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.