I’m not sure what is more surprising. There’s a dog-sitting start-up in Seattle called Rover or:
The average tenure of a developer in Silicon Valley is nine months at a single company. In Seattle, that length is closer to two years.
I’d like to see the source data on this assertion. Not the existence dog-sitting start-up part.
This article was written over a decade ago, and business has changed. You can read a much-updated version of this article here. You’ve had a small number of career-defining moments. These are the select few moments in time when the trajectory of your career changed instantly and drastically. I have two buckets of these: ones… more
Buried. Back at the start-up, we were shifting gears. After six months of talking about shipping a product, we needed to ship a product and nothing gets everyone’s attention like a deadline. The good news was that QA had been doing its job and there was a pile of work in our bug database. 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
Right this second, there are five books sitting on my desk. I’m not talking about the invisible books stacked up next to my monitor, I’m talking about the books I want you to see the second you walk in my office. They change over time, but right now they are: The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary… more
Max was a mess. We were on our third mojito at The Basin in Saratoga when it just came pouring out of him. The last 72 hours involved: Two days in Los Angeles babysitting a customer’s data center Four hours of sleep Two huge arguments with his wife on the cell phone A marathon conference… more
Halfway through any trip, it’s time to go home. Vegas, Europe, or SXSW… after two solid days of different, I’m ready to get the hell out. This is not a rational state of mind, it’s a subconscious self preservation mental switch that you brain flips after 48 hours of totally new content. Your brain is… more
The whispers in the valley and in the weblog-o-sphere is the hint that we’re in the early technology bubble similar to the Internet nuttiness of the late nineties. The ideas sound familiar: – Those VCs sure are investing a lot of money in start-ups! – It’s sure getting harder to hire! – Everyone I know… more
I have little data about where the South by Southwest festival actually started, but it began to intersect my consciousness two years ago. Year one thought, “What the hell does SXSW stand for?” Year two thought, “This appears to be the only significant gathering of the weblog community on the planet Earth.” It’ll be four… more
The writing career to date. I’ve got 30 journals dating back to the early 80s where I believe, at one time, I lied IN MY PERSONAL JOURNAL that I’d figured out the Rubix cube. The high school years were productive. There were girls about and, for some reason, I thought a semi-fictional story was a… more
