#51: Working in Tech vs Movie Business

<p> To stay up to date checkout <a href="thestartupproject.io">⁠thestartupproject.io⁠</a> &amp; follow Nataraj on twitter: @natarajsindam In this episode Nataraj spoke to Marius Ciocirlan who co-founded ShareGrid, a marketplace for filmmakers and photographers to rent and sell their equipment. It was <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2022/freelancer-marketplace-backstage-acquires-seattle-content-creation-gear-rental-startup-sharegrid/">⁠acquired⁠</a> by Backstage and is now Managing Director of Techstars Seattle. Techstars expanded to Seattle in 2010, and since then more than 130 companies have gone through the program &amp; collectively gone on to raise more than $2.5 billion in capital.  <strong>Full Transcript:</strong></p> <p>[00:00:00] So I was like, you know, working on Samsung, making videos and then also like working on sets, like reality TV shows and stuff like that, while at the same time doing a startup and. Uh, learning UX design. So I had to make a decision. I couldn&#39;t do both. And the reason I decided to go into tech, I remember having this kind of conversation with my significant other, is that in film it&#39;s a very traditional career path, meaning, In order to become a cinematographer or a director or a producer, you have to pay your dues.</p> <p>[00:00:35] Like there is very strict rules about what certain people could do on a set and what they can&#39;t do, like. I&#39;ve been told in my position as a production assistant was like, you are not allowed to move that equipment. You&#39;re not allowed to move that chair because the union, you don&#39;t belong to that union.</p> <p>[00:00:53] So it&#39;s actually like a safety regulation or. It was a very traditional kind of [00:01:00] career path, and I realized that like I was not going to reach my dream of becoming a cinematographer or director well into my forties, probably fifties, and it was gonna take a long time where in tech it was actually the complete opposite.</p> <p>[00:01:18] The younger you were, the more respect you got and al