the Darth Vader

It all started from a regular March morning in Chicago, 2007, where you and I met for the first time in person. You explained to me this idea you had when watching star war movies on your living room sofa. I listened for 10 minutes, couldn’t figure out what you were talking, I was like: my god, am I stupid or is he too smart? It turned out both are true. To be fair for me though, it is hard not to constantly question your own IQ when you are next to Jon.        

Jon is, hands down, the smartest person I know. His brain is wired differently, he thinks unlike anyone of us, our minds travel one step at a time, his brain jumps 5 steps at once, and, handles many aspects in parallel. It benefits FreeWheel so much, got us where we are, it also bothers those of us who scramble to follow his thought process. It is in that Jersey City apartment of mine, eleven years ago, Jon, Michael and I drew the first version of MRM architecture together that still bothers many of you today. ;-)  

Jon always has an opinion, about, well, just about everything. In the early date, Doug walks around with a notebook, a notebook where he records all of the “jon-nism”, to be shared, re-read later on so that we can fully understand the gist of them. Jon would create gazillion in light speed that you couldn’t even finish reading them, let alone responding. I am sure many of us had that firsthand experience where our weekend was ruined because Jon was in his mood of "jon-nism" creation that our speed of reading couldn't even keep up with the speed of his emails coming in... 

Jon has this amazing intuition and predictability of future trends, always a few years ahead of everyone else. So, if anything he said hasn’t come true yet, be patient, the world will eventually catch up with where Jon is. J  

Jon, without you, there is no FreeWheel. You are so unique, that I think you must have come from stars wars yourself. It is only after Jon met Linda, we start to see more human side of him, and I finally start to believe this is not all a dream.  

I am so privileged to partner with you, I am so fortunate to have many years of your time making me smarter and stronger. I hope I am finally matching up to be a partner you respect.

In today’s turbulent market, I know we will miss your "jon-nism" version of how things make sense for the future. Thank god we can still call and pick your brain, thank god you will still be there watching our moves, calling out our faults, embarrassing us when we are being dumb.  May your wisdom still available, and guide us to navigate toward the future.

Love from all of us,

Diane