This is a re-post of a blog that was published on the Huffington Post on Sep 15th. For the original post, click here to go to the HuffingtonPost.com.
I have lived and worked in Boulder, Colorado for seven years now. Before moving here, I was very fortunate to live in some of the most interesting places in the world during some of the most interesting times. I grew up in South Africa and came of age during the fall of Apartheid. It was an amazing movement to be part of, although admittedly I had very little understanding of the global impact of what was going on. After studying in Canada, I moved to Silicon Valley in 1995 to start my first company, Zip2. Within a year or two I found myself smack in the middle of the Internet boom. By 1999, after selling Zip2 to Compaq, I decided that Silicon Valley had become a different place than when I first arrived, so I moved to New York to find a new life. So far away in fact, that I enrolled in the French Culinary Institute to study the amazing nuances of French cooking. A few weeks after I graduated, 9/11 happened. I lived a few blocks away from the towers, heard the planes crash, saw the towers burn, and saw the towers fall. My life had become all too interesting.
That was when we found Boulder. My wife and I decided to look around the country for a home that would be a better place to have a life, a family, and a business. We discovered Boulder, a small but lively pedestrian town in the middle of the country. Easy to get to New York or California, but not in New York or California. We decided that we'd open a restaurant. The complete opposite of the businesses I'd been a part of (at the time, PayPal, of which I was an angel investor, had just gone public for over $1 billion). Small town, family business ... it was my Kansas ... it was perfect.
When we first moved here I didn't realize or imagine that Boulder had a thriving tech community. Brad Feld and Jared Polis, who I've become good friends with over the years, were just the guys I bought the restaurant from. Both of them are extremely talented internet entrepreneurs and well-known movers and shakers throughout the Boulder community.
My goal was to build a small business and a family life. It was not to be. The Kitchen, which my wife and I opened with our friend and amazing chef Hugo Matheson, was quickly recognized as the pioneer in 'green' restaurants across the country. It received many national awards for its food and community focus. It is the opposite of a small business, employing over 60 people and serving between 3,000 and 4,000 people every week. Boulder was not the small town I had expected. It is a vivacious community of sophisticated people, who have the same aspirations and expectations you find in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. If Boulder ever was Kansas, Dorothy and Toto left that place a long time ago.
Then, about four years ago, some friends from New York came to me with the idea of OneRiot. I had worked with David Mandell, one of the founders, when I lived in New York. They pitched the idea of the realtime web, a place where people on the internet are contributing, changing and consuming information right now based on social interactions. I got so excited I almost fell off my chair. I was hooked on the idea, but was skeptical that you could build a software company in Boulder. I mean ... why would anyone build a software company outside of Silicon Valley? I had experimented with it in New York in 1999, and it was a hard lesson to learn. Silicon Valley is the only place for software start-ups ... or so I thought.
I talked to every CEO and VC I could find in Boulder to learn more about building a software business here. This included my first real introductions to Brad Feld and Jared Polis. Turns out you can build a software business in Boulder. In fact, several folks already had. Looking back, my ignorance was astounding.
I then turned to friends of mine in the venture community from around the country to see if they'd invest in a start-up in Boulder. They would. They did. Boulder was definitely not the Kansas I thought it was.
Here's what I've learned about Boulder since then:
Boulder should be next to the word 'community' in the dictionary. The support we received at OneRiot from the beginning has been amazing. Everyone's door was open and everyone was rooting for our success. In turn, our team at OneRiot has done everything we can to return the favor. Robert Reich, another one of our founders, started the Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup, which now boasts over 3,000 members. Entrepreneurs in Boulder want you to be successful. You want others to be successful. It's really an amazing community to start a company. Due to everyone's efforts working together, Boulder has become one of the top cities to start and build a software business.
David Cohen at Techstars is another great example of Boulder entrepreneurship and community. He brings together 10 young start-ups each year to Boulder, trains them, connects them with mentors, and puts them in front of some of the top investors from around the world at the annual Techstars day in Boulder, in August. If you're building your first startup, Techstars is one of the top incubators in the country. It's just another example of many that have made Boulder one of the most exciting places to work in software in the country.
Boulder is the up-and-coming tech community in the country. Keep a look-out. We're going to be in the news more and more every day. We probably won't beat out Silicon Valley for its financial and people infrastructure in tech, but looking at the overall picture we take Silicon Valley to school.
