Do you remember your first job? Correction: not your first job, but the first job you wanted. This is my career. This is what I want to do. I don’t want to screw this up. I was a grocery store clerk, a butcher, a video store clerk, the guy who backed up the system onto… more
I was part of the Netscape Navigator engineering team. Lots of great stories regarding the early days of the Internet. One of my favorites was the origin of the hand icon for links:
Even small innovations at the time seem bigger in retrospect. For example, it was Mittelhauser who came up with the hand icon for links: “It was really, really easy to change the icon on Windows. It was a single call. So, I’m like, “Oh, when it goes over a hyperlink it’s sort of Windows standard; you change to the hand icon to indicate you can click on it.” That was five minutes of work. And then of course that forced everybody else to go do it because it was a good idea and it was popular. There was often a competitive aspect of trying to come up with the cool thing; get it done first.”
Weather permitting, the Netscape pick-up roller hockey game has been played every Saturday since 1996. 14 years. This hockey game has outlasted all but one of my former employers. This is pick-up hockey. If you were to arrive with skates, stick and protective gear, you would discover a chill game where the expectation is that… more
They played bridge every Wednesday at Netscape. In the middle of the cafeteria. Like clockwork. The players were a collection of ex-SGI guys and they worked for a variety of different groups at the company, but as I learned a few months later, this core group of men quietly defined the engineering culture of the… more
“Rands, I’ve got the idea. I’m serious. It’s going to be big and I’ve got my three MBA buddies lining up seed financing. Seriously big idea here, Rands. And I need a favor.” Uh oh. “I need a Free Electron.” There is a list of the six confirmed Free Electrons that I know. Every six… more
Ed: Day #5 of the Deconstructing Managers week. Day #1 is where this whole piece begins. Back at Netscape, Internet Explorer was threatening, but we were under the illusion the sky was not falling. We were merrily planning the next release of the browser under the assumption that Microsoft was going to somehow screw-up their… more
At the first whisper of school starting, Californians lose their fucking minds during the morning commute. What was a leisurely 20 minute commute to Cupertino turns into an hour of frustration. It’s not just that a large demographic of people are suddenly on the same schedule, it’s that they’re panicking because they’re late for work.… more
Back in my Netscape days, I was fuming that AOL had actually stumbled upon a bright idea in the guise of Instant Messaging. They only furthered my frustration by shoving their bright idea into my beloved Netscape Communicator. The question was, “How can a company whose target market are people who type with one finger… more
You’ve just finished your big release and the team has mostly returned from that four day weekend where they’re supposed to recharge from four straight months of work. Everyone is still pretty screwed up. Folks still instinctively check the bug database every 4 minutes to see if anything critical showed up even though there’s no… more
I’ve been spending a good part of the past six months considering a move back to the mountains. Right now, I’m heading into my sixth year in Suburbia and, well, I can’t complain. The Burbs are like fast food… everything you want… conveniently located… and at a sensible price. Why screw with a good thing,… more
