He was lost and then found...

I’ve mentioned before that I LOVE startups and small companies. One big reason for that are the teams. While I think that large companies have the ability to build teams, I’ve found that I’m much more likely to land on a team while working for a small company. I’m thinking about this today because my friend Jeff Mackay turned up. Shortly after I moved to California I lost track of him. And today he found me. Yippeee!

Jeff and I worked at Kaseworks together. We got drunk together, built and designed products together, complained together. A defining project was the Kase:Set++ project. Kase:Set++ was the C++ code generator that shipped with IBM’s first release of their C++ compiler for OS/2. If my memory serves me right Jeff and I turned that product around in a month. Did we live at the office? Yep. I remember sleeping under my desk a few times...just one more compile...

It was a very satisfying journey that we took together. And we built something that we were proud of. I remember Jeff laughing and telling me that we had to stop work on the Notebook module because IBM wasn’t ready. We were pushing the big guys, and while that was a minor blip in my life, it was a shared moment of feeling exhilarated because we "beat" IBM at something. Our friendship was forged in the fires of creativity and on the stresses of competition. Good natured competition between engineers with a passion for software, driven to be better than anyone else. Having teammates like Jeff helped make me a better engineer.

While the pressure and work of startups aren’t for everyone, the friends I have gained, the teams I have been on, have all made this an incredible journey.

Jeff just started blogging here and he’s looking a little scruffy in his photo! But I know he’s not afraid to write (he had a C++ book published, didn’t he just) so I hope to see some great things....No pressure Dude!