Archive for 2014

Late night programming session working on a technical problem for a client and got peckish so I made bangers and mash at 1AM in the morning, because, you know, why wouldn’t you make bangers and mash at 1AM in the morning?

Heh! Big box of vacuum fluorescent displays just arrived from the Ukraine. Time to break out the soldering iron and get to assembling stuff! This time without setting anything on fire or melting something expensive.

A person who hears the word “No” and then proceeds to hone their pitch and asks a different person is an entrepreneur. A person who hears the word “No” but continues to ask the same person is just a nuisance. So few “entrepreneurs” I run in to figure this out.

Thinking and doing. If you draw it as a quadrant most people are sat in the diametrically opposed corner of where you need them to be.

I swear that the condo in Los Angeles was designed by an architect who only ever lived with his parents or in a college dorm. The laundry is in the basement, down five flights of stairs. There is a shower directly off the kitchen. And the kitchen is about half the size of an office…

If launching a startup were more like electronics there would be an awful lot of people realizing that regular electrical shocks are not for them.

Judging by the smell emanating from the litter box I think my cat just disturbed something ancient.

When I am asked by someone “What is the secret to being successful?” they are inevitably asking “What is the shortcut to being successful?”

Stand in one place for an hour every day with your hand in the air. If you can do that.. Without distraction. Without multi-tasking. Without finding an excuse to do something else. And you can do it day-after-day. I guarantee you can achieve anything you set your mind too. P. S. It is a metaphor.

“How would you describe yourself?” Hands-on, roll-up-my-sleeves, get-it-done, get-out-of-my-way, ship-the-product Chief Technology Officer.

“Oh we would never want to hire an engineer with long-hair, it’s just so un-professional.” said the female HR manager with long hair and a full sleeve tatoo sat across the desk from me. Alrighty then, I guess you just removed about 60% of the engineering candidates from your search.

Deep in the zone writing code to solve an interesting rendering problem when my wife walks in the office. “Did you just feel that earthquake?” Earthquake?

I work well “with” others. I always have trouble working “for” others. Believing I work “for” you and going to lengths to point that out to me ensures that neither case is true.

I love people giving me their ideas for free. And having them tell me they are giving me the idea for free. I need to start carrying a contract with me that states the person won’t make a claim against the free idea they so generously gave me after I have invested 20,000 man hours…

People confuse “secret” and “shortcut” all the time. “What is the secret to losing weight?” “What is the secret to being successful?” “What is the secret to getting published?” “What is the secret to breaking in to the industry?” What they are really asking is “What is the shortcut?” And we all know the answer…

I gauge how foamy the entrepreneur ecosystem is by the number of NDAs I receive per month. Foaminess leads to bubbles.

Ohhhh, you’re in stealth mode… No bro, that’s cool! I cannot wait to get my hands on your imaginary product once it launches.

This is how the usual “looking for a technical cofounder” conversation goes: “I have this idea for an , I’ll tell you what I want and you build it, when it’s ready to launch and we’re gaining traction, we’ll go apply to an accelerator…”

I have noticed over the span of my career that no matter how politely you decline the opportunity to work for someone for free, invariably they will be offended that you had the audacity to reject their generous offer.

People who argue against free education for all, are the privileged twits who don’t value an education in the first place.