Startup School 2008: Impressions.

Visual Studio guy was likely me. I actually didn't resize the form even once; maybe you're just using some poetic license there. Since the internet connection was slow, I couldn't get to my server, so I decided to do one of my favorite 'programming kata' projects: writing a function plotter. I had never done it using GDI, and since I work for Xobni I already had Visual Studio on my laptop (no cloud necessary). The form was 'empty' because the only element in it was a panel. Funny enough, the only guy I remember sitting next to me (that I didn't already know) was also using a Windows laptop. Was that you?

The truth of the matter is, my company has used Sheridan's firm before; we've since moved on to another. I've also incorporated companies before. Next time I incorporate a company, I will still be hiring a high dollar lawyer to handle it. I came to startup school for the other 90% of talks, for which my laptop was put away, and my eyes were glued to the front (Altman, DHH, PB, Bezos, Andreesen, Norvig (who was a childhood hero of mine)).

It's pretty arrogant of you to pontificate about what should be important to everyone else. I doubt Sheridan was insulted that I was quietly using a laptop in the back of the room. Anyway, it seems like your eyes must have been quite a few other places than his presentation to keep such good track of what everyone else was doing.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/books/humor/8e6c/images/2070/

P.S.: I agree with you about the reception of DHH's talk, and I felt like one of the only ones to take him very seriously.

"By the way, I simply could not believe my eyes when I saw on average about 20% of the attendees spent a fair share of their time there surfing freaking reddit, slashdot and checking their emails. There was one dude right next to me who had Visual Studio open (yes, a fucking Visual Studio) and kept resizing an empty form non-stop without paying any attention [...]"

Funny another rundown of the event commented that the fact that there were so many people "coding" meant it was a meeting of true hackers and not a bunch of people who waste time in meetings all day. I tend to agree with the former assessment though, this just seems rude.

Hey, Ev, nice event rundown. I didn't know you were here for the event. Sorry I missed meeting you. Look me up if you're still here during the week.