heatxsink.com

On Monday, April 16, 2007, I was in San Francisco for Web 2.0 Expo and one of my ex-myspace friends (also in attendance at the Expo, and now employed elsewhere) mentioned there is this "Netvibes release party tonight, lets go check it out." Being in town solely for the Expo, I had nothing better to do, so I thought why the hell not! It ended up being at the exact same art gallery (111 Minna) that the Web 2.0 Mixer was held at, back in mid-march 2007. I showed up and randomly ran into some more ex-myspacers. What a "small world," right? The best part was "daring" one of the ex-myspacers to approach the very hott, Adriana Gascoigne of CNET, and strike up a conversation. I'm a chicken when it comes to stuff like that so I'll take full responsibility. This ex-myspacer ends up chatting with her, and got interviewed for bub.blicio.us! He's at the end of the video below, check it out!

I think my favorite part of the interview was when the interviewee gets called out on camera about being an ex-myspacer, then Adriana asks about the CTO of MySpace. I have to "give it up" to the interviewee because his response to the CTO question is classic!

I've been reading, "Founders at Work" by Jessica Livingston. I think everyone that's technical, and inspired with starting up has read, or is reading this book. I love it, and it's exactly what I was looking for. I was in search of a book that uncovered what it's like to be in a startup, but I really want to know about the companies that startup and fail. So far the most inspirational story is about, Blogger.

Livingston: How did you feel that morning?

Williams: This was a really bad time. Actually the day that everyone told me they were leaving... I told everyone they were laid off and said, "Work with me if you can." And at the time, everyone had already missed one paycheck, and they'd had it. These are, of course, my friends, and we were hanging out all the time and we socialized together, so it's much more than just the employees. I think that same night I broke up with my girlfriend of 6 months.

Livingston: What advice would you give someone?

Williams: I think on of the things that kills great things so often is compromise--letting people talk you out of what your gut is telling you. Not that I don't value people's input, but you have to have the strength to ignore it sometimes, too. If you feel really strongly, there might be something to that, and if you see something that other people don't see, it could be because it's that powerful and different. If everyone agrees, it's probably because you're not doing anything original.

Livingston: What was the most surprising thing?

Williams: One thing that I used to be bad at was paying attention to how other people are feeling. So when problems came up with some of my coworkers, it totally surprised me. That stuff shouldn't surprise you, and it did. I think I was also surprised by the success of something so simple. That's a mantra for many people in the technology world--simplicity. But what we built wasn't that amazing. It was the idea of putting a couple of things together and being able to establish a lead by doing something really, really simple. How far you can get on a simple idea is amazing. I have a tendency to add more and more--the ideas always get too big to implement before they even get off the ground. SImplicity is powerful.

Another late night. This is weird, listening to some kinds of music in the dark has a completely different feel of the music. I wonder if some artists envision the music they make in different locations and lighting.

Simplicity is powerful.

Evan Williams

Instead of sitting in the middle of the cubical farm, I'm on the end with my back facing a window. w00t! Now I can see how the weather is outside! Of course the sky is barely visible because directly across from the window is this huge building blocking the view! It's "different" being able to see at least part of the sky. The part that kills is not actually being able to partake and enjoy the weather. Nonetheless it's nice to be able to swivel around and see something other than a farm of cubes with heads down working. Although I don't mind the whole "modded" Nerf gun wars!

Finally made it to "The W", home of the famous "XYZ" bar. Fun times. :-)

For those of you whom I know from the Bay Area and attending the "Web 2.0 Expo" at Moscone West in S.F. hit me up and we'll hang out. It should be a really fun time, and it would be great to see any of you.

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

Ernest Hemingway

Chaos is the score upon which reality is written.

Henry Miller

The coolest part of fixing bugs in software written by other people is finding their comments. It's even better when you actually know the software developer. Picture below....

So this site is turning on the flash uploader again, but this time slow. Should be cool to see how much my teenage brother and his friends like this one!