A new chapter in Pafos
I am back in Pafos, Cyprus.
Wait … what? Where? Rewind.
Back in 2019, Britain was brexiting, and the withdrawal agreement hasn’t yet been sign. I came to Paphos with the Dataswyft 2G team (2nd generation as the team refers to it now) for a team sprint.
I loved the island. What’s to love? As an ex British colony, they:
Drove on the “familiar” side of the road
3-pin plugs
British laws, European culture, Greek temperament (which is uncannily like a Chinese temperament)
Everyone has a few businesses, or is generally a hustler (feels like I’m back in my hometown, Johor Baru in Malaysia, as I blogged about that on Crunchbase)
Amazing people (everyone seems to have gotten their degrees in Britain – the HR index is the same as Finland). Everyone is so educated and qualified… and yet…
Have a real laid back, islander attitude which generally either drove you crazy because of the speed at which things moved, or you forgive it because the weather is great so no one is in a hurry anyway.
Great weather and a rich history. I mean, north is Europe, east is Asia and south is Africa. This was the cross roads of markets for thousands of years and as a market design person who also love history and archaeology, Cyprus had depth.
But in 2019, my motivation was simpler. I was upset about Brexit. I came to Britain to be European so I felt I was being robbed of my identity.
I asked what it took to be a Cypriot resident. As it turns out, it wasn’t hard and a month later, I was an EU citizen again!
Within a year, covid hit and I didn’t return for 4 years.
2023 August and I’ve now left the U.K. to grow my business globally. Cyprus is almost midway between Asia and the U.K. and it’s my new home. There are other geo-political aspects to my choice of a home but I’ll blog about it later. I haven’t been writing for awhile so I thought I’ll start again. Follow this blog if you’re interested but health warning, it’s a weird confluence of personal life, markets, digital and geo-political stuff.
No, I’m not a Russian Oligarch or a Chinese HNW looking for a tax sanctuary. I’m just an entrepreneur and an academic that found this island rather fascinating. And decided to stay here for a bit because I can.
