Live every minute that you have

I’ve been thinking again recently about what I want to accomplish with my life. I have a few specific goals. I want to see the world from outer space. I want to build a school in a third world country. I want to build a product that touches 1% or more of the people on this planet. I have other audacious plans. I also want to write a book and visit at least 50 countries.

I’ve already seen the pyramids, gone sky diving, started a couple companies and experienced more in 27 years than many people experience in a life time. I’ve been incredibly blessed. I also think it’s important to step back every now and then and ask yourself if you’re living the life you want to be living. I don’t want to wake up one day and realize I wasted time on things that don’t matter.

Tonight, I randomly stumbled across a ReadWriteWeb interview of Brad Feld from 2008. I’ve heard variations on this quote from Brad before and I really like it.

When it’s over, they dig a hole in the ground, put you in it (or spread your ashes somewhere), print your picture in the newspaper and write some nice things about you, and then life goes on for everyone else but you. Live every minute that you have.

Whether you’re an Atheist like Brad or believe in an afterlife like me, it’s a good reminder that our days on this planet are limited. Let’s make this week count.

Goodbye Boulder. Hello Mountain View.

Just over 4 years ago, I moved from South Carolina to Boulder, Colorado. I instantly fell in love with this town. Boulder is a perfect playground for adults. Boulder has 300 days of sunshine with amazing skiing in the winter and great mountain biking in the summer. Boulder is a place that fosters smart people who care about balancing work with fun. Boulder has an incredibly high concentration of computer geeks and I’ve felt at home from the first moment I arrived. I’ve never been a part of a more supportive community. I’ve made hundreds of friendships here, many of which I know will last for the rest of my life.

Boulder has been an amazing place to live, but the time has come for me to move on. On July 1st I will be packing up my things and driving a U-Haul out to Mountain View, California.

A couple months ago I realized I had a tough decision to make. Where did I want to build my company? Of course, there are pros and cons to building a company in any location. The easy decision was just to stay in Boulder. (Did I mention, I love this town?) But as you know, the easy decision isn’t always the right one. In our case, moving to the Valley just makes more sense. Many of the engineers we want to hire are currently working and living in the Valley. Many of our customers and potential partners are there too. We still have a small team and still have the flexibility to make the transition. Jon and I are doubling-down on our commitment to Torbit and believe this is the best decision for our company. Boulder is still an amazing place to build a business and I’ll fight anyone who dares to suggest otherwise. It’s just time for a change.

Since the first time I heard about Silicon Valley I had a feeling I would eventually live there. I’m not sure how long I will stay, but I know it’s the right place for me to be right now. I plan to work in the tech industry for the rest of my life and moving to the Valley gives me a chance to build relationships with some of the most influential people in my industry. I’m young and don’t have much tying me down so I figure this is as good a time as any to make the move.

Boulder is amazing and I’m sad to be leaving it behind. I’m incredibly thankful for all the friends I’ve made during my time here. And don’t worry, I’ll still be around. As Micah said, “I’m not leaving Boulder, I’m just not going to live here anymore.” Most of my friends are in Boulder and it’s a cheap flight back. I also hope you’ll stop by if you’re ever in town. I’m getting a two bedroom apartment just so I can have an extra bed for any friends who want it.

Leaving Boulder is bittersweet. I’m sad to be leaving, but also incredibly excited to see what’s next.

Speaking at Velocity Conference

In a couple weeks I’ll be speaking at O’Reilly’s 2011 Velocity Conference. Velocity is an annual gathering of people who care a lot about web performance. The tagline this year is “Automated, Optimized, Ubiquitous”. Of course, “Automated” describes nicely what we’re doing at Torbit — taking cutting-edge performance techniques and making them available to anyone with a website. I’ll be speaking on the 15th and I’m looking forward to sharing some of the things we’ve learned.

The conference is taking place in Santa Clara, CA on June 14-16. Each year Velocity attracts the best known names in the industry and speakers from companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft present their latest research and findings. The schedule is crammed with great content and I’m honored to be included on the roster. My talk will focus on mobile optimizations and I’ll be going into more detail on the new localStorage optimizations we have developed at Torbit for delivering amazing mobile performance.

I’m looking forward to the event and I hope to see lots of familiar faces there on June 14th. Let me know if you’re planning to attend as I’d love to meet up and make lots of new friends while I’m there.

Update on Rolling Curl

Back in 2009 I blogged about using curl_multi() in PHP without blocking. The goal was to provide a better way to process multiple HTTP requests in parallel. The code was well received and I ended up turning my original snippet of code into a full blown PHP Class.

And then I got busy. Meanwhile the list of bugs and feature requests began to pile up.

Thankfully, a few guys have picked up my slack on the project. Alexander Makarow has been diligently maintaining the code for me, fixing bugs and making it better. Fabian Franz forked it on Github and added some of the top requested features.

