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2 hours ago
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I don't know where to post this, but I'm feeling nostalgic because I moved away from the Bay Area 5 years ago and miss living there (I do visit fairly regularly to see friends and my family but it isn't the same as living there).
Silicon Valley Moment #1: In 2002 I went to lunch with a friend I met in college. I thought we were catching up and having food, she asked me to "partner up" and do a startup. I have no idea at all why I said "yes", but I did and we started a company to "block email spam" together. It was practically a religious calling to me. I was so angry at email spammers and wanted to fight back. We made a little money, enough to fund the next company without VC funds...
Slight background: Around 2007/2008 I helped form the next startup company (I'm a programmer) that was based out of my dive 1 bedroom apartment to save money. This is what my living room looked like with cubicle walls in 2008 (this is a 1 bedroom apartment): https://www.ski-epic.com/backblazetimeline/p22b_2008_02_01_gromit_in_office.jpg Super shoestring in that none of us drew salaries type of a startup.
My dive 1 bedroom apartment (425A Forest Ave, Palo Alto) was about 3 blocks from the original "Hewlett-Packard Garage" (367 Addison Avenue, Palo Alto) which has a plaque explaining it is the start of "Silicon Valley" and the reason it is called a "Garage Startup" is because of the HP garage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Garage
So Silicon Valley Moment #2: So as I'm walking back from lunch to the startup in Palo Alto in 2008, my next door neighbor asks, "Hey, are you guys doing a startup in there?" I kind of panicked and was worried he might get us kicked out and responded, "Yes, but are we loud? We can keep it down if it is bothering you." My neighbor breaks out in a huge smile and says, "No man, it's totally cool, I work at Yahoo, if you need any help just let me know."
I cannot explain to you how few locations in the world that exchange would have occurred. First, my friggin next door neighbor actually understood just from watching people come and go WHAT was going on. Second, he offered help and support. Where on earth does THAT occur other than the San Francisco Bay Area?
Silicon Valley Moment #3: My wife and I met at a startup in 1999 that failed and I was basically broke and homeless afterwards (really I lived on a boat I owned, I just like saying I was "homeless"). One of the people that worked at that startup at the same time my wife and I met was Chris Kelly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Kelly_(entrepreneur) This was early in Chris's career and he wasn't famous (at all) when we worked with Chris. Chris eventually because Chief Privacy Officer at Facebook a very long time (DECADES) after my wife and I knew him. To be totally clear we had NOTHING to do with Chris's fame and eventual wealth. So one time my wife and I were taking a small propeller airplane flight with my elderly 85 year old father for a few hundred dollars (long story of why deleted) out of the Palo Alto municipal airport. As I walked up to their little waiting area building I looked inside and saw Chris! I excitedly said out loud, "Darling, it's Chris Kelly!" and barged inside. Chris's private pilots/staff freaked out and ran towards me to block me, but Chris smiled this huge smile and came forward and we shook hands and the pilots/staff relaxed realizing we actually knew each other from "25 years earlier". I thought it was funny.
When you spend 35 years working in Silicon Valley, you end up knowing and working with a few people that get famous long after you work with them. I think my biggest claim of brushing elbows with a "future" famous person is I have hot-tubbed with Reid Hastings (founder of Netflix) several decades before anybody would recognize Reid's name. Here is my connection to Reid: My brother's roommate in college bought a house 50/50 with Reid in La Honda (maybe back in 1988?) because they were both entry level programmers and that meant they could afford a nicer house as roommates. LOL. I love that.
Randomly, before he started Netflix, Reid started a company called "Pure Software" which was programmer tools. Because I'm a total moron, I sent Reid an email when Reid formed "Pure Software" where I told him he was absolutely nuts and should not do it, (Reid make a ton of money from Pure Software and I personally ended up using Pure Software's tools as a programmer and the tools were very useful, thus I'm a dumbass and nobody should ever take my investment advice).
I heard about Netflix from the TV on a Saturday morning. I spit out my coffee in my living room when the local news channel did a story about Netflix and there was Reid giving an interview. Back then it was just "mail order DVDs". Within a year I was a subscriber (maybe the year 2001?). Then 6 years later Netflix started streaming and it went absolutely non-linear from that point.
For the record, Reid Hastings was actually a nice, reasonable person (at least when I met him). I am glad he did well for himself.
I hope with all of my heart there are new college graduates getting jobs in the Bay Area that will have fun job experiences and enjoy their careers as much as I enjoyed my career there. It is a totally unique place on earth for tech startups.
Thank you for attending my TED Talk. :-)
