I helped found Shazam, now I write crime novels: Job hopping is a joy
Long gone are the days of life-long jobs and 30 year watches and thank goodness – job-hopping is a joy, writes Shazam-investor-turned-crime-bestseller-turned-play-director Ajay Chowdhury in today’s Notebook
From Shazam to crime novels, the joys of job hopping
My father worked for the same bank in India for 40 years. Over that same span in my own career, I have had a dozen full-time jobs and more than twenty directorships across technology, business and the arts. Dad would have been horrified. I am mostly horrified to realise I have now been working longer than he did. How did that happen?
For Dad, work was about providing for his family. Perhaps he enjoyed it, but enjoyment wasn’t ultimately important. For my generation, fortunate enough to have more choices, satisfaction and growth have mattered more than stability. We wanted a good living, but also a reason to look forward to Monday.
Looking back, my career seems less a ladder than a series of questionable diversions. Yet my compass always pointed towards creating something that didn’t exist before.
As a technology entrepreneur, I helped found Shazam and watched it grow from a notion in a nerdy pal’s head into a tool used by billions. It even became a verb. There are worse things to leave behind than a useful addition to the dictionary.
Now, writing novels and directing plays offer a different version of that pleasure. Something begins inside your head and eventually makes strangers laugh, shudder or sit in silence. Creating that journey, alone at a desk or alongside a cast, is a joy I keep pursuing.
Sometimes my worlds converge. In my latest thriller, Eden Falls, a tech trillionaire tries to weaponise AI. Finally, a chance to put my professional knowledge to criminal use.
My father might have found all this exhausting. He might also have asked about the pension. But I hope he would have recognised the satisfaction of building something, even if I kept changing what I was trying to build.
Rage against the machine
After almost 40 years in tech, AI is the most promising, and terrifying, development I’ve encountered. Jerry Falade’s debut crime novel reportedly attracted 14 bidding publishers and a $2m deal, before collapsing amid allegations of AI use, which he denies. Both possibilities keep me awake – either a writer’s career has been derailed by an unfounded accusation, or 14 publishers were ready to pay for a story told by a machine. I’m not sure which frightens me more. As a crime novelist, I’d rather the chilling twists stayed safely between the covers.
Pre-show jitters
Two weeks into rehearsals for the show I’m directing, Dog Mom at Southwark Playhouse, and panic is right on cue. The comedy follows a Brooklyn woman whose life changes when she takes in a stray. Mine is currently being changed by indigestion. Writing novels gives me control whereas directing means relying upon others to convey my vision of someone else’s story. In 10 days, we add an audience, who will laugh where we least expect and reveal things we’ve missed. That’s why I keep coming back, despite the collywobbles. Though I’d happily trade a little artistic revelation for one uninterrupted night’s sleep.
Backstage at the Tower
I had the honour of serving on the board of Historic Royal Palaces as Her Majesty, The Queen’s representative. The Tower of London was my favourite, so naturally I plotted a robbery there. In my first heist novel, The Patriot, a rogue historian plans to steal the Koh-i-Noor and return it to India. The curators kindly gave me ‘backstage’ access, but they can rest easy as the Jewel House security arrangements in the book are entirely products of my own imagination.
My favourite place to eat in London
One of my favourite London restaurants is Akash Tandoori on Edgware Road, which has fed both my homesickness and my imagination. When I arrived in London in the early eighties, good Indian food was hard to come by. Akash’s cooking never let me down, and its familiar flavours became my consolation whenever I missed home. And I still go there regularly for its lamb dhansak. In fact, I like it so much it found its way into my crime novels. Relocated in fiction to Brick Lane, it became the model for Tandoori Knights, where my detective, Kamil Rahman in The Waiter, licks his wounds after being thrown out of the Kolkata Police for corruption. I went there seeking comfort, but Kamil arrived with rather more baggage.