Disclaimer: I actually don't know much about Kansas. I just heard about it in the Wizard of Oz. It is entirely possible that it is a mecca of software and restaurant sophistication.
For more news and commentary from Colorado, check out HuffPost's just-launched Denver section.
Follow Kimbal Musk on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kimbal
Username: Kimbal http://twitter.com/kimbal
I have been spending the past few weeks on Twitter. I thought I'd give it a real go after playing with it on and off over the past few years.
Turns out that I like it a lot more than I ever thought I would. I think the difference is I now have a complete lack of shame. I am completely comfortable telling all my followers the nuances of what I'm eating, from cardboard Starbucks pastries, to hot stone seared toro at Matsushisa in LA. That and commentary on the lighting in airport terminals really gives you a good idea of the amazing depth of my tweets. :)
And what's even more amazing, once you dive in, you actually start to care about what other people think about their food and airport terminals. It's somewhat competitive actually. 'Oh yeah, you think you can make some tiny inane thing worth tweeting about? Just wait for it. I can cover the struggles and joys of waiting in line in security better than Ernest Hemingway after 5 G&Ts.'
It's also the reason you've seen less of my blog posts. I'll still post here, but I'll keep it to deeper insights (like maybe how they could improve the security screening process at airports!!).
So, in the meantime, I'll see you on Twitter.
About 6 months ago a close friend of mine asked me if I wanted to join him with a group of friends to go heli-skiing this January. I think I replied in the affirmative within 5 seconds. I've always wanted to go, but I've never been able to convince enough friends to make it a full group.
Our motley crew
We booked our trip with the Selkirk-Tangiers Heli-skiing group in Revelstoke, Canada. They rocked and made the trip great both on and off the slopes. A quick nod to our guides Phil and Paul. You guys kicked ass.
Phil waiting for the helicopter to pick us up. He waits with our equipment while we wait on the other side of the landing spot.
Having never been heli-skiing, I was quite intimidated by the idea. The only reference I have are the Warren Miller films where you drop from the helicopter 20 feet above the powder, and then proceed to board down semi-vertical slopes with an avalanche following gracefully behind you. I wasn't sure if I was up for the task, but hey, there are probably worse boarders out there that have heli-skiied, and what's the worst that could happen? Frozen death by avalanche? Fiery death by helicopter? Pretty cool ways to go if I had to choose.
It turns out that the helicopter does land for us learner-heli-skiiers. And the slopes are quite manageable. The big deal, and most awesome thing in the world, is the sick amount of powder. Since I've been a powder hound since I first put on my board, this was definitely not a problem.
The first day the helicopter was grounded because of icing. Apparently the first heli went up and lost all vision out the front windows because of ice. The pilot had to fly sideways, looking out his side windows, to get back home. Not fun and understandable that the pilots didn't want to go out again that day.
The next day we were first up. We got in the van and drove to the heli pickup point about 15 miles north of the hotel. The sight of the heli waiting for us was awesome. Parked right on the side of the highway next to Revelstoke lake.
Getting ready for our first run above the clouds
Oh yes, I like the powder.
Did I say there was a lot of powder?
Because there was a lot of powder.
Yours truly boarding in the powder
Sometimes the powder is so deep you get stuck.
A little traverse to the deep powder. Did I mention that we liked the powder?
Heli waiting for us at the bottom.
Loading the heli.
Another picture of the heli. Ain't she purdy?
And yes, I did have a good time.
All in all, I found that heli-skiing is all its cracked up to be. And more. It also helped that we had a great group of guys and I look forward to making this trip happen again. And again. And again.
On January 9th, the fifth annual International Lego Crash Competition was held in Boulder, CO. Sergi Gomis and Fanta Watson hosted the event and it was action, action, and more action. It is part of the celebration of Three King's Day, and is dedicated to the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ our Lord. Yay Jesus!
Here's how it works. You have one hour to construct your lego car out of many thousands of available pieces. It's competitive and the pieces are first come, first serve.
It can look like anything you wish, and in fact one of the prizes is for aesthetics. At the end of the hour, votes are tabulated for best looking car, and then they are crashed into each other at high speeds to see which car survives for the next round.
An example of an extreme Lego Crash Car
Here are the rules:
- your car must have a pilot.
- If your pilot is thrown from the car, you lose the crash.
- you can only have one pilot
- the car must be about 6 inches by 4 inches in size at minimum.
- you can rebuild your car, after winning a crash with a previous contestant, but it must be ready for the next round (i.e. no waiting around)
I'm sure there are other rules, but those are mostly ignored. Drinking is encouraged.
The Americans went first...
Against other Americans...
The first crash was spectacular and American Team2 took the round. Although it is important to noote that American Team 1 felt that they were robbed.
The Spanish Team lining up.
American Team 3 came in looking ready for battle.
One of the best crashes of the night. Spain went out after three crashes. American Team 3 moved to the next round.
Sweeney looking like he has no idea how badly he is going to lose this round.
American Team 4 praying to the Sweet Jesus, our Savior.
Total destruction of one of the cars. Not sure which as I don't remember.
The Australian Team coming in strong.
Up against the South African Team (yep, that's me). Note the beautiful aesthetics of our car. We won the prize for best looking car.
But we did not win the prize for toughest car. The Australian Team took our car down in three crashes to move to the next round.
At about this point I stopped paying attention, but I believe one of the American Teams won the final match up, but the Australians went home with the prize (since it was little bouncy balls and they had kids who could appreciate them).
By the end of the night we were all pretty tired.
So that's it for VILCC (Fifth International Lego Crash Competion). We laughed, we cried, we prayed. I love you Jesus.
And thanks to Sergi and Fanta for another great event.
S-P-A-C-E-X, that's how. Holy crap, Spacex just got awarded a monster contract from NASA.
$1.6 Billion to for cargo resupply services to the International Space Station. That's right, that's 'illion' with a B at the beginning.
And if things go well, NASA has the right to order another $1.5 Billion worth of services afterwards. Damn, that is serious sweetness.
For those that haven't been keeping up, SpaceX was previously awarded a smaller contract of about $300 million in 2006. Back then it was huge (actually it's still huge), but now it looks like small potatoes. The launch vehicle is Falcon 9 and the spacecraft that will dock with the ISS is called Dragon. The first Falcon 9 has already arrived in Cape Canaveral in preparation for its launch in 2009.
A 3D rendering of the Dragon Spacecraft that will dock with the ISS.
Here's the link to the official SpaceX announcement on the NASA Award.
Well, not really, but it makes for a nice headline for the media. By announcing that they're shutting down production, what they really mean is that Chrysler is extending their usual two week factory closure over the week-end to four weeks. The headline on the other hand is definitely intentional. They're playing a game of chicken with Bush. And the winner is who scares the shit out of the consumer more.
And finally, we have the proof...
On Sunday, the NYTimes posted a backward-thinking, populist article decrying the use of federal funds for Tesla. The argument was that it's only selling cars to the rich and the bailout should go to helping the masses not the rich. It was a retarded argument because the technology Tesla has built is applicable to every level of car out there, and the loans they've applied for is for exactly the purpose of bringing the technology to a larger audience.
So I was pissed and I wrote a post about it getting it off my chest. And then on Monday, they write an article saying that the loans should be used as intended, for alternative energy companies like Tesla. Who is managing the content over there? Mickey Mouse?
With a little homework that my 3 year old could have done, the guy writing the article on Sunday would have known that the program he didn't want Tesla to participate in was a $25 billion auto industry loan program, set up by the Department of Energy to quicken the development of fuel-efficient cars. And he wanted to disqualify Tesla, the world's leader in alternative energy drive-trains.
And then the article on Monday comes out decrying the Big Three for attempting to co-opt the program to bail them out for all the gas-guzzling SUV's they've been producing all these years that no one wants to buy. The article is right on point. If the government want to bail out the Big Three, let them do it. But don't use an alternative energy stimulus loan to prop up the very folks that have fought alternative energy solutions for decades.
And they used Tesla as one of the main examples of where the funds should go?!? I give up.
The only way it makes any sense is if I just back down and look at it from the perspective that they're just selling newspapers. And writing whatever people want to read from day to day. Even if that means doing 180 degree changes in position in 24 hours.
Pretty depressing. I thought these guys considered themselves one of the voices of the nation