KEY POINTS:
You're 43, number two in a Nasdaq-100 company with a market capitalisation of US$4.3 billion ($9 billion), salary and stock options to suit, a home in southern California's swoonfully affluent Orange County and a vacation pad near the beach in Florida.
What's your next career move?
If you are Mark Edwards, it's partnership in New Zealand venture capital firm No 8 Ventures - a big noter locally but in American terms a blip that would struggle even to make it on to the industry's radar screen.
The firm has fully invested its initial fund of $27 million and has begun raising between $30 million and $50 million for its second fund, focused like the first on local technology companies with the potential to make it big internationally.
Edwards knows what that takes.
For the past six years he has worked for the storage area network firm QLogic - most recently as senior vice-president, technology and planning - and has spent 20 years in sales and marketing positions in the high-tech industry, with the likes of Unisys, DEC and Zitel.
At QLogic - which employs 700 staff and last year boasted a profit of US$71 million on revenue of US$350 million - he spearheaded the firm's acquisitions work, taking on a role akin to that of a venture capitalist.
"I enjoyed what I was doing, got really interested in start-ups, even did some personal investing."
Climbing the final rung at QLogic wasn't an option - his boss wasn't going anywhere - so it was goodbye to US corporate life and hello to venture capitalism.
But New Zealand?
Enter that old campaigner, serendipity.
Edwards and wife Susan have visited New Zealand several times, catching up with his brother, who works for an Auckland telco and settled permanently here with his Kiwi wife six years ago.
They liked what they saw of the lifestyle.
Edwards says he always knew there was good technology here, stemming from the early 80s when he worked for a company that sold the Linc-based systems developed by Sir Gil Simpson.
It was Sir Gil - these days readying his Jade Software for a stock exchange listing next year - who pointed Edwards in the direction of New Zealand-born business professor David Teece, who in March hosted the Kiwi Expat Association's inaugural meeting in San Francisco.
Edwards met a heap of Kiwis there and found out that No 8's co-founders Jenny Morel and Peter Allport had been looking for a third partner for about a year.
Edwards, born in Kent but US-based for 18 of the past 21 years, grew up on what eventually became a chicken farm. It wasn't for him, but he says he's transferred his farmboy ethos to the high-tech sector.
Hence moving to the North Shore is no semi-retirement play, motivated by a desire to hone the golf game or sail the Waitemata.
Although he cites more opportunity for a balanced life here, he says he simply "loves work".
He names Stephen Tindall as a great role model for investors looking to make a difference.
"He has set the tone. I don't have his money, but I do have time to do the coaching and mentoring needed. I would love New Zealand to be a vibrant place."
Edwards says many American venture capitalists got themselves and their investors into trouble in recent years by investing too much money in too many companies. Not enough care was taken with their investments, not enough ongoing mentoring and management advice was provided to their investee companies.
"It became a race to win deals, and that's not what it should be about."
The dot.com blowup was an inevitable wake-up call.
Now American VC firms are cutting back, trimming their portfolios and their partnerships, returning to the established model where care is as important as capital.
Edwards says that's akin to the No 8 model, where a lot of experience and expertise wrapped around relatively small amounts of capital can take investee companies a long way.
Although he's already sold his California home and bought a place in Takapuna, Edwards will be spending the next few months fund-raising for No 8 in the US before settling here permanently in the spring.
He plans to target personal investors, in particular Kiwi expats.
No 8 is one of six firms chosen last month to co-invest with the Government in its Venture Investment Fund, from which it can expect up to $20 million towards the new fund.
However much No 8 raises, Edwards maintains there's no shortage of good places to put the money.
No 8's first fund considered more than 400 proposals before deciding on nine, and Morel & Co, the boutique investment bank loosely associated with No 8, tracks more than 2200 local technology companies.
"I've talked to a lot of American venture capitalists who've invested in European companies and brought them to market in the US," explains Edwards.
"They say they make more money off their non-US companies, because their valuations at initial investment are lower and because the companies are more specialised and give greater returns when they come to market."
That's not to say New Zealand companies sell themselves short when they trade equity for outside capital - it's just a fact of life for companies in markets smaller than the US that are courted by fewer investors.
And clearly, the best way to keep wealth in New Zealand is to invest as early as possible, before local companies have established themselves on the world stage.
Software companies are again destined to feature prominently in No 8's portfolio, although other areas of interest include biotechnology, graphics and communications.
Edwards has few good things to say about our tax system, particularly the treatment of research and development spending and the lack of incentives for overseas investment.
He says he has had to spend more time than he would like sorting out tax issues associated with unwinding those generous QLogic stock options.