Thanks to their efforts, Rolling Curl is in better shape than ever. This is why I love open source.

3 types of winning

Each month I pay Comcast for internet access at my house and their service sucks. I have the option to switch to Qwest but I’ve heard they are just as bad. As a customer, I’m not very happy but dropping my internet isn’t exactly an option. In this transaction there’s one clear winner, and it’s not me.

When I go to concerts, I often end up buying tickets through Ticketmaster. When I do, Ticketmaster makes money and the venue that selected Ticketmaster as the payment system gets a financial kickback. Event-goers are pissed over the exorbitant fees, but both the company (Ticketmaster) and the customer (the venues) are happy. It’s a win for both the company and the customer.

Occasionally you’ll find a company that provides a triple win. I click on Google ads as they’re often helpful. Advertisers are happy to pay for my clicks because on average I’m going to spend far more on their store than I’m going to cost them. Google, of course, is happy to take their cut as well – a great example of a win/win/win. Everyone is happy: the company, the customer and the world.

There aren’t many companies that can get away with being a single winner. These types of wins are really only possible when they have near-monopolistic control of the market. Since everyone hates them, they’re guaranteed to be overturned unless there’s some large market force keeping the status quo.

The vast majority of companies in the world are a double win. You have to make at least one customer happy to have a business. Most double win companies aren’t hated by the rest of the world like Ticketmaster, they’re just invisible since they don’t make much of a difference to anyone besides the customer.

Triple win companies are pretty rare. It’s hard enough trying to satisfy your customers without trying to please everyone else while you’re at it. But of the three types of companies, triple wins are the most fun. Other than your competitors, the entire world is cheering for you to succeed (well, at least until you get big).

One of the reasons I’m having so much fun working on Torbit is that our product is a triple win. I regularly see tweets from people recommending Torbit to websites that are slow. Everyone on the Internet appreciates fast loading websites, even if they have no idea who we are or have no conscious recognition of the difference we make. Our customers love us because we make them more money by making their websites faster. And of course, as long as we’re providing value, people will happily pay us as well.

At the company where you work, who’s winning? For the entrepreneur, what kind of company are you building? I want to make money just as much as the next guy, but it’s not what drives me to get out of bed in the morning. You can be wildly profitable no matter which path you choose, but my guess is you’ll have a lot more fun if you find a way to make the world a better place while you’re at it.

Talking about Torbit at BDNT

A few weeks ago Robert Reich called me up and asked if I would present Torbit at the Boulder New Tech Meetup. They’d had a cancelation and needed someone to fill in at the last minute. Of course, I jumped at the chance. Here’s 5 minutes of me talking about my favorite company in the world and answering a few questions at the end:

Lessons from Högertrafikomläggningen

Yesterday afternoon I closed my laptop and went for a bike ride on the South Marshall Mesa trail. It was a beautiful day and the close proximity to the mountains and biking trails is one of my favorite things about Boulder. I’ve found jumping on a bike and getting away for a while is a great way to clear my head and reflect on life. Yesterday as I was riding my mind wandered to an historical event I discovered while I was preparing for my last Ignite talk.

On September 3rd 1967, Sweden switched from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right. The day when the transition took place was called Högertrafikomläggningen which means “the right-hand traffic diversion”. It is often referred to as Dagen H or simply H Day. The craziest part of this story to me was that during the transition, traffic accidents actually fell by 17%. In my Ignite talk I focused on the fact that we are more careful when things feel dangerous and that making something scary is actually one of the best ways to make something safe. But today I thought about Dagen H in a new way.

Right now my life involves lots of big decisions and lots of change. But I doubt there will be many decisions in my life as drastic as having an entire country switch to driving on the opposite side of the road. I can imagine the struggle as the Swedish parliment delibererated on whether or not to make the switch. Every country around Sweden drove on the right and switching really was the most logical decision. On the other hand, switching required a ton of work and preperation and it’s not hard to envision what the negitive reprecusions could have been. The plan was also incredibly unpopular at the time.

In spite of the risk and the effort involved, Sweden made the right decision. And it worked out for them. The lesson for me is that no matter how overwhelming a decision may seem, sometimes you just have to go for it, and trust that if you do the right thing, everything will work out in the end.

Don’t wait for permission

A few years ago I wrote a post titled Looking for a job? Don’t be this guy. Today I want to share a positive example of what you should do instead if you’re looking for a job.

I love the 360 panorama app from Occipital. It’s the easiest way to make a panoramic and the scenes that people share are often stunning. Back in December, I tweeted that I hoped that Occipital would make a gallery of their 360 panos. Mick Thompson saw my tweet and apparently agreed with me. But instead of just retweeting my request, he got to work and actually built it. The 360 gallery he created was awesome.

