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This Valley is my Hollywood August 26, 2008

Posted by sdpurtill in : Technology, Life , 4comments

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.

Sam and Sean

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!)

Also, Hacker News discussion going on.

An Update for Everyone July 15, 2008

Posted by sdpurtill in : Life, Updates , 3comments

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:

And for the next few months:

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!

Explosive productivity June 18, 2008

Posted by sdpurtill in : Life, Advice , 4comments

I think I have a condition of sorts. In the last few months I’ve noticed that I am either really motivated and get a lot of stuff done, or have no motivation at all and am useless. I see it now more than ever because one of the guys I work with is really consistent with how he gets work done. I like to think of my condition as “explosive productivity”.

Take the following example:

I try to consistently do a weekly review on Sunday night or Monday morning and write a todo list for everything that needs to be accomplished in the upcoming week. The weeks that where I do these weekly reviews I always cross everything off the list and have extremely productive weeks. But there are weeks where I have no motivation to do a weekly review (it’s about 1 in 4 now, used to be 1 in 3 so I’m improving). In these weeks I have no direction and am generally pretty lazy about everything - work, communicating with people, even making my bed. I call these my recovery weeks where I realize I’m still 19 and not a machine (yet). They’re quite humbling.

I’ve noticed similar behavior in a lot of people that I’ve gotten to know in Silicon Valley. I feel like there is a perception about a lot of entrepreneurs that says you should be working 24/7 to make a startup successful, but everyone is wired differently. Myself? I can’t work for more than 4 weeks straight without having a “recovery week”. As time goes on I’ve been able to build up more and more stamina, but I have a hard time seeing myself becoming a machine. My logic behind this is as follows: If I can get done in 1 week what takes most people 2 weeks, I should have an explosive 3 weeks and then take a 1 week break to recover and get ready for the next 3. I am tossing the word “recover” around without defining it - by it I mean a week where you’re not at your productivity peak. Maybe you’re at 1/2 of your normal productivity. Whatever it is, this week should be spent planning what the next 3-4 weeks will be like.

I’ve read a lot of books on productivity. The best one I ever read was How To Get Things Done by David Allen. Halfway through the book I slipped a bookmark in it and threw it under my bed, never to pick it up again - kind of ironic. How to get things done eh? :) I’ve come to the sad conclusion that no matter how many productivity books I read, none of them are made specifically for me. They’re made for the “general public”. I think these books are similar to health diets — they last for a few months but aren’t sustainable in the long term for people with strong patterns (like myself).

I have applied methods that the books have taught here and there — one of my favorite is the 2 minute rule that David Allen talks about in his book. If you can get the task done within the next 2 minutes, just get it done and out of your system. Another one is writing everything down (I have a habit of sending myself emails via BlackBerry when I’m not around a computer). I’ve found that this takes a lot of my perceived stress away, because I know if I write something down I won’t forget it. Thinking that I forgot something is where a big part of my stress always coems from, so I’m glad I’ve solved that. But by and large none of these productivity books have boosted my productivity more than methods that I’ve found myself (the recovery week being my best example).

I hope that one day I will figure out how to work non stop for several months at a time - until then I’ll need my recovery weeks here and there.

What are some of the things that make you productive?

Living? May 31, 2008

Posted by sdpurtill in : Life , 2comments

I said that I was going to write one essay/post each week after returning from Romania… I’m back now, so there’s no more excuses to putting it off.

I’ve been busier in the last few months with work/family/friends/activities than in any other time in my life. Being busy can be tiring every now and then, but I can say that this has been the most rewarding and happiest time of my life. I could live like this.

In a previous post, I said being well rounded was a bad excuse for mediocrity. My favorite thing about blogging is the fact that I can go back and find my all my uninformed blog posts from the last two years - it’s a nice way to see some of what I have learned in such a short period of time. I’ve come to the conclusion that I am uninformed about nearly everything I have an opinion on due to my limited experiences and knowledge. But I’m not going to let the knowledge of my limited knowledge (make sense?) stop me from voicing my opinions/thoughts here. For the record - I take it back: being well rounded isn’t an excuse for mediocrity - it means you have your crap together. If you can be good at several things simultaneously, it says a lot about you. For example, if you are a great sprinter and published scientist, I can make the assumption that you know how to manage your time pretty well.

Now I’m not saying that I’m well rounded, I’ve got the next 30 years to get there, but I’m starting to work on it. For example, here are some of the things I’ve been able to do in the last three weeks: been to quite a few Giants games, learned how to sail (next up: cooking), traveled to Romania for a week, spent a day with a former refugee from Rwanda, and spent a lot of time thinking about what really matters to me and what I want to accomplish.

When I stepped on the plane to Romania a lot of thoughts began to run through my head. The first were about my immediate security - is this plane safe, are there terrorists. I immediately wrote those fears off because I knew that the pilots were going to do everything in their power to keep the plane from crashing - they value their lives as much/if not more that I value mine. And the chances of a terrorist hijacking an airplane is so infinitesimal that I’d probably have a better chance of winning the lottery. Then I thought about my short term security - will Andrei pick me up when I get there, will I be safe in the city I knew nothing about. I wrote that off after some thinking because I know some people from the US that had already gone and visited Bucharest with Okapi and everything was fine for them.

