Recently I was summoned to DC for discussions with Senate and House of Representative offices and the Pentagon about the semiconductor crisis of the early 2020s. Before I entered the first office was a plaque at the entrance that read “Former Senate office of Barak Obama, President of the United States”. And then there I sat at the mahogany conference table where policies of the country were conjured up the decade before. These were hallowed grounds.
That day I got to see politics play out before my eyes. It reeked of personal agendas and misuse of taxpayer money. The Virginia Senator office could only give us fifteen minutes huddled around a tiny table because of a flight to the United Nations to catch. Ultimately, politics is all about hallway side deals, as our lobbyist smirked “often the fruitful discussions are the stand-up ones in the corridors”.
In the afternoon we got notice that our meeting at the Pentagon would now be held in the lobbyist office – a marvelously architected marble building owned by a law firm in a layout and culture mimicking Suits.
The senior level representatives from the Pentagon arrived at 1:59PM. And in a room full of C-suite executives with sharp suits and bipartisan ties walks one man. A short, stubby, undergroomed old man with white fluffy hair with a remarkable resemblance to the man from Up, minus balloons. “Don’t mind if I don’t wear a jacket, do you”? were his first words as he proceeded to shuffle off his worn backpack and jacket.
He was a physicist from the Navy detailed to the Department of Defense to coordinate a taskforce for semiconductors. He came across as friendly but stern. After thirty minutes it was clear that he was party to a Top-Secret priority, and we were being ghosted. Later that day it was published by Politico about a suspicious redirection of congress CHIPS Act funding.
I was sitting at important tables, and I was giving input to important discussions, and somehow, I was in the middle of a highly political situation. My formula for career success was in action.