The Dream Begins
I am very excited to announce that beginning today I am going to be a student at Stanford University, joining the Class of 2013. Attending Stanford has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember and I am endlessly grateful for everyone who has helped make it a reality. I look forward to the next four years with a great sense of optimism and enthusiasm, and am looking forward to everything I will learn and experience.
Welcome Back!
It's been nearly seven months since my last post. The site was brought down by a hacker and I lacked the motivation to bring it back up until this week. Looking forward to writing again.
Teens in Tech Conference this Saturday
Teens in Tech Conference this Saturday 1/31
I'm going to be on my first panel this weekend for the Teens in Tech Conference! I'll be on the Developer Panel with a few other young guys (much smarter than myself) talking about the following:
- How we learned our skills without a CS degree
- How a hobby can become a career
- How to find good developer communities
- What technologies we are personally into
You can register for the conference here - I'm really looking forward to meeting teens that are as into tech as I have been over the last few years.
Also, I've been using Twitter a lot more recently, follow me here.
My 2009 Economic Stimulus Package
2009 is here and amidst all the talk of another federal stimulus package, I’ve decided it’s time to give myself a way to save money in these hard times. Near the end of 2008, my spending got out of control: I spent over $1000 on cabs in the year; I blew through another few thousand eating out at restaurants; and I threw loads of cash out the window by investing in the stock market last year. That last one I think almost everyone did, so I don't feel too bad. In 2009 I’ve decided to cut back. A lot. Here is some of the new legislation which recently passed in the Congress of Sam Purtill’s head:
Put $500/month into my Roth IRA
Last year I was an idiot and put all $5000 into my Roth at once, at the same time buying the S&P500 index fund, VFINX. After losing 30% in that deal I’ve decided to rethink my Roth account investing and will begin to dollar cost average, after years of reading about it from people like Ben Graham. Since the maximum contribution limit for 2009 is $5,000, I'll take the last two months of 2009 and put the $500 into a personal investment account (which I'll be putting extra money in throughout 2009 anyways).
Take Muni unless splitting a cab with someone else
Face it: spending $13 on a cab to get from my house to some place in the Mission, and another $13 on the way back ($15 if the driver sucks), just isn’t worth it. Plus San Francisco has a great muni system that can get you within two blocks of almost any destination in the city.
Only leave the pennies when dropping the change into tip jars at cafes and restaurants
I’m getting really stingy on this one. By the end of 2008 I was dropping all coin change into the tip jar except quarters (saved for buses). This was dumb because 1) you already gave the place money for your food/drink and 2) nickels and dimes add up, and are great to use in emergencies (the bus!). I remember several times in 2008 when I would dig through my pockets only to find one quarter and a few dollar bills; if I had been saving my nickels and dimes I would have gotten on the bus a few more times instead of taking a cab. Probably lost $100 or so in that deal. And yes, I know that sounds ridiculously lazy.
A new budget of $800 a month for food and entertainment
I have no idea how much I was spending in 2008 on food and entertainment. I know there were a few months where it was well over a thousand. I came up with the 800 number for a few reasons. Average cost of food per day is around $20 for me in the city - $4 for breakfast, $7 for lunch, $9 for dinner. I’m going to try to cut that to around $15/day, but I’ll put myself on the high side for now. That leaves me $200/month for entertainment, or about $50 per week. This seems kind of high, but it really isn’t when you budget in ski trips to Tahoe and weekend trips to Monterey or Napa Valley. I think $800 should do the trick. Also: this is the first time in my life I’ve given myself a budget. I think this will be hard to stick to, but I’m up for the challenge.
Learn how to do personal and corporate taxes
Ok. Maybe not all the loopholes and minuscule details of the tax code, but it’s about time I learned how taxes worked in this country. It will be invaluable down the line for me to have this knowledge – I can use it to save money by filing my own taxes (my grandpa kindly does them for me now, so this isn’t a big problem), and with learning how to file corporate taxes will be a big help to any startup I work at or start that needs help filing taxes. Plus taxes have always intrigued me, so why not learn it? (Hey if you're an accountant and reading this, or if you have a friend that's an accountant, email me! sdpurtill at gmail dot com)
Remember: faithful in little, faithful in much
All these little things ended up costing an extra 500-1500 in overhead every month, which could have added up to almost $10,000 by the end of the year. This could have been saved and/or invested had I been wiser. At least I am learning my lesson while still young.
Wising everyone the best of luck with their finances in 2009, it’s going to be a rough year, but we’ll all make it.
If you’re giving yourself a “Personal Economic Stimulus Package” in 2009, leave a note in the comments below about what you’re doing – I’d love to hear about it.
…And we’re back!
I've had some ups and downs with WordPress over the last few months, but finally I figured out how to upgrade WordPress and made a few changes on the 31fps server. Things are back to normal, and it's 2009!