Then I thought of something that had never really crossed my mind - what am I most afraid of? I have heard a lot of answers from other people (spiders, small spaces, etc), and I think I’ve known my answer to that for quite a while now, I just never asked myself that question. My biggest fear is not living. It’s pretty simple. I’m scared of living a life where I miss out on experiences because of my fear of people, places, perceptions, governments, expectations, etc. I think that is a terribly sad way to live life. Trust your friends, do things that you are afraid of (BASE jumping for me), give back to the world as much as you can cause you don’t have much time here anyways.

I saw a senior from Palo Alto High School on TV the other night who had won the award for the best high school soccer player in the US and was heading to Stanford next year. She said in the clip they played that one of the things soccer had taught her was to have “a passion for living.” I knew right then that she had it right - she found what I am just learning now. People that live life with a passion are the most interesting and exciting to be around. I would know, I work with four of them.

I spent the next few hours on the plane to Heathrow thinking about living life. I’ve had so many opportunities in the last few years that I’ve taken advantage of and opportunities that I’ve passed on. With my trip to Romania, I realized one day (about a month before the trip) that if I kept putting off traveling and doing crazy things that I’d never do them – not because I’m afraid of doing them, I just don’t take the initiative to go out and do them. So I sat down that day, went to Orbitz and booked the trip 10 minutes later. I wasn’t even thinking about the money, it was about the experience. So this is all to say, I am living. I don’t know much about anything, but I am learning with every opportunity and chance I get.

If you have a minute (and a heart), check out Africa Mission Alliance – they’re doing some amazing stuff for kids over in Rwanda right now. Donate.

Wrote this on the CalTrain with my BlackBerry (edited on computer before posting)

7 months into it April 19, 2008

Posted by sdpurtill in : Technology, Life , 1 comment so far

It’s been a long time since I sat down and wrote about what’s been going on. It’s been a little over 7 months since I joined YouNoodle and came to Silicon Valley.

In high school, I always had this picture of Silicon Valley — I thought of it as some magical playground for nerds and crazy libertarians. I heard a lot of different things about what goes on here, but my overall impression was that people were good to eachother and everyone was getting rich. Well, I think this is one of the few times that my first impressions were right.

I got my first taste of how the whole networking shindig works in July of 07 (a few months before moving out) at the Pownce Launch Party. I met a load of people that night that I run into all the time. All the cool kids hang out in this big crowd, and they’re super welcoming to new people. It’s like high school cliques except it’s one unified clique all trying to change the world and make tons of money. I’ve heard people say SV is a big rich family, it really is. It’s funny because I was at the YCombinator dinner for Startup School last night and I took a step back and realized how many people I’ve met in such a short period of time. (As a side note… I love the networking events where you wear name tags because people come up to you and look at your name tag and analyze whether or not it’s worth meeting you.)

I’ve gotten to know some pretty awesome people but I don’t feel like name dropping cause that’s already been done by Jason Calacanis. But I will say that all the WeGame guys rule.

Some of the highlights in the last two months:

Now that I look at it, I’ve done a ton of stuff in the last two months. Coming up in the next few weeks, I have a few things planned (though the majority of what I do is planned day-of)

One last thing! I’d like to say thanks to my grandparents for making so much possible these last few months, you guys are the best.

The 13 people I’d like to meet in 2008 January 4, 2008

Posted by sdpurtill in : Life , 1 comment so far

Just read this list and was inspired to write my own list of people I’d like to meet in 2008.

  1. Amandalyn Ferry
  2. Amir Blumenfeld
  3. Dave Winer
  4. Jakob Lodwick
  5. Julia Allison
  6. Mark Cuban
  7. Mark Zuckerberg
  8. Nick Denton
  9. Peter Thiel
  10. Ricky Van Veen
  11. Robert Scoble
  12. Sean Parker
  13. Zach Klein

Yes a lot of them are from CV. Those guys still rule.

Happy New Year! January 1, 2008

Posted by sdpurtill in : Life , add a comment

Last night I went down to the Ferry Building with my older brother, my cousin, and a good friend. We had a blast ushering in the new year.

So I have a few new years resolutions for this year… Here are most of them:

1) Learn C
2) Learn C++
3) Get into Valleywag
4) Learn how to cook
5) Learn how to sail
6) College?
7) Travel to London, Copenhagen, Moscow, Bucharest and Paris
8) Spend a lot less time on the computer and a lot more time outdoors

That seems like a lot of resolutions, but a lot can be done in a year. Here’s to 2008!

The holidays! December 10, 2007

Posted by sdpurtill in : Life , add a comment

It’s my favorite time of the year once again, and this time I get to be in the city for the holidays. I love walking through the city at Christmas time, everything is lit up, it’s cold outside, and they’ve got the annual outdoor ice rink at Embarcadero Center [picture]. I went there last night and checked it out after getting off the ferry from Vallejo (was home this weekend).

