Waterman Edson (Herbin Vert Pré green) and a S.T. Dupont (Private Reserve Naples blue).

My gadget bag is a Tumi expandable messenger bag. It holds:

• Contax T3: This diminutive 35mm film camera has a superlative Carl Zeiss 35mm f/2.8 Sonnar lens. Compact digital cameras are based on small sensors with high levels of electronic noise, and are totally unsuited to low-light shooting in available light.
• A Pedco Ultrapod mini folding tripod with a built-in ball head. Small and light, but quite versatile.
• Leica Trinovid BC 8×20 binoculars: these ultra-compact folding binoculars have excellent optics and can be used by eyeglass wearers thanks to their innovative fold-out eyecup design.
• A Moleskine pocket notebook
• An Edmund Optics Hastings triplet 10x folding magnifier, with high resolution and excellent achromatic correction.
• An Alumicolor pocket architect’s scale, metric, of course, and a self-winding tape measure.
• A Faber-Castell e-motion mechanical pencil: its thick 1.4mm lead makes it glide across paper and its cigar shape is very ergonomic.
• Surefire L1 LumaMax LED flashlight: I used to have mini Mag-Lites, but these flashlights, derived from military and law enforcement versions, have much more power (two beam intensities) and an even beam without dark spots. Ideal for reading. The only downside is they run off Lithium batteries, which can be hard to find (but Surefire will sell them to you in bulk at a significant discount).
• Apple iPod 15GB, with either Etymotic Research ER-4P or Bang & Olufsen earphones. The in-ear Etymotics offer significant passive noise suppression (ideal for airplane use) but are dangerous to use in environments where you need to hear some ambient noise for safety reasons, like when you are in the street. Ordinary earphones like those supplied with the iPod don’t stay put, the clip on the B&O ones will keep them in place. They also have excellent efficiency and sound quality.
• Böker Orion Ti-Carbone pocket knife. The Boy Scouts were started as an imperialist means of youth mass regimentation, much like the Nazi Hitlerjügend, Fascist Balilla or Soviet Komsomol. That does not make their motto “Be Prepared” less apt, and a pocket knife is always handy. While at it, why not get a good looking one like this carbon-fiber and anodized titanium-aluminum alloy one? Just remember to take it out before a flight…
• A Socket Bluetooth GPS receiver. This tiny gizmo (smaller than my T68i) has a rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery and will last over 6 hours on a charge. Combined with the free Cetus GPS software for PalmOS, it makes a decent handheld combo that can still be used with a phone. I have yet to look closely at navigation software for the Palm.

Update (2004-09-30):

Somebody at Gizmodo clearly has a sense of humor…

Update (2005-07-10):

I have altered my standard gadget bag configuration. The messenger bag is wider than deep, and does not hug the hips well, not to mention the weight. I now use a Tumi expandable messenger bag (apparently discontinued). This bag is deeper than wide, which gives it a low center of gravity and improves handling. The flap with magnetic closures looks hip, but is in practice more of a hindrance than anything (you cannot put anything substantial in the flap otherwise it stiffens and does not snap shut any more), and I am considering getting a Waterfield Designs Vertigo instead. The bag’s liner for expansion acts as a form of padding, which is just great as I now pack either a Leica MP with a 50mm Summilux-M ASPH or a Canon Digital Rebel XT with a 35mm f/1.4L.

Many gadgets from the bigger bag did not make the cut. The Edmunds loupe, Surefire flashlight, Faber-Castell pencil did. The regular Moleskine was replaced by the thinner notebook with a soft cover. The iPod — well, the only time I ever use an iPod is during long flights

Using a weblog tool like Radio UserLand makes it possible to rebuild my web page on a limited time budget, plus the weblog format is actually more sensible for a personal home page.

Too bad Radio doesn’t support scp or WebDAV over SSL, though.

Fazal MAJID

Mobile phone:	+1 415 244-1337
Website:	www.majid.info/resume
Email:	fazal (at) majid (dot) org
	Printable version (US Letter PDF) ISO A4 PDF version

Profile

I am a successful entrepreneur and hands-on CTO with a proven track record in the competitive and time-driven Internet industry. I also have international experience in the Telecommunications and Networking fields. This background gives me a unique perspective across the entire application stack.

Skills

• Founding and growing startups
• Building and managing engineering teams
• Network architecture
• Scalable web architectures
• Telecommunications OSS and BSS architecture
• Expert in Python, C and JavaScript on UNIX platforms
• Extensive experience with client/server, grid and cloud technologies
• Project management
• I was granted two patents and have a third pending

Experience

Apsalar Inc.

Founder and CTO

As CTO, I am responsible for the architecture, implementation and operations of the Apsalar platform, and building a top-notch engineering team to develop it.

Acxiom Corp.

Architect (one of only a dozen or so senior architects within the firm)

I worked on the architecture for Acxiom’s next-generation multi-channel marketing platform, integrating the Kefta technology with Acxiom’s other online marketing channels. Some of the work covered scalable, yet ultra-low latency OLTP database technology for demanding online applications, where every millisecond counts.

Kefta Inc.

Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer

I started the company with two partners (both Harvard MBAs), as the founder with a technology background.

I recruited, managed and mentored the engineering team (14 engineers at peak)

I defined the technology vision and led its implementation, including much of the coding.

I was the technical face of the company on client pitches and public speaking engagements.

As a founder, I was ultimately responsible for getting things done. Just one example: after an unavoidable round of downsizing in 2003, I assumed the role of sole systems and database administrator until 2005.

I led the business’ reinvention several times to ensure its survival and renewal in the face of the dot-com nuclear winter of 2000-2004, one of the most challenging environments ever for technology startups.

I ran a tight ship and found ways to stretch our infrastructure dollars. One way to achieve that was insisting on performance optimization and efficiency.

EuroNet Internet BV

Technical Director, Operations Manager, deputy to the CEO and interim CIO.

I performed technical due diligence for France Telecom’s acquisition of the company in 1998, and stayed on to overhaul it.

I managed the core operations department with a 1999 budget of €5M in capital expenditures, €4.5M in operating expenses, and over 20 employees.

I upgraded the technical platforms (service, network and IS), reorganized operations and project management.

I limited post-acquisition turnover and recruited to stabilize the workforce, while shedding non-strategic activities such as custom web development.

I led the design of the long-term technical architecture for data services (IP and ATM) for all of France Telecom’s Dutch affiliates . The first phase was an ambitious IP over SDH network of Cisco 12000 and 7500 routers, spanning over 29 POPs in the Netherlands, with an initial capacity of 155 Mbps and scalability to 40 Gbps.

France Telecom Interactive (FTI)

Deputy to the Vice-President of Engineering. Acting as Chief Technology Officer for the division.

I designed Wanadoo‘s technical architecture to scale to 1 million subscribers and beyond by 1999, ran the RFPs and oversaw their implementation. This included the network architecture, the web portal and email services platform, the Business Support System (provisioning, billing and CRM) and the OSS. The first phase was completed in August 1997, the second in February 1999, when it served over 560.000 dialup, cable and ADSL subscribers. FT was still using the same basic architecture for over 5 million subscribers across all retail Internet services, as recently as 2007.

I set up much-needed QA and project management groups, to improve reliability, quality of service and reduce time to market for introducing new features.

Service d’Études Communes des Postes et Télécommunications (SEPT)

Project Manager

I led Project Mercure to produce a prototype ISP platform for FT with electronic commerce capabilities, as a successor to the legacy French Minitel system. The project was successfully completed, on time and within budget, in collaboration with Netscape Communications, with a total budget of €500K and a staff of 15 engineers. The payment feature was patented and later commercialized in Wanadoo. It was generating well over €2M in yearly revenues by 2002.

Education

Télécom Paris (French National Higher Institute for Telecommunications)

MS in Telecommunications Engineering

Telecom ParisTech is one of France’s leading graduate engineering schools and is considered the school in the field of IT.

Yale University Mathematics Department

Research Assistant

I investigated noise reduction using wavelet packet analysis, leading to an international publication and a scientific software package. My research was awarded first prize for Mathematics in 1992 by the École Polytechnique.

École Polytechnique

MS in Mathematics and Computer Science

The top French engineering institute or “Grande École”. It has trained France’s scientific and industrial elite and the upper echelons of its civil and military services since its inception, and it continues to do so today. Of the fifty most important corporations in France, nearly half are headed by a polytechnicien.

Skills detail

Technical skills

• Python, Python C extension modules, Pyrex
• Tcl/Tk, Tcl C extensions and embedding
• PHP, Cheetah, Freemarker, Zope
• C, C++, Java
• HTML, CSS, HTTP, JavaScript, AJAX, Comet, DOM, XML, JSON, RSS, WebDAV, Postscript
• iOS and Android mobile app development
• Oracle SQL, PL/SQL, Pro*C, OCI and JDBC
• PostgreSQL, PL/pgsql, PL/proxy and writing C extensions for PostgreSQL
• MySQL, SQLite
• Performance optimization and application tuning
• Apache, nginx, NSAPI and AOLserver extension programming
• CGI, FastCGI
• Solaris, OS X and Linux systems administration
• UNIX systems and network programming
• Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Sybase and SQL Server DBA
• CORBA, REST, AMQP, XML-RPC
• X11/Athena and Motif, OS X Quartz and Cocoa
• WordPress extensions and themes, MoinMoin, TWiki
• Microsoft Project, including VBA extensions
• RCS, CVS, Subversion, Mercurial
• Memcached, Postfix, Dovecot, Cyrus, BIND, DJBDNS, Unbound, SAMBA admin
• Cisco IOS, SNMP, NetFlow, MRTG, Cacti
• VMware, Xen, Solaris 10 Zones, Parallels and VirtualBox
• Amazon EC2 and AWS
• Photoshop, InDesign, Lightroom

International exposure

• 2000–Present: San Francisco, California, USA
• 1999–2000: Amsterdam, Netherlands
• 1992, 1993: New Haven, Connecticut, USA
• 1982–1985: Tokyo, Japan
• 1981: London, England
• 1978–1980: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia