I’m getting older

How the hell I’m going to pay the plumber next week.

Photo by Azizi Co

I’m getting older

I'm getting older. I spent my whole life sitting around in one crummy joint after another with a bunch of punks like you, drinking coffee, eating hash, and watching other people take off for Florida while I got to sweat how the hell I’m going to pay the plumber next week.

– On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

How I will make my refactoring deadline, I have no idea.

Mark came in from the street, “Well, we must wait for the inspiration to show”.

“It’s almost too late to refactor”, said Barry coming up from the beach.

Yasmin, “Do we commit our code”?

“Only, if everyone’s checked in," said Janna.

“Barry, she called back, let’s just commit what we have, bring me my sweater, it’s freezing in here”.

One by one, all the code was committed, except that I like to savor the flavor of my work, put off my refactoring longer than usual.

So with all the air-conditioning systems everywhere, the sun out, and a layer of sweat, a heavy feeling of darkness descended.

Nothing could survive the heat, the heaviness which creeped at your neck, flowed into your pores,  swallowed up here a patch of grass, there the straight lines and style of a Chinese electric car.

Not only were people crazy from the politics; there was scarcely any shade left for cats, body or mind where you could say honestly, “He is chill” or “This is cool”.

But what after all is one release?  A short space, when darkness comes so late and soon traffic disturbs the quiet of the night.  

The nights are now full of humidity and stillness.   Also, the ocean rises and breaks itself, and if a tourist thinks they can find quiet on the beach, a local will go down to walk barefoot on the sand, using a drum to bring order to his soul, stealing the quiet without asking the night for permission.

21 years ago

We had worked together as fresh UCLA engineering school grads at our first tech job and then lost touch over the years.  Barry and I reconnected.

Barry did six years as VP Sales in a hot Valley startup developing object-oriented database technology.  

Barry was fired the month before, and decided to start his own company.   He brought in Iris, CFO from the OODB company who was also riffed.  Iris was hard as nails and had worked for the IRS investigating tax evasion before she decided to make real money in tech.  

They were both looking for new opportunities.  

Barry got along well with Iris and Iris tolerated Barry.

Barry knew that Iris could manage money and Iris knew that Barry could sell snow to eskimos.  

They both had a little money of their own.  Iris’s husband was a former Navy Seal doing security consulting for Hollywood celebrities.  LA seemed like a good place and far away from the Valley.

They took the chance on a new startup at the worst possible time in history and moved back to LA.

I was a manager in the Google infrastructure engineering group in Mountain View when I got called into my boss’s office Thursday morning.   It was short and brutal.    I was fired and out the same day.  Sundar Pichai announced later that afternoon that Google was firing 12,000 people in order to focus on AI.   I came home and called my ex-wife Sharon. I was history at Google.  We had 2 toddlers and were renting a small house in Palo Alto for $11,500/month.   

An ex-family sharing resources, as if touched by human penitence and its work, divine goodness would be ours always.

Sharon was a systems programmer at Pixar. She had been laid off in June in Pixar’s first major job cut in 10 years. Daycare for 2 toddlers, mortgage and the lease on the Benz.  And now this.

My phone rang.  It was Barry.  “Hi bro - where are you?”.   I picked up, smiling a little as I recognized Barry’s voice.   “Here in my kitchen in Palo Alto with Sharon.  Google just fired me. Sharon was laid off from Pixar in June,  how can I help you Barry?”   

Barry got straight to the point - “I’m working on something new, I want to pick your brain, let’s have lunch tomorrow”.   

I said “I don’t know Barry, we’re trying to figure out how to reboot after a  system crash. We’re driving down to visit our parents in LA this weekend. It’s not a good time”.

Barry is ABC always-be-closing.  “Perfect.  We’re in LA also. 

Let’s meet in the Westfield Mall in Century City Sunday at 12:00 at the Shake Shack”.  And he hangs up

12 noon at the Shake Shack in the Westfield Mall. 

I walk in and see Barry sitting at an outside table.  We share a bro hug complete with back pats.  

Barry said “Let’s order, I’m hungry”.  We order 2 burgers, crinkle cut fries and craft beer and start catching up.  

We ordered another round of craft beer and began to chill and catch up.  It’s been 10 years since graduation.

Barry pitched his idea to me - a cloud service for collecting work hours from gig economy workers using  watches.   

Barry wanted me to do the design.  He said, “What do you think?” 

“About what?” I said.

“About helping me with the design”.

“I don’t know. I have a lot on my plate right now, Barry”.

Barry calls me the next day. “What do you think?” 

I said - “You know something? I have nothing to lose but I won’t help you with the design.   

I’ll develop the system for you, if you can raise a little money”.

Back in LA.   

I returned the keys to the small house in Palo Alto and we drove down to LA.

My phone rang.  It was Barry.  “Hi bro - where are you?”.  

I picked up, smiling a little as I recognized Barry’s voice.  

“Here in my kitchen in West LA, unpacking”.   

“Let’s meet tomorrow in Venice and get started on the design”. 

I ask “Why Venice and where?” 

Barry had a friend who relocated to Singapore for a few months, who’s letting Barry use his apartment for work.

I tell Barry, “Give me the address, I’ll meet you there tomorrow and we’ll get started”.

My ex Sharon has the car. We’re a one car ex-family now; job hunting and living off savings.

I take the Rapid down Wilshire.    The only white man under 80 on the bus.

I get off on the corner of Ocean Ave and decide to walk down to Venice Beach to the address Barry gave me. 

It's a beautiful day.    That's LA for you - it’s either nice weather or beautiful weather.   

I walked into the studio apartment.

The woman at the table smoking a cigarette got up. 

“Hi, I’m Iris - I worked with Barry at the object database company”. 

I keep looking at her: slim, hard lines, designer-ripped jeans, black sleeveless top, barefoot, and a tattoo on her left arm, the one close to Barry.

Barry had put on weight since graduation, Italian loafers, chinos, t-shirt, smoking a cigar.

I look around and see a modern design studio apartment with a stunning view of the beach and ocean. 

Barry says “Let's get started on the design”. 

Iris understands collecting work hours, computing salaries and labor law requirements. 

I start by interviewing her.   To understand the process.

Over the next 2 weeks, the 3 of us put together a spec and mockup the UI with Figma.

One morning, I stood up towards Iris and grinned,  “You look happy”.  

 Iris said “Of course we are happy, we have a good design”.   

I asked, “What’s going to happen next?  I can’t develop this on my own for free”.  

Barry looks at Iris and says, “We’ll give you some equity and a little bit of cash - Iris is closing an angel round this week”.   

I said, “In that case, I want to bring in Janna to work with us.  She worked with me at Google. They moved to LA after Sergei got a job in El Segundo. She’s not working right now. She was the best engineer in my group.

I’m warning you, she’s a great programmer, but a pain-in-the-ass. No pain no gain with Janna”.

I called up Janna. She’s up to it.  We fight constantly and deploy several releases/day.

I get a bike, I settle into a routine.  Bus to Santa Monica. Bike to Venice. 

For the next few weeks we met in the studio in Venice beach and developed an MVP.  A week after we release the MVP, Barry closes Giganet’s first customer.  

Iris is collecting leads from her old IRS contacts and building a pipeline for Barry.

Still smoking in the apartment.

The dynamic duo.  

I think, “There is life after big tech.”  

Alice

One morning, I am waiting at a traffic light on my bike on the corner of Ocean and Wilshire.

I see a short 30-something, cute California blonde on the other side of the sidewalk. 

We exchange smiles in the manner of people on sidewalks and we go our ways. 

I signed up for a gym in Venice and started training before work in the Venice beach studio.  

Barry’s friend relocated to Singapore and they took over the lease.

A feeling of stability sets in.

One morning I’m in the gym doing circuit training.    The short 30-something, cute California blonde is working on the machine in front of me on the circuit.  She’s wearing an old USC sweatshirt, shorts and sneakers.

She’s shoving the handles on a cable fly machine, bending her wrists as she pushes, instead of holding them straight.

The engineer in me goes over and gives advice:  “Bending like that can cause damage to your wrists”.

I take her wrists with both hands and straighten them, “Try now”.  

 She smiles and says “Much better”. I smile back at her.

We stand there smiling at each other.

And, at that exact moment, something clicks.  

We move back into the circuit. 

Once/week  in the gym, I see her. 

We smile at each other and go back to our routines.

I think “what’s going on?”

After 6 weeks of smiles and insanely in love; I finally introduce myself.

“I’m Bob.”   The woman said “I’m Alice”.

Alice and I just stand there smiling at each other.

How can we make the right choices for ourselves?

So with lines of code committed and users onboarded, Giganet met no gig workers that wholly resisted Barry’s sales skills and Iris’s tenacity.

So love jumped in and uncertainty, and together made the shape of love itself - a form which had parted from life, quiet like the ocean at night, far distant, though once had. 

Week after week turned into reflection on how we succeed or fail, how we grow old and lonely or grow old and together.

Then again certainty descended, and Mark tearing the veil of fog with his two hands stood and directed me to analyze the patterns and refactor my work.

This book is a love story.

Why do we fail in love and work?

I set out to dig into that million-dollar question.

Understand how we destroy relationships, careers and companies.

And understand how we can make better choices by using“anti-design patterns”.

My first anti-design pattern is BrainFog.

BrainFog

What is BrainFog?

“Men often just fall in love without thinking. Women need more time”, Shelli says.

Iris says that tech founders rarely have a clear idea of who their customers are, why they care and when they will buy their product.

This is BrainFog.  In love and in tech.

Why is BrainFog an anti-design pattern?

If you want to fail in a relationship, don’t think too much about the other person’s feelings, what they really need, and how you can support them.

If you want to fail with new tech, don’t think too much about your customers, what they really want and how you can uniquely solve their problems.

Walking around in a fog like that is a great way to fail.

Solution

We go into a lot more detail about how to research customers in the Chapter Follow A Customer Home, and how to use diversity in your team to achieve clarity of purpose in the Chapter  Pesya matriarch of the hackers.

These are advanced topics.

First, you must be able to pitch your idea to a 9 year old.

Like this:

Giganet produces gig worker payroll with watches without waiting.

And with love?

Read our story.