In Silicon Valley I'm old. Not dinosaur old, classic car old.
I'm sitting in a Menlo Park living room, looking at a brand new 27 inch monitor hooked up to my laptop. Four more are hooked up to brand new iMacs. The smell of new permeates the house. The beds are new, the linens are new, the sofa, tables, chairs, even the dishes. Everything new.
The office bunny isn't new, but he loves the enclosure we built in the back yard. Although not enough to not try burrowing out of it towards a yard full of dogs. Silly bunny.
Yup, I'm at a startup. Surrounded by 21 year olds, in a house not a 20 minute walk from my 2011 Silicon Valley experience with Doublerecall.
"We need someone older", the founder said the first time we talked on Skype. Someone older ... I'm bloody 25! Most people in Slovenia consider me kind of young to be running a one-man consulting business. They're not quite sure about me, do they want to trust a kid?
But here in Silicon Valley I'm old. I was hired specifically because this isn't my first rodeo. The only other guy with real world experience is a 23 year old grad student from Stanford who's previously worked at Microsoft as a tester.
Everyone else is writing code that needs to be better and more reliable than just getting a good grade for the first time. We just cleared up the reason there's a different database for production and development is that the development database runs locally. I'm sure they knew, just slipped their mind.
It's fun. They're good guys, much piss and vinegar, spectacular brains, great pedigrees, plenty of knowledge. Just need experience putting it all together.
And I've never been the wise old sage on a team either. Something new for everyone.
I should grow a neckbeard and call myself an architect.
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