I'm not sure about the full details of starting the company, as my Australian business partners dealt with the paperwork.

I left because I didn't really feel like Australia was the place for me in the long run.

Up until that point I'd never imagined a place could be too relaxed for me, but I found that Australians were really too focused on short-term hedonism and not very interested in (or knowledgeable about) serious issues and in particular the outside world. Obviously this is a gross generalization and there are plenty of individual exceptions, but it was pervasive enough to make me feel like I'd be wasting my life there. Perfectly pleasant but it felt empty and ultimately somewhat dull.

It all depends on what you're after. I've come to realize that I'm happiest in a buzzing city rich with life and culture and history, and Australia doesn't have much of this. There's very little nightlife (other than clubs attracting people from a very narrow age band), and other than a decent indie music scene and some good comedy, what culture there is to be found is recently imported from other countries, where it's better experienced firsthand rather than in the dim shadows cast by immigrants from Asia and the Middle East who came to Australia because they wanted peace and quiet.

The biggest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, feel like large suburbs rather than like real cities. Sydney is gorgeous (except in the dismal terrace-house wastelands of the south and west) and Melbourne can be quaint, but world cities they're not and will never be, unless some future global cataclysm wipes out New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, Mexico City, Hong Kong, and many more.