Who is Trevor?

I'm working extensively with Trevor Blackwell at Anybots. Trevor cofounded Viaweb (which pioneered the online shopping cart, now Yahoo Stores), and is currently a principal in Y Combinator.

Trevor's an interesting guy. He's an extremely talented programmer, but really a kid at heart. It's clear that, when it gets right down to it, he just wants to work on cool stuff. In this vein, he's also not nearly as philosophical (or social) as Paul Graham.

It isn't that he doesn't have some very innovative and philosophical ideas; it's that he's not interested in taking the time to communicate them to others. It's like, if he were to sit down and write what's going through his head, he would be an order of magnitude less efficient. There doesn't yet seem to be a communication protocol that supports the bandwidth needed to stream his thoughts.

Instead, you can see manifestations of his thoughts in the stuff he does. The more time I spend at Anybots, the more I realize the potential the company has to dramatically change how we interact with the physical world. It's fair to say that the future Trevor envisions is probably different than anything we've ever thought of.

I'm beginning to realize that one of my jobs here will be to crystalize this vision in a format that others will understand.

Using the google maps street view to find startup-related easter eggs

Someone On News.YC found the Anybots / Y Combinator sign on google maps.

I then stumbled across this image, which looks like googlers waving to the camera from the googleplex.

Anybody else find any other startup-related easter eggs? What about Apple's first garage or the dorm room that Sergey Brin & Larry Page worked out of?

First week at Anybots

I just finished my first week working in the valley, and it's been a lot of fun.

Here's my desk/work area. I was able to assemble it out of some spare stuff that was lying around. Don't tell anybody, but I stole Jessica Livingston's sweet Aeron chair. Hopefully she won't miss it while she's in Cambridge!


And here's Trevor, using Monty to pour himself a cup of tea:


Housing is horribly expensive here, so I've been sleeping in a cheap motel down the road until I have find something affordable. This has been an interesting experience. I guess by "nonsmoking room," they don't actually mean you can't smoke - just you don't get an ash tray. That wasn't a huge problem for the previous tenant (who was a chain smoker, judging by the smell of the room); he just used the desk:


The room also has one of those beds that fold into the wall. That's pretty cool, except that the room isn't much larger than the bed. Therefore, when you fold it down, your only options in the room are to either to sit on it, or stand in the doorway:


Ah well, at least they did have wireless internet, so I can't complain much ;)