I worked at an semiconductor foundry that was doing chips with Cisco's Gigabit Switching Group which was the former Granite Systems team. I was 23 and all the guys there were millionaires and all under 30.
All of our chip design software ran on Sun workstations which I had been using since high school in 1991. I wanted a Sun so badly in 1993 when I started college. Then I learned about Linux and got a PC just for Linux.
Andy Bechtolsheim's office was just around the corner from the guys I was working with. I walked by a bunch of times just to see him inside his office talking on the phone.
The first time I went on a business trip to Silicon Valley I literally searched for all the company's headquarters and drove around to see them and the signs out front on the weekend.
All of our chip design software ran on Sun workstations which I had been using since high school in 1991. I wanted a Sun so badly in 1993 when I started college. Then I learned about Linux and got a PC just for Linux.
Andy Bechtolsheim's office was just around the corner from the guys I was working with. I walked by a bunch of times just to see him inside his office talking on the phone.
The first time I went on a business trip to Silicon Valley I literally searched for all the company's headquarters and drove around to see them and the signs out front on the weekend.
It sounds super geeky and it was but I loved it.