Category: News

The startup I’ve been working for for almost five years, E8 Storage, has been acquired by Amazon. Specifically, by Amazon Web Services. This makes me an Amazon employee.

Working for Amazon Web Services can be hugely impactful, so it will be exciting to make changes to code that runs there. E8 Storage was focused on making extremely performant storage, and I’m sure the team can utilize its skills within Amazon.

Speaking of the team… during my time in E8 Storage I met a lot of great people, all of them extremely smart and talented. Most of them wonderful people, too. It was fun, challenging and enriching to work there.

It will probably take a some time until code I write reaches the cloud but I hope it will do good when it does :)

My days in the US are coming to an end. I went over the pictures from the trip and it felt like someone else was on that trip, not me. Did I drive all that distance? Was I in all those places? Flights are a long forgotten hassle. After a relaxed week in San Francisco I was sitting in the cafe, planning a lazy day here. The day started too cold and rainy to do anything and I was sleepy after a not-so-good night’s sleep. The weather forecast continued to promise that the sun would come out, but it continued to be cloudy.

I used the time to continue investigating about Hong Kong. My 14+ hours (!) flight from LAX to HKG goes through the International Date Line so even though my flight leaves March 1st 00:20, it arrives March 2nd 07:30. This leaves me only three days in Hong Kong (the next flight, to Thailand, is on March 5th 14:25.) During these three days I will only get a very short taste of the place, and there’s so much to do and see. Add to that the jet lag I’ll be experiencing and the extreme change in climate – I better have good knowledge of where I want to go and not waste time. It will be a return to the crazy pace of doing things after a very laid back week in San Francisco.

At 1pm the sun suddenly came out. I decided to snap out of my laziness and go jogging. I’m used to working out in the morning before eating but at 1pm and after brunch I got dressed for jogging and immediately felt refreshed and ready. I think Scott Adams’ Footwear Theory of Motivation is correct. I ran 10km in less than an hour at around 170 bpm. The same workout won’t be as hard for me in the gym, so I guess what they say is true: running outdoors is tougher than running indoors. Either that or I completely lost my aerobic fitness in the 4 weeks I didn’t work out. One minute after the workout my heart rate got back to 120 bpm (walking pace) so that’s an indication I’m not back to couch potato yet (short recovery time is one indication of aerobic fitness.)

After that I ate again at the Vietnamese restaurant Golden Flower and following that I completely crashed on my hotel bed for a few hours – I was tired and my leg muscles hurt (I walked a lot yesterday, too.) And suddenly the day was over. I’m currently having my dinner and after that I think I’ll go to sleep. So that’s how it feels like to rest :)

I have a ticket to see an Iranian stand up comedian, Maz Jobrani, for tomorrow. I saw the crowd lining up for today’s show and heard people speak Arabic for the first time since I started this trip, I believe. So it should be interesting tomorrow. Other than that – no special plans. I’ll do some laundry and probably be busy packing for warm weather. I won’t be needing a coat or long sleeve shirts or sweaters until I get to the UK. This is great :)

As expected after yesterday’s workout and bicycle ride, I woke up with my leg muscles aching. The day was supposed to be rainy but started out nice, so I used this as a chance to walk to Presidio National Park, an urban park inside San Francisco. I walked to the park through the famous Lombard Street. Then, going back to the hotel, I went through Japantown, Union Square and Chinatown. There were many people outside shopping, dining or just walking around. It was nice to see a busy city (in New York City I didn’t get the chance because of the wintery weather.)

I took a nap and then decided to go to Cobb’s Comedy Club, which is 50 meters away from my hotel. I got a ticket for later in the evening to see Greg Behrendt, who wrote the book (and now there’s a movie too) “He’s Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys.” It was raining lightly outside so I just spent the time in between hanging out in my favorite place around here, called 901 Columbus, which has great music, good food, free Wi-Fi and is 60 meters away from my hotel. It’s great when you have a lot of time in one place so you can just waste it on relaxing without feeling like you’re missing something. Anyway, the show was funny and a good ending for this day.

I have no plans for tomorrow. It’s supposed to rain most of the day so I don’t even know if I’ll do my morning workout, which would be a real