As was my original goal, I have tried to bring the company as close as possible to Silicon Valley tech company ideals that is still possible within the constraints of the battles and landscape dynamics in Southeast Asia. However, starting a few years ago, the battle starts to show trends towards being more commercially-driven than innovation-driven, predatory than productive, perception-oriented than fundamentals-oriented. While one can argue it might be a necessary stage (debatable) in SE Asia tech landscape, I gradually realized that this game is no longer for me, and among other reasons, the consideration for an out-of-band exit becomes more appealing.

With the full support of my co-founders and investors, after a long negotiation process finally we agreed in all aspects on my clean break from Traveloka, and the end of 2018 turns out to be the perfect time for this. First, Traveloka has been undergoing a gear change for a while to focus more on business and commercial expansion, and the technological transformation job and charter setting for new capabilities are pretty much done. Second, starting almost 2 years ago I have ensured Traveloka has strong technological, organizational foundations built for scale and sustainability, and put in place a solid senior team that can take them forward, although I haven’t successfully hired my own successor (but it’s less of a worry). Third, Traveloka’s future runway is secured with a concurrent financing round from a mix of old and new investors. Fourth, I have reached a level of conviction and readiness to start my next chapter in career and life.

A solid transition plan is in place where the current engineering and data organization is restructured to allow for continuity under a small committee of existing senior tech leaders, at least initially in the current absence of a successor to CTO role. Given the strong infrastructure and institutions we have, there shouldn’t be much risk to the company’s continuity. By end of December, I will no longer represent Traveloka in any way and I will be indifferent and detached from any future company directions, strategies, company culture. I still care about improving lives in Southeast Asia in general, but I have my own theory on how to best do that.

This almost 7-year journey in Indonesia taught me a few things. I learned that complex landscape dynamics and incentives shape the games we play, and consequently the necessary strategies. I learned a lot of war-time skills to operate in hostile and low trust environment, something I never learned in my previous chapter in the US. I also learned that I am an idealist with a strong value boundary that I will allow no one to violate. And we can’t control the strategies needed to play the game if the rules of the game are already set, but we can choose the game we play. Choices are often not clearly right or wrong, and are instead based on tradeoffs. To each one’s own.

Freedom doesn’t give you the life you want. Freedom only allows you to pursue it.

I’m excited for the newfound freedom that will allow me to refocus on spending more time and investing in what I love, people I care about, the mission I feel called to do, new things to learn, and my holistic health in general. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with old and new friends, networks, partners, personally and professionally across two continents over the next few months.

I’ve also been yearning to develop technology to help fundamentally transform society, and I’m grateful for the privilege to have the freedom and acquired preparation to start out something that is more aligned with my ideals. We’ll do exactly this: using technology to help solve trust deficit problem in today’s society by employing insights from cognitive systems and mechanism design. It’s going to be another long journey that needs to be started from zero and paced with deliberation and resolve, and this time I’m not going to compromise any of my ideals and will invest in the right foundation. Stay tuned and will keep you updated!

I’m glad that we have finally reached this milestone where I believe it’s a win-win for everyone involved. Thank you for all current and past team members, partners, investors, supporters, that have helped us reach this point. I wish my co-founders Ferry, Albert, and the rest of Traveloka team the best for the next stages of the journey ahead. I still maintain good relationships with people inside Traveloka and in the ecosystem, and will be available for anyone to reach out to help with anything.

See you again in the new chapter!

See also the official press release: https://press.traveloka.com/departure-cto/