One of my co-workers posted a great article about the psychology of New Years resolutions on Facebook a few days ago. I have a big year to look forward to and am very happy with how 2008 went; it was definitely the funnest, most rewarding year of my life so far. Some of the things I'm looking forward to doing in 2009:
- Traveling to 2 (maybe 3) countries. Hopefully South Africa will be one of them
- Speaking on the programming panel of Teens in Tech in a few weeks
- Staying away from red meat
- Skiing more than I did in 2008 (I only went 5 times last year)
- Trying the craziest sounding food on the menu of every restaurant I go to (I started doing this near the end of 2008, you actually learn a lot about food this way)
- Going with Africa Mission Alliance on a mission trip to Rwanda (July)
- Finishing 12 books; trying to average at least once a month
- 20 (hopefully more) Giants games in the Spring and Summer
Of course there are a lot more things I'm looking forward to, some I can't remember, and some I can't write, but I think 2009 will be able to outdo 2008 by a long shot. One thing I did realize is there's nothing really important going on this year -- no Olympics, no World Cup, no big wars so far, and everyone's broke, so it feels a lot gloomier than the start of 2008 did. I'm sure the media will find something interesting to report on, they always do.
I've got the list of people I want to meet in 2009 coming soon... Last year's list was fun to make. This year I'll put it in order of how much I want to meet them (last year I put it in alphabetical order).
Hope everyone had a fun and safe New Years!
This Valley is my Hollywood
I had waited all year to see Radiohead and paid through the nose for a ticket. Finally, I was there, Thom Yorke and crew performing in front of me. This was supposed to be the best show of my life – but I was caught in a dilemma: 10 minutes into their show I got a text message from a friend saying Sean Parker was at this party I had been invited to. What should I do?
I started programming when I was 11 or 12 - Netscape Composer is to blame for me falling in love with the internet and technology. I read stories about these young entrepreneurs with their new technologies and websites, raising millions in funding and making millions in turn. To me, Silicon Valley was a fantasy land. Products like Napster and Netscape inspired me to stay up all night writing code and learning everything I could about programming so I could one day build something just as innovative. Fast forward 6 years and I'm here, living it.
I've been in the tech scene full time for about a year now, and I'm beginning to understand how it all works. Everyone knows everyone. There's all the cool kids that hang out with the Digg crowd and go rock climbing at Mission Cliffs. There's the big YCombinator crowd full of smart kids from MIT and Stanford (who kill me in poker). There's the Facebook app developer crowd, and the iPhone app developers. Most of these people either went to a top 20 university or dropped out of school and came here, some of the brightest, most forward thinking people in the world.
But then there are the people that you see very rarely at any of these events. They're generally the people with net worths north of 8 figures and are probably off on a yacht or busy filing their IPO paperwork. These are the people that I follow religiously in the blogosphere/party gossip. The short list includes Sean Parker, Mark Cuban, Peter Thiel, Nick Denton, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, and a few others. This list is made up of people who have gone against what the corporate world said was possible – Peter and Max starting PayPal, Sean starting Napster, Marc starting Netscape, Denton starting Gawker Media, Cuban starting Broadcast.com, and Zuckerberg with good ol' Facebook. These are the guys that looked impossible in the face and knocked it out in the first round.
So back to the Radiohead show. I ran a quick cost/benefit analysis of leaving the Radiohead concert early; it was an easy choice, I had to meet Sean. I hopped in the first cab I could find (town car, cost me $50) and headed over to the Marina. Once I arrived I walked past the bodyguards (on the guest list? check.) and immediately recognized him. I shook his hand and said, "it's good to meet you", then caught myself and corrected, "no, it's GREAT to meet you!" I had read so many things and heard so many stories about him, I was standing in the presence of greatness. A guy who turned the multi billion dollar recording industry upside down with Napster, was founding president at Facebook, and now a partner in The Founder's Fund - the best VC in the world by a long shot. I talked to him for a while and he told me, "what are you doing?! Get back to Radiohead!!" So to capture the moment, I got a picture and he took off to catch his flight.
In closing (this went on way too long!). These are the people I dream of becoming: a Sean Parker, a Mark Cuban, a Peter Thiel. Someone that doesn't accept the norm and bucks the trends, even if it makes people and industries hate you. There is nothing more fulfilling than creating and being the best [insert Ayn Rand diatribe here: joking, I will spare you]. Now I'm at a startup that's trying to do something on a similar scale - YouNoodle. But seriously readers (especially the ones in the Valley, and especially my too-occasional commenters), I love the Valley. I love the internet. I love the people. I love the parties. I love the City. I have found my home.
Would be very interested if anyone feels the same way about the Valley? Comment!
Discussion over on FriendFeed (Scoble commented!)
