Time & Perspective Quote by Wietse Venema

Venema’s line reads like modest logistics, but it’s really a manifesto for how serious technical work gets done: by treating time as both scarce and dangerous. Six months in a place like IBM isn’t a sabbatical vibe; it’s a high-bandwidth collision with other smart people, deadlines, and institutional gravity. His almost deadpan “so I came with a whole list” carries the subtext of someone who knows that research environments don’t reward open-ended wandering. They reward momentum.

The intent is pragmatic self-defense. A visiting scientist is a guest and an outsider at once, and a finite appointment can evaporate into meetings, demos, and polite intellectual tourism. Arriving with a portfolio of possible projects is Venema pre-empting that drift: if one idea stalls, politics change, or the local stack isn’t what you expected, you pivot without losing weeks. It’s contingency planning, the same mindset security people bring to threat models: assume things will go wrong; build options.

There’s also an understated flex here. Having “a whole list” implies not just productivity, but a disciplined curiosity - a readiness to ship, not just to speculate. In the context of IBM’s research culture (and Venema’s later reputation for practical, high-impact security engineering), this is the quiet opposite of the lone-genius myth. The romantic version of discovery is waiting for inspiration. Venema’s version is showing up prepared, letting the environment select the best problem, and refusing to waste the clock.