In 94 or so, when the internet was just starting to bubble up in a big way, I was a database guy at what was then a pretty well known firm in Chicago that its possible Rands has heard of since I recall something about him working at Borland on Paradox, and our boss was big in that community. I actually got to visit the campus once, goddamn that place was sweet.

Anyways putting database apps on the web was one of the biggest holy shit moments of my whole life, and I started digging into it in a huge way. Back then just getting a table to list on a site was an enormous endeavor. I was a Windows guy, totally self-taught, knew little about Unix, and there was no IIS or ASP or anything. Anyone here remember WindowsCGI?

My boss (the owner) was very encouraging, he realized it was important and I was totally obsessed with it. However the company had a strict policy that everyone had to bill 40 hours a week. When bonus time came he told me how important I was to the company, how the work I was doing was great for our future, and how he was very impressed with my drive to learn. Then I got the smallest bonus possible because I only billed the bare minimum hours that quarter while spending the rest of my time poring over creating a web demo to try to sell to my client (who had a FANTASTIC application for it.) He was very upset when I quit. He actually offered me a sweet deal to stay, to which I replied by asking him what had changed between two weeks ago and now to make me worth so much more.

Even if you don't give your engineers the time to think, reward them when they do.

Its too bad the tools were so rough back then, by the time everyone was getting rich I wasn't interested anymore and all I cared about was getting a job building pinball machines.