On Going Nomad

Jeff Jonas
2 min readJan 1, 2019
That Rock

Over a 45 day period I got rid of almost everything I owned. I’m now a nomadic CEO, running my company from wherever I need or want to be. It all began when I realized I had boxes of stuff under my bed and in the garage that I would probably never open again. And clothes in my closet I’ve owned for years, even decades, and most certainly will never wear again. With this realization I instantly felt disgusted with myself.

I reduced my possessions to under 200 pounds.

My 60-plus Ironman finisher triathlon medals are gone. All my keepsakes, except for three framed items, are gone. Books are gone. Furniture is gone. I don’t have a vehicle or a storage unit.

My empty house in Venice, CA is for sale.

Since Aug 23, 2018 I’ve had no bed I call my own. I’ve been staying in hotels, co-live/co-work facilities or with friends. My 81 pounds of clothes live in a DUFL warehouse and are selectively FedExed to me as needed.

The hardest item for me to discard was a small rock I found as a child. I must have been somewhere between 8 and 11 years old when I found it. It was the shape of a perfect throwing stone. I imagined someday I would throw it at someone in self-defense to save a life, maybe my own. This small rock was the only thing I found as a kid and kept my whole life.

It’s January 1, 2019 and I have nothing in this world that is rusting, leaking or scraped. No plants in the yard I keep forgetting to tell the gardener about. Nothing that needs pointless maintenance, cleaning or dusting month after month. I am now utterly unencumbered from these mundane energy sucks and free to focus on building my company, Senzing, and deepening relationships with friends and family.

My plan is to live in various major cities for a few months each. Places where I have business to conduct and friendships to deepen.

I’ll be in full nomad mode until I decide to stop. I don’t know enough yet to commit to this lifestyle forever.

[One caveat: I still have my boat.]

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Jeff Jonas

Jeff Jonas is founder and CEO of Senzing. Prior to Senzing, Jonas served as IBM Fellow and Chief Scientist of Context Computing.