little. yellow. different. A weblog by Ernie Hsiung

dinner with “the enemy,” notice use of air quotes

Two days ago, I had dinner at Google with Leonard and a bunch of Blogger folk.

For those that don’t know, Google serves lunch and dinner to their employees, all at no cost. The food is pretty posh: stuffed pork loin, grilled polenta, beverages in cans that were designed by industrial art students. House music is played while waiting in line. It’s kinda like being at Hometown buffet, except everyone is good looking and rich.

Evan (one of the co-founders of Pyra) and I have a pretty good rapport, even though I once hit on him in a drug-induced haze three years ago, have stopped using his blogging service and now work for a company that is seen as one of Google’s main competitors. Getting along is a good thing, since everyone at the table is working on confidential projects and it would be an hour full of uncomfortable silence otherwise. It also helps that everyone at the table is incredibly catty and sarcastic.

Evan: So how is Yahoo!? You guys developing anything new?
Ernie: Eh, just a small project or two. How about you guys?
Chris: I spent the past 30 hours Photoshopping the Blogger logo. It has rounded corners now.
Leonard: Whatever. You guys refresh E*Trade to see if your stock has IPO’ed yet.
Man at table behind us: …OH MY FUCKING GOD, DO YOU GUYS REALIZE THAT WE’RE GOING TO BE MILLIONAIRES? MILLIONAIRES!!! HAPPY FUCKING NEW YEARS!!!

(Thousands of $100 bills fall from the ceiling like black and white balloons on New Years Eve. Some Russian guy brings out a giant paper mache effigy of a purple and yellow “Y!” and sets it on fire.)

Evan: …you’re not going to exaggerate this conversation and put this on the Internet, are you?
Ernie: Me? Naaah.

Why can’t I get a cool job at a visionary internet company? I want to make things round!!!

I miss the .com days. I was once one of those kids promised billions for my art and programming skills.

Instead I ended up a bitter queen.

I love the fact you all still believe, it’s so quaint.

/em gouges out the eyes of people who made real money

The .com days never made here to the Cowlands.

We just live vicariously through people like Ernie now.

You know, Ernie, people just don’t use enough air quotes anymore. I think they’re a dot com throw back, too.

For anyone feeling nostalgic for those days, I offer the following… “paradigm shift,” “burstable,” “proactive,” “out of the box solution,” and “synergy.”

*sigh*

so what did you have for dinner? Anything “Googlicious”?

a vision of Valley co-opetition

http://www.littleyellowdifferent.com/?z=post&y=archives/002279...

Burstable? I remember burstable. Trust me, burstable will make a comeback!

*mumbling under breath: stupid .com biz.. make cash then poof! blame pets.com and stupid sock puppet.

… i now can make more cash standing 6 hours straight on the corner of a busy intersection in a hot dog suit, than i can building websites…. less humiliation, too.

The Valley is picking back up, you just have to make sure you pick the right jockey or horse (depending on how you bet those sort of things).

The Netgear IPO last year made me a tidy little sum. The winners are still out there!

“Evan: …you’re not going to exaggerate this conversation and put this on the Internet, are you?”

*files next to homestarrunner quotes*

ah, the .com days… yeah, i was there at the beginning of it all and left before the hard crash. of course, i didn’t make any kind of money off of it. should have been designing for yahoo back in 93. but i was 13. whatev.

The funny part is that Ernie asked me if I was free for dinner that night, but I told him I wasn’t. In fact I had a pre-existing plan to sit in the cafe throwing $100 bills around and ranting like a madman.

And I’m half-Russian.

Dear Weblog,

Oh wait, where am I?

Like Donny O says, the bubble is inflating again, the Beeb ran a program a while ago about how those who still have assets (didn’t splash out on too many TTs and lavish launches) are getting interested again (inevitably). It’s a proactive paradigm-shift of burstable out-of-the-box synergy I tell you! I reckon Yahoo is in there for the long run and Google’s got a bit of up and down coming its way. No stock here. I do love Google. And Yahoo. Both need to sort out their colour palettes though.

I love how you exaggerate conversations Ernie. You seem to think of the same out there things that I’d think of, but with no monkeys involved.

http://www.koarecords.com/details_asian.jpg

Interesting that you mentioned Google’s free meals….I was watching a story on CBS’s Sunday Morning about Google today, and they mentioned that….

That sounds like so much fun, eating with the googliers…

oh gosh. i love ernie. and his daily anecdotal insights into the “biz” . . . gives me inspiration. (*yes i’d still like for you to sign my boobs*) >_

yeah - silicon valley. man jose. land of the bike racks on audis, the short 90 hour work week, the half million dollar condo, and engineers in khakis, as far as the eye can see.

Hey I wanna get a job there. I work at a cigars company and we get free cigars…and occassionally free meals (when we stay overtime or do not have time to go out to lunch). But since Google is going public soon, I would ask for stock optionsl. Yeah…stock options are alot better then cigars..

Hey Ern, next time you hang out with Ev, would you mind giving him a hug for me? And make it extra-tight. Tell him it’s from his most obsessedly insane Canadian fan.

Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption.