Don't ask me if Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

“I come back to you now at the turn of the tide”
Gandalf – The Lord of The Rings : The Two Towers.

So, it’s that time of year. A time for everyone to get together, spend time with loved ones and have a bit of a laugh. Christmas really is great. I love it! My favourite family tradition is that we all get around the TV at 7pm on Christmas Eve, Hot Chocolate at the ready and Muppet Christmas Carol on the TV. Everyone knows the songs and the joy of singing “We’re Marley and Marley” together has carried through the Burns household since my bairns were wee. Making scary faces, and singing “wooooooooooo” as the ghosts rattle their chains is unorthodox perhaps at this time of year, but I count my blessings every year as the kids guzzle down their Hot Chocolate with massive smiles on their faces.

I once read a review of Muppets Christmas Carol and Muppets Treasure Island, two cracking family movies, that said they work so well as films because in MCC, Michael Caine treats the Muppets like real actors whereas in MTI, Tim Curry play’s his role as if he is one of the Muppets. I love that. As a neurodiverse person I often wonder if I am taking the Michael Caine or Tim Curry approach in the real world. Maybe it's a bit of both.

The good thing about being freelance at this time of year is that no-one in work asks me if Die Hard is a Christmas movie. People that should be the least of our questions about Christmas movies. Honestly! Christmas movies are a weird thing these days. There are channels devoted to cheap, saccharine Christmas movies that I can only imagine are the modern equivalent of an old Mills and Boone novel. They usually have the plot of a busy businesswoman or the Princess of an imaginary European nation being stranded in small town USA or the Scottish Highlands (don’t get me started) and learning to love with the power of Christmas and a hunky chap who does some kind of trade with his hands. Bonus points if he is widowed and building a house for him and his daughter. Don't believe me, go check out the tv channels on Freeview or Sky.

There is never a movie about a couple bonding over a JavaScript PR code review is there? I'd love to see the next movie be called Love Actually Compiles or The Git Pull That Saved Christmas.

Anyway – the real question is this……is Gremlins a Christmas movie? The answer is yes. 😄

It’s a kind of mindfulness for the middle aged engineer

If you’re like me, you maybe go through an end of the year pressure release. The moment when all that pressure and stress of the year you have had to plough through to just survive needs to be dealt with mentally.

For me this always results in me being a bit melancholy between Christmas and New Year. The kids have their presents, everyone else is content and I can look back on everything that has happened and process it in the only way I know how. The silent grumpy reflection of an aging man. I’m not sad, just processing. Thankfully it normally doesn’t last long, year dependant of course, and I’m back at it. It’s a yearly tradition I need to go through though. I used to think this was a problem but as I get older, I realise it’s pretty healthy. It’s a kind of mindfulness for the middle aged engineer. A Zen palace for tired minds. I thought I’d write this blog post as, let’s face it it’s been a while and, it would help cleanse the mental palate a little.

So, what a year it has been. I have learned a lot. Top notes? Don’t take on jobs you have never done before. It’s better to know when to shut down a project rather than keep it alive on self-belief. AI is pretty cool when used with wisdom.

I started the year coming out of Founder Labs at Ormeau Baths, saying goodbye to Cohort 2 and returning to the world of being part of someone else’s show. It’s great to see how Ian, Orla and the effervescent Gary have taken the Founder Labs program from strength to strength. It’s also great to see businesses from the previous cohorts do so well. Tip of the cap especially to the Farm Drive lads who are two of the nicest chaps you will ever meet with a great startup. I also am a big fan of Mark O’Neill at Trade Harmonizer. We have a history Mark and I, and I have the deepest respect for how he has bounced back and built a fantastic business. There are loads more of course but those two stick out at present.

One thing I did want to say was a massive well done to my former co-founders, Jack and Kevan, who have worked hard to build a new business in CapRelease. They bounced right back from Selazar and started this new project. Over the last two years have been building something special. I am so, so, so proud of them. They are great chaps and I am delighted to see them do so well after everything we went through.

I shut down my project, Foundry Fuel, in March. I had great ambitions for it and really thought there was a place in the market for it. I still do. I loved building it from scratch with no AI and really enjoyed trialling it. It did help people as well. A couple of founders met technical people through it and I am delighted. For me though I just found myself in a world I had ambitions for but didn’t know or like. Not founders of course but recruitment. Recruiters take a lot of criticism but it’s a cutthroat world and in this increasing environment of AI powered recruitment, fake CVs and slop job posts, they are more essential than ever. We should give them a bit more love. Anyway, I shut Foundry Fuel down but most importantly I learned to love code again.

I left Founder Labs to go to Cloudsmith, another massive local success story, and I have spoken about my time at Cloudsmith before on LinkedIn. There really are some amazing people there, too many to mention, and I won’t go over it again suffice to say a special shout out to Alan, Lee, Joanna and Lauren who are fantastic. Thanks.

Thanks also to everyone who reached out to me with support following my exit there. I was so humbled that so many people took the time to say so many nice and supportive things as, considering everything I have experienced over the last few years, it meant so much to not feel alone.

So what else? Well I started a new AI meetup back in the autumn that had a sold-out turnout for it’s first session. I really wanted to set up something for the AI community locally which didn’t focus just on tech but also got away from the shallow, carpetbagging that seems to be around now. It sometimes feels like the Millennium Bug all over again when you read posts on LinkedIn. I was delighted with that session but haven’t had time to follow up with the next session as quickly as I would have liked.

I built some great personal projects in AI tech. I built an app for generating Epics, User Stories and Tasks in Jira from a recorded web meetings. I built a RAG document processor using Pinecone and Bedrock, an MCP server and a few other tasty little prototypes while exploring a side project I am working on in the background.

I did some consultancy work, helping a tech company examine its development processes and give them ways to get it back on track. It was fantastic fun, stretching those leadership and strategy muscles again and reminding myself what I am good at.

I got back to my home town in Scotland for the first time in five years and it felt great. Sure it was cold, wet and grey but hey, it’s Scotland in winter. I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s important to connect with your roots though. It helps galvanise your journey.

So the overall outcome is pretty mixed. Ups and downs, swings and roundabouts, motorways and dead ends but generally pretty much ok. Overall though it’s all part of the journey and the adventure is what keeps me going. One thing I can definitely say is that I am healed from my horrible experience in start-up land. It's taken two years but I know what I do, I love what I do and I know what I don’t do. I’m a better person for the experience and have learned so much in the process. I have a new professional thing starting in the New Year which I am really excited about as well but will save details of that for a later date.

I’m excited about what 2026 has is store and I hope you all are as well because there is so much to look forward to. Scotland are in a football World Cup. Who saw that coming? The original Star Wars (77) prints are being re-released in cinemas so my kids can finally see the real Star Wars on the big screen. The next AI Meetup is early next year (yes, I am working on it) and we’re going to see everything get so much better. Let’s hope we can see some peace and stability in global events, see the economy get better and watch everyone get some positivity and joy back.

On one final note it’s also a time to remember those we have lost and those who are alone and reach out to them and offer support. So, if you do know anyone, even if it’s old Agnes across the street that lost her husband this year, maybe just check in on her and make sure she’s ok. Wish her a Happy Christmas and reminder her that people are around. Just saying “Hello” can make a massive difference.

I hope you all had a good year, and you had more wins than losses. I hope you are growing and learning and keeping it going, whatever your thing is. As I used to say to the new founders I worked with.

“Success in startup land isn’t piles of cash, VC money or big exits. it’s just keeping whatever you’re working on alive”.

We’ve got this, see you in 2026

Gareth