This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Joseph Landes, the 53-year-old cofounder of Nerdio in Orlando. It has been edited for length and clarity. I worked at Microsoft for 23 years, holding many job titles, but when I left in 2018 to start my own company, I was the general manager of marketing and operations in Brazil. I met my now cofounder, Vadim Vladimirskiy, at the Microsoft Inspire conference. As we got to know each other, we realized we wanted to start a company together. In