SF Outside Lands Was a Disaster
this is a rant so i'm not going to capitalize letters or fix spelling mistakes; bear with me. i wrote this whole post refraining from using the f-word or any other expletives; it was very hard but i hope you can understand my frustration/anger regarding the following events.
i have heard from all of my friends that have seen radiohead that it is one of the most life changing/religious experiences you can have at a live show. i've listened to radiohead a lot the last few years (though to be honest they're pretty far down on my list of top artists on last.fm, #18). everyone keeps telling me that you HAVE to see radiohead, so i buy the tickets two weeks in advance for $95/ticket to be a part of this experience.
so with much anticipation, i bring you to friday at 5pm before their show that starts at 8pm.
these are the things that went wrong before the radiohead performance:
- the ticket cost $95. i don't care who i'm seeing (unless it's daft punk or josh groban), i will never pay $95 to see a band play again.
- couldn't find a taxi on embarcadero street - there's 100,000 taxis in san francisco but they were magically elsewhere at 5pm on a friday. we nix the taxi idea and hop on the n judah.
- the n judah had the worst driver of all time, he yields for EVERY car. n judah is packed and nobody can move.
- got to the festival and there are no signs anywhere, just crowds walking in a general direction.
- get there, the line for will call is hundreds of people long and there are only two will call booths. unbelievable.
- wait in line for 45 minutes, finally get tickets. great, we've missed beck and all the other shows, but we're just in time to see radiohead.
so all that was a big downer, but i tried to not let it weigh on me.
walk down to the polo fields, it's 7:30 and radiohead starts in 30 minutes. looks like the entire crowd left the remaining shows to get good spots for radiohead around 7, because the closest possible place to stand is at least 500 feet from the stage.
radiohead starts promptly at 8, everyones going crazy. i let everything up to this point get erased in my head - i'm here to see radiohead, i don't want any bad energy while watching them. they start playing, first few songs sound like sigur ros and are pretty inspiring - but i'm so far back i can't feel the music. i'm used to going to shows/festivals where the speakers are so loud/close they vibrate you, that's one of my favorite things about live performances. then they play "my iron lung" and i close my eyes, taking it in. still hard to feel anything because i'm so far back and people keep wiggling through to get a closer view (i always let people through, never really cared about trying to be a dick and block them).
halfway through my iron lung a fuse blows and the power gets cut, and for a minute radiohead keeps playing with no sound. i really paid $95 for this? the sound comes back on and i forgive them, but by now my patience is wearing very thin. the song ends and they start playing another sigur ros sounding song. now i love listening to sigur ros on my ipod, but the only time i saw them live i thought they absolutely sucked (coachella 2006). i wasn't the only person - hundreds of people left that show with the same sentiments (people were pretty vocal about it). i don't know what it is about that sound, but it doesn't seem to work well for me outside. so we're back at the radiohead concert, and they're mid-way through this song that i've never heard before but is pretty cool. some stoner decides to weasel his way up through the crowd to get a better view, but when he gets in front of me decides that this will be his better view point. i gave him 15 seconds to begin his hunt for a better spot, but slowly realized that he was staying there. so now i'm looking at long hair and hear radiohead faintly in the background (remember, we're far away). that just did it, i turned to matt and katie and said, "alright, screw this, i'm out of here" and began my retreat. this is at 8:20, 20 minutes or 4 songs into the radiohead show. as i am leaving, another fuse blows and the power goes out again. unbelievable.
it all worked out and was meant to be though - i took a cab to [redacted]'s party and met sean parker right before he had to leave for the airport... if i had left the concert 10 minutes later, i would have never met him.
in the end, the universe tends to unfold as it should. that being said, i will never attend sf outside lands again and am going to try to get a refund on my ridiculously overpriced ticket.
I sold my MacBook Pro
Goodbye Apple, we had a terrible relationship from the start, so I won't be sad to see you go. Maybe I'll try again a year from now.
An Update for Everyone
These last few months have been a whirlwind and I can't believe we're already in mid-July. That sentence was so cliché. Anyways, here are some highlights:
- Went to Romania and met Okapi- trip of a lifetime
- Drank Absinthe in Romania
- Saw where Dracula lived
- Went clubbing in Romania
- Was inspired by Gabi Lungu to get a nice camera, so I bought a Canon EOS 20D
- Met Amon Munyaneza and went to a Giants game with him, founder of Africa Mission Alliance
- Partied at WeGame
- My sister graduated from high school
- Began Twittering up a storm
- Began using Hacker News and traffic spiked here
- Went to Yahoo! with my Grandpa to hear a talk for U of M alumni
- Someone submitted my blog post to Hacker News instead of me (omg I've made it!)
- Photo op with Kevin Rose exactly one year later!
