it's not my better side.
Darin and I got together with Jim today. I like seeing Jim, who used to work with Darin at Apple and at General Magic; he's very intelligent and witty. Of course, most of the time I get the impression he thinks I'm stupid, but Darin assures me that everyone gets that impression from Jim and he doesn't think that about me at all. (There is a reason I keep Darin around and it's not just to keep me warm at nights.)
Despite how much fun it is to see Jim, I was very depressed afterward. Why? Because we talked about what everyone in the Silicon Valley talks about these days.
Back at Stanford I hung out with the computer science crowd, and two of the people I was friends with (and worked for) were Sandy Lerner and Len Bosack, who went on to form a little company by the name of Cisco. They cashed out after a few years--I think they were ousted; I'm not really sure--but I believe they each walked away with about 200 million dollars. Up until fairly recently, they were my big example of people I know who made Serious Money.
All I can say now is: pikers.
Some former co-workers of Darin's formed WebTV--they did pretty well (60 million each?) when Microsoft bought them. Then another co-worker of Darin's decided to put his wife's collecting hobby on-line and created a little business named Ebay and he became the example of the biggest success I knew. When people you know don't donate money any more, their foundations do, you know they're amazingly wealthy.
Today Jim tells us a guy we know went public with a company that's now worth 17 billion. I'd never even heard of the company.
This is not to discount all the people we know who picked up anywhere from 5 million to 50 million. Jim told us about one guy we know (former co-worker, attended our wedding, the whole 9 yards) who sold his startup and is now evidently spending most of his time spending whatever his percentage of the 150 million dollar pricetag was on boats and houses and cars.
All this chat of the Serious Money going on around here seriously depresses me. A lot of the feeling is envy, pure and simple: I wouldn't mind having a husband who had 100 million in the bank. (Okay, I wouldn't spend any of it, but I'd look at the bank statements from time to time. And despite California's community property laws, I wouldn't feel entitled to half of it. I still think of Darin's income as Darin's and he's just being generous with me. This mindset drives him nuts, because he's a firm believer in sharing everything.)
A lot of the feeling is disgust, not at the sums being made--hey, welcome to America, that's what we do here--but because we know of idiots who simply happen to be at the right place at the right time and are walking away with 50 million. One guy who neither Darin nor Jim could mention without a distinct eye twitch has made out like a bandit, and when Darin worked with him this guy had not the slightest clue as to what he was doing behind a computer.
Darin is not one of these IPO people. We're doing okay, no violins, but we're not millionaires and we fly coach. But I keep thinking, what if, what if? In case you weren't aware, I happen to be rather fond of Darin and think highly of his abilities. If morons are getting many millions, what is Darin worth?
It's not about worth, though, it's about luck. Luck primarily achieved by moving from company to company and having lots of chips on the board when the roulette wheel stops. It has nothing to do with what you've created or what your abilities are; it has to do with what you've convinced investors they're buying. One day there's going to be a reckoning; investors are going to say, Hey, none of these people are making money. Some large online firm like Amazon is going to go under. And the market--which has largely been driven by these insane high-tech IPOs--will correct in a major way, leaving many people high and dry. But it's not going to happen any time soon.
Despite Darin's reassurances, I am convinced that my asking him to move to Los Angeles just as this insanity hit the Silicon Valley has put him way behind the curve. I usually phrase it as, "I've ruined your life." If I hadn't asked him to relocate, he might be doing such-and-so now and he might be in the same league with his friends and former co-workers. He tells me that he'd probably still be working at General Magic (or Data Rover) doing the same old thing, and we'd still not be able to afford a house in Palo Alto and probably wouldn't be having a baby. And the experience he got breaking out of his usual mode to work as a consultant has been invaluable to him career-wise.
Yeah, but...
I've recently come to the sad conclusion that, in the absence of one of Darin's ventures doing really, really well, we're never moving back to the Bay Area. I might as well just get used to Los Angeles right now; I insist on living in California and I want to be in one of the two major metropolitan areas, and since one of the two is out...
I love the Bay Area; I still love it far more than I can imagine loving Los Angeles. It's filled with intelligent, hard-working, well-educated people with whom you can converse about any number of topics. (This is not universally true in LA.) Despite how crowded it is, it's still less crowded than Los Angeles, it's better laid out, and there's more open space. The Bay Area really does have the world's most beautiful freeway (280). I grew up here, I went to college here, I worked here, I fell in love here. It's always seemed pretty damn idyllic to me.
I originally thought that we'd never move back because we couldn't afford it without having a couple tens of millions in the bank. We have a nice house in Los Angeles; I'd hate to spend twice as much for half the house in Menlo Park. (And we'd be lucky to get that these days: Jim told us about a house in Palo Alto that went on the market for $2.3m and sold for $3.4m 4 days later without inspections, as is. Jim's own house has appreciated 2.5 times in the past year. It's insane.)
But beyond that, even I'm disgusted by the focus on money around here. You perhaps cannot glean from this journal exactly how venal and greedy I really am, but trust me, I am. I dream about having a few really luxurious houses--one in San Francisco, one in New York--and being able to fly first-class and paying the large bills without wincing. I actually don't have a highly developed fantasy life when it comes to money; I think of a few things and then I'm out. But I think about them a lot.
But even I'd go crazy in an environment where everyone is thinking about how to get-seriously-rich-quick all the time. It used to be the joke that every conversation overheard in a restaurant had to do with technology; on this trip, every conversation overheard has to do with IPOs. (I admit to starting a few of these conversations, but by no means all.)
All I know is, you want to get rich, don't go to Hollywood. Those multi-million dollar salaries for the superstars--if Chris Tucker is getting 20 million for the sequel to Rush Hour, just imagine what Adam Sandler and Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson are going to ask for next--seem like so much chump change next to the Gold Rush here.
We had dinner with Greg tonight at the Sundance Mining Company in Palo Alto. (Mmmm, meat.) We had to wait for a table...on a Wednesday night! Well, it's holiday week. Or maybe everyone in this area is getting used to buying steak dinners whenever they want.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com