IBR Memoirs

Last Saturday afternoon, I was listening Bruckner’s Symphony No.7 loudly in the maximum volume while driving to Suwon, the city of Fortress, south of Seoul. It was the old famous performance by Celibidache and Munchenphil, which I had liked so much once and picked up by chance from the CD shelf in the morning. Full of scales and power! The bright noon sunlight and the strong but chilly wind from open windows with this gloomy music made me a little bit down in minutes though this composure could not be proper one for an exciting wedding ceremony.

H, the bridegroom of the ceremony, was a quite closed ex-colleague in IBR, the Internet datacenter company, for which I’d worked for almost three years: from its near beginning to its very closing. Young ambitious guys had founded the company to build a high-performance mission-critical datacenter, that was quite a new concept at that time and responses from the initial market was not so bad. But the game was not easier than expected and failed to keep its business any more. It was in 2002 and IBR had stopped its three-year operation. The business was failed in a word.

The fact the business was failed was tedious in that I failed to meet my personal goals and in that fellows joined in the company had to have confusions in their life including me. But there were lessons, too, as in all the-so-called failures. Experiences on people, businesses, relationships and money flows were tremendous and became the not-vanished virtual assets which would be kept hopefully through the whole life. Those experiences gave me a view and basis for judgements, and helped to increase the intuition, the perceptions and the most importantly patience. A three-year investment in one's own golden age and these valuable virtues! Not a bad deal.

Some guys I met in the ceremony had their own successful business in the similar field or in a totally new field. Engineering guys were stilling working in the engineering field. I was sad, however, when I was told few had troubles and difficulties in their new business unfortunately. I believe time would solve the matters and they’ll be better in the near future.

The bridegroom H, the best guy of the day, looked so happy and cool and his wife was beautiful. I wish him congratulations and a happy-long-life. (But I'm not sure he has a plan for his new-house warm-up party :P )

Bruckner with the strong sunlight and the cold wind was still melancholic on my way back.