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Showing posts from November, 2010

10 Reasons I’m Going to Cloudstock on Dec. 6th

Cloudstock, an all day event for developers focused on developing in the cloud, will welcome a large number of thought leaders and business leaders in the cloud as sponsors and presenters! Cloudstock is on the day before salesforce.com’s annual user conference, Dreamforce. As a sponsor of Dreamforce, we’re busy gearing up by creating new samples, developing a new integration with a key partner and creating new presentations to show how developers can use electronic signatures in the Cloud. While the pressure will escalate up to the very last minute, we’re setting aside the last day before Dreamforce for Cloudstock. The top 10 reasons the DocuSign technical evangelists are taking a full day for Cloudstock:John Musser’s evaluation of the Cloud API landscape: John and the entire ProgrammableWeb team keep their hands on the pulse on most of the web services – we’re looking forward to a big picture view.Session from Box.net’s Hieu Nguyen and Jeremy Glassenberg: Sometimes we get so caught up …
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Creating a startup culture within Google and Microsoft

When I left Microsoft at the exit interview I told them that the major reason I chose a startup over them is because I am an overachiever.

I was expecting that they'd try to drill into that and figure out how to keep the overachievers at Microsoft... they didn't. They HR person told me that I wasn't alone.

Big tech companies never figured out how to keep talented engineers on staff. They recognize some of them as "principal architects" or something similar, but it's generally given to people who were there for a while. With the current pay packages of base and stock options they can't possibly give everyone an opportunity to earn millions so they are OK targeting 66th percentile of talent.

I think to resolve this issue the tech industry has to look at the financial industry. Through bonuses and partnerships even if you join a well established firm you still have a chance at fame and wealth. Splitting the company into smaller units and tying their pay…
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Seattle as a "One Industry Town"

I recently came across a technical blog post that described Seattle as a "One Industry Town."

I have lived here for about 16 years, so I know a thing or two about the local industries. So what does Seattle bring to the world beside Microsoft (as this tech blogger probably implied).

#1 Seattle is still the center of American Aviation. Living here you hear about the Dreamliner, Boeing contracts and other things you don't really get to hear about in other places that much.

#2 Seattle is the home of Starbucks - the top brand in Coffee

#3 Seattle is where Costco was created

#4 The largest world retailer - Amazon.com is based in Seattle

#5 UW is consistently ranked as on of the top medical schools and facilities in the nation.

#6 Seattle is where most of the Waterskis and other water sports equipment is made by companies like O'Brien and H.O.

As you can see Seattle is way beyond just Microsoft even though Microsoft is one of the key components of our economy. Microsof…
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