- Learned how to sail in the bay
- Got my backpack stolen (ERGH!!)
- Bought a BlackBerry Pearl to replace the BlackBerry I dropped in a gutter
- Partied with Adam Richman from Zambino at Clift Hotel
- Met Halle Tecco finally (online buddies!)
- My grandparents 50th Anniversary Weekend in Carmel with the whole family, had an amazing time
- Finally went clubbing in the US
- Giants vs Dodgers game on the 4th of July
- With my family on the 4th of July and chanted U.S.A. while the fireworks burst
- Got crushed playing against Kirill in golf
- Bought a MacBook Pro and tried making the switch. Failed. (Will keep you updated on that)
- Became addicted to Blockles and got 10 other friends addicted
- Started writing ActionScript again, finally!
- Went to a mustache party (I don't have any pics from it at the moment)
- Made it into Sarah Lacy's book Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good on page 227 (I'm the 19 yr old kid from Vacaville!) thanks to this picture
- Went to the PHP Meetup at CNET and actually understood what the nerds were talking about
- Lots of Giants game and had the San Francisco Dog at every game
- Tumbled at SamPurtill.com like crazy
- Worked out consistently
- Took my 4 year old cousin to 7/11 and got him a slurpee
- Nate's 29th birthday party
- Hung out with great friends
- Upheld my promise to blog once a week when I came back from Romania (I thought I had written this down somewhere, apparently not?)
And for the next few months:
- Poker nights
- Web 2.0 Parties
- Meeting the ValleyWag reporters
- Hanging out with my cousin from Seattle University
- Camping in Yosemite
- Skydiving in Monterey
- Trip to San Diego or Boston
- Giants games
These last few months have been amazing - and as always, really looking forward to what the future has in store!
PS if I missed anything put it in the comments and I'll add it. Thanks!
Quality vs Efficiency
Walter Chrysler once said, "Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it." Companies succeed because of the "laziness" trait found in people - I think of it in a more positive way as the endless search for absolute efficiency. Nearly every electronic device you own and website you go to were built with the intention of making your life more efficient. If people didn't care about getting from A to B the fastest, Google wouldn't have a 200B market cap, Tumblr wouldn't exist, you'd do meetings in person instead of IM, cell phone cameras would have never taken off, and for that matter cell phones probably would have never taken off (cost:efficiency ratio wouldn't be justified by consumers).
This has become very real for me recently after buying a Canon EOS 20D camera (digital SLR). I could get into the camera and spend 10 minutes talking about all the features, how much fun it is to shoot with, how well the pictures turn out (here's my Flickr), etc., but I still don't use it a tenth as much as I use the always-out-of-focus-and-way-too-pixelated camera on my BlackBerry Pearl. It's a very simple equation in my head: walk around all day with an expensive bulky camera strapped around your neck (not to mention how lame you look going to parties with an SLR) OR pull out a hand sized device and snap a picture in 3 seconds.
Forget the quality of the photos for a second; what is my goal in taking photos? Personally, the photos *I want* are moments frozen in time that I will be able to go back to in 5, 10, 20 years to see how much I've changed. I feel the best way to do this is to always have the camera on my cell phone ready to fire, because the moments that you remember come and go so fast it's hard to know when you should have your digital SLR ready to freeze a moment. I also think that when you are dragging around a SLR to an event/concert/function you miss out on a lot of the fun because you're so engaged in taking pictures of other people having fun and sights that you forget to live in the moment. A cell phone camera lets you live in the moment and capture an image to prove that it happened/you were there.
The most important part of the photography efficiency war is ease of publishing. Taking the photo is only the beginning. With an SLR you generally do some post production on the RAW files and then spend an hour or two uploading them to Flickr/Facebook/your blog. With a cell phone camera the process is: snap -> email -> done. This process takes about 12 seconds for me. If you have a Tumblr account you know what I mean. I've become so used to emailing photos to my Tumblr that anytime I compose an email on my BlackBerry I begin writing "Tu" in the TO field of the message.
And I've come to realize - the photos I find most interesting on the internet are ones snapped with cell phones. The quality on all phones are terrible right now (even the Nokia N95 is pretty bad), but in the next few years I expect the cell phone companies to come out with major improvements on their cameras. This will hopefully end the barrage of people at tech events walking around with their bulky SLRs and making sure to capture moments - along with 30 other photographers - of a few people having fun. There is still a need for artistic photography which will never run dry, but that will eventually find its place too.
Whatever product you are building or thinking of building, keep in mind that the you can sacrifice quality for efficiency. The biggest proof for that has been the huge success of cell phone cameras even though SLRs are in a similar price range and take exponentially higher quality photos.
On a final note, there are still very obvious efficiency holes that need to be patched up (governments and education are #1 and #2 on the need list). I am talking about your next startup.