I took a break from work around 7 and walked down Mission Street to Embarcadero by myself to go get a Christmas tree. It was so cool seeing all the decorations that people have put up for the holidays, and walking down Embarcadero at night next to the water with the Bay Bridge in front of you is stunning. I got to the place where they sell the trees on Embarcadero (only 3 blocks from my apartment), and picked one out pretty quickly. I need to get a camera so I can take pictures of it and post them… It’s not a big tree, but after hauling it back to the apartment by myself, I was glad I didn’t pick anything bigger.

I’m having a great time here in SF, work is awesome, roommates are great, and most of all… Christmas is in 15 days!

I need to take my camera back from James… grr!

I’m getting to love Tumblr, all the guys from Connected Ventures totally ruule. I’m going to put it up on sdpurtill.com pretty soon here.

Happy Holidays! (I’ll probably write before Christmas, but no guarantees)

Ahh! My birthday is coming up… December 2, 2007

Posted by sdpurtill in : Life , 1 comment so far

I’ve never been a fan of celebrating my birthday, but I’m going to do something this year. I turn 19 on Thursday! Not sure what I’m going to do though. Any ideas?

I’m going to start blogging again, it’s been a while since I sat down and wrote.

What I’ve learned so far October 18, 2007

Posted by sdpurtill in : Life , 2comments

I moved to SF a few weeks ago (I think it’s been a little over two now), and it’s been a fun journey so far. A lot has happened, I’ve been way too busy to blog. I have some time right now. Which means that… my room is clean, laundry is done, dishes are done, bathroom is clean, work is done [well, put on hold], freelance is done, and I don’t feel like reading right now. Speaking of reading, I finally subscribed to The Economist, Newsweek, Business Week, and the WSJ today. Anyways, let’s get back to the point of this post:

What have I learned so far?

1) Living on my own is not as hard as everyone made it out to be
I thought I was going to be screwed, living on my own for the first time, especially since I skipped the transition that most kids make by going to college and having everything taken care of. But it’s actually really not that hard. The list is pretty short of things you have to do… Laundry, dishes, bed, bathroom. Just keep things clean and live with awesome roommates (they’re awesome, I assure you) and everything is a breeze. Plus having a job that pays all the bills so you don’t have to worry about money is always a good thing.

2) People have a very false perception of San Francisco
I thought I was going to get jumped every time I walked outside at night time. I’ve gotten scared once when I was walking under a bridge at 11pm by myself, with my laptop in my backpack (which is so old it needs to get stolen so I have an excuse to buy a MacBook Pro). I was also told that San Francisco is the capital of gays and gayness. For everyone that told me that and made it sound like it was such a OMGZ TERRIBLE problem, you need to open your eyes to the human race because you are a little troglodyte. It’s been a real eye opener for me, especially coming from Vacaville which has this truck-driving-i-am-mr-homophobic mentality.

3) Don’t worry about who got _______ out/dirty, get it finished and move on
The most annoying thing I have found is when people find a dish/towel/fill in the blank left out and then start asking who left it out. STFU and just put it away, it takes way more time to interrogate everyone to find out who took it out than to just stop being a bitch and put it away. Need I say more?

4) TV is a waste of life
Enough said. I could go on a massive rant but I am refraining.

5) Video games are a waste of life
Unless the names of the video games are Grand Theft Auto or Gran Turismo

6) Yankees Suck Ass
Enough said… Boston FTW!

7) Rugby is an amazing sport
Bob and I drove around SF looking for a pub to watch the England/France match last Saturday, and all of them were packed (and charging $20/person!). So we went over to Kirill’s and watched it there. I only got to catch the second half, but it was one of the most interesting/engaging events I have ever seen. The caveman on France is a beast!!

8) Not a big fan of “networking”, but I guess I’m doing it…
I had this perception that “networking” meant going out and handing your business card to every schmuck at a Web 2.0 event. The “networking” that I am doing is by no means being done on a macro scale, I don’t want to have a ton of people that barely know me. I want a strong network of people that know me very well, and I am slowly getting to know a lot of [very important] people in Silicon Valley.

9) Waking up isn’t as hard as it used to be
My mom used to yell at me/pour water on me/punch me on the face (ok not really) for me to get out of bed. The reason? I was waking up to go to school, and school was boring as hell! I would have never thought, but I am generally getting to work around 8/8:30am (yes, I’m shocked). But why? Because work doesn’t suck! It’s fun to wake up in the morning, I have something to look forward to, I get to actually do something that matters.

10) In the time that I’ve sat down to write a blog post, a TV show has come to an end and I really have to cut it short to go to the gym and run (no weights, don’t need strong arms to type 120 WPM hehe).

11) Oh, one more thing. Kirill beats me at everything, which I’ve found to be a good thing.
And our programmers are a billion times better at programming than me. And everyone is smarter than me, faster than me, etc etc. I’m SO glad you have no idea, I want to be a small fish in a big pond, because it makes me work my ass off so I can try to stay at the level of these guys.

This list could go on for so long, I’ve learned a lot and feel like I am adapting very well.

And if you’re in town tomorrow, there’s a big party for Mochi Media (we’re on same floor). Hit me up, 415-367-5181.