How I knew I was done with my company

I thought I would never sell my company. I started it as a hobby in 1997. When NPR did a story about me in 2004, I said I’d stick it out until the end, and I meant it.

In 2007 I did a ground-up rewrite of the the website from scratch. And man, it was beautiful code. My proudest achievement of my life so far is that backend software. Wonderfully organized, extensible, and efficient: the culmination of everything I’d learned about programming in 10 years.

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Keeping with a plan and when it is the right time to change plans

It takes a lot of patience, professionalism and effort to put together a good plan of action, whether it’s a business plan or an attack plan when it comes to your career. It takes tens times as much when it comes to following through with that plan. All too often artists, and even business people, will set up a great plan, but then slack on it, cut corners, change it without a solid reason or just go in an entirely different direction. Much of the time, this results in failure because a hodge podge of unorganized and erratic work leads to problems.

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