I had to leave the CTO gathering early to make a date.
Before that, the evening had been a very good start. FinTech Collective brought technology leaders from its portfolio together in New York to talk tech and mingle. I liked the group, liked the venue, and wanted the conversation to continue after everybody went home.
My thank-you note included a request: could the hosts connect all of the attendees by email?
The event was useful because the people in the room were doing similar jobs inside different companies. We all had our own product, team, data, and hiring problems. Getting the group together created a place to compare what we were seeing without turning it into a formal conference.
I had been kicking around a loose consultancy network for some of the same reasons. I wanted more ways to meet people building small companies, share technical and organizational experience, and stay connected beyond one employer. The CTO night was not that business idea, but it showed the value of the network around the work.
Reonomy was also starting to put its data into more places. The day before, I had outlined a small ownership integration for Salesforce. Other CTOs had their own versions of that work. Those were the conversations I wanted more of.
The hosts said this would be the first of more gatherings and agreed to circulate the attendee list. That was all I needed from the follow-up.
I apologized for missing somebody at the end, sent my regards to another person, and explained the abrupt exit. Tech night was good. The date was already waiting.