Unknown to both of us, Occipital had been talking internally about building a gallery themselves. When they saw Micks work they immediately got in touch with him and asked if he’d be interested in joining them. Today, Occipital announced that Mick will be joining them in a full time role.

Mick is an example of exactly the kind of guy I want to hire. You’ll be amazed at how much a little initiative will set you apart from the crowd. If you’re struggling to find a job, the best advice I have for you is to find a way to copy Mick. I think this lesson applies to lots of other areas in life too. If you want something to exist, don’t sit around talking about it. Just do it.

Congrats to both Mick and Occipital. I can’t wait to see what you guys build next.

Book review: Moonwalking with Einstein

I just finished reading Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer. I first heard about the book on the Colbert Report and it turned out to be a fascinating read. The book is a autobiography about a journalist who covers a memory competition. He is intrigued by the memory athletes in the competition and decides to learn more. Foer ends up embarking on a year-long study of memory techniques before competing himself and landing the title of US Memory Champion.

The memory athletes perform seemingly incredible feats like memorizing an entire deck of cards in 30 seconds or reciting back thousands of random digits in under an hour. The amazing thing is that these memory athletes are just ordinary people with average memories. They’ve just learned how to train their minds and have learned old tricks for effectively remembering things.

The basic premise of most of the memory techniques is that our memories are incredible visual and spacial. For example, picture the home you grew up in. You may not have seen it in years, but I bet you can still walk around that building in your mind and recall the layout with incredible detail. Our minds are also really good at remembering things that are out of the ordinary, sexual or absurd. By drawing connections in your mind and laying scenes around “memory palaces” you can transform the kinds of things you usually forget into the kind your brain is naturally good at remembering.

Foer also talks a lot about the history of memorization. Memory skills used to be considered a lot more important than they are today. He talks with natural savants and the worlds smartest trained minds. He discusses the process of becoming an expert and how to stop yourself from plateauing in your quest for mastery. I was fascinated by the techniques he used and challenged to simply pay more attention and be more intentional about the things that I want to remember.

One of the key take-aways for me is that anyone could become an expert, but it takes time and commitment. Foer had to do a massive amount of brute force memorization to build up a dictionary of shortcuts in his mind before he could memorize anything fast. He points out that invention and inventory come from the same root word. Invention can’t come without having an inventory of experiences and knowledge to build on. It’s all very recursive.

No matter how good your memory is now, I think you’ll enjoy Moonwalking with Einstein. If you’re looking for a good book, check it out. It’s an interesting look into the internal workings of our minds.

Why Greplin is my favorite new startup

I’ve talked before about how much I love Greplin:

i'm falling in love with @greplin. it's easily the most useful tool i've adopted in the last year.

— Josh Fraser (@joshfraser) February 16, 2011

Greplin is a tool that allows you to search across all your content from one search box. For example, I’ve got my account set up to index my Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Google Docs and Google Calendar. With one search I can surface messages or content from any of those services with Google-like speed. Once they add indexes for Google Voice, Google Reader (both coming soon) and browser history, they’ll cover 99.9% of the personal content I want to search. They already offer lots of integrations including popular serivces like Yammer, Saleforce, Evernote and tools from 37signals.

The value proposition Greplin offers is clear. Often I’ll remember having a conversation without remembering where I had it – was it Facebook? Twitter? Email? With Greplin, I don’t need to remember. They’ll find it regardless of which service I used. It was Greplin that let me find the link to that tweet I included in this post without wasting 5 minutes digging around on twitter.com. I also use it as a context tool for remembering past conversations. For example, before emailing or responding to a stranger, I’ll usually Greplin their name. I’m often surprised to find that we actually met years ago at a conference, were CC’d on the same email or had some interaction on twitter that I had forgotten about. Being able to surface that context in a split second is invaluable.

On Friday, Greplin became even more useful. They now give you the option to replace the default search tool in Gmail. For anyone who uses Gmail search on a regular basis, you know how painful the experience can be. I’ve never understood how the worlds best search engine manages to be so terrible at search inside Gmail. With Greplin, my searches inside Gmail are now blazing fast.

There’s an obvious concern about the security aspect of using Greplin since they have access to all my content and are storing the indexes in the cloud. For me, the value they provide is big enough that I’m willing to take the risk and I’m not one to hand over the keys to my data easily! In this case, the cloud really does make more sense than storing large indexes on my hard drive.

A big part of the reason I’m willing to trust Greplin is because of how much I’ve been impressed by the team. Greplin is a YCombinator company and they have an interesting story of how they got started. The latest features didn’t work for me at first and I mentioned the problem in a comment on the TechCrunch post. I immediately got an email from their CEO, Daniel Gross asking for more details. Today Daniel emailed me to tell me it was fixed and sure enough, it’s now working great. Thanks Daniel!

If you haven’t tried Greplin yet, I recommend you give it a shot. I’m willing to bet you’ll fall in love with it just like I did.