March 20, 2014

There were 3 posts published on March 20, 2014 (this is page 1 of 1).

McCrory thinks taxes stifle startups

Gov. McCrory just came back from Silicon Valley with supposed tips about how to foster startups.

Says the Governor:

“Our tax code is not conducive to the first-round investors for venture capital, for high-risk, first-round investors,” he says. “If they make an investment, they often move (the startup) to a no-tax state, with the profits. That means we lose that money and we lose that sweat equity. We want that money to be reinvested in North Carolina.”

Oh really? Venture capitalists are seriously going to uproot the founders of their investments and risk losing them just so they can save a few bucks on their taxes? I have been deeply involved in startups for over 20 years and I have never heard of this happening to a North Carolina startup.
Continue reading →

Landed!

The good news is that I found a job that’s closer than Belgium. I’ve accepted a position as a Senior Systems Engineer at a large legal database company that’s recently set up shop on N.C. State’s Centennial Campus. My goal is to make the company’s SaaS platform as rock-solid stable as I can. I start March 31st and I’m quite excited about the opportunity.

Work local?

Got this email in last night and it really underscored just how off-target some of the job opportunities that have come my way really are:

From: diceletter at dice.com
Subject: NATO Windows Systems Engineer – Mons, Belgium
To: Mark Turner

Hi Mark,

I scanned through your resume and thought you may be a fit for one of our open positions NATO in Mons, Belgium

The System Engineer will require experienced IT security professionals to be part of this leading edge capability for Cyber Defence. Working as part of an incident management team you would be part of the operational support at the sharp end of the NATO Computer Incident Response Centre (NCIRC).

This role entails 220 work days a year and a 7.6 hour workday. Plenty of time to see Europe – and hour drive from Paris and Germany. You get 25 paid days of vacation a year (five weeks) plus 16 additional paid holidays ? that?s 41 paid days off to explore Europe

You can find more information and apply online via the following link if interested:
Please visit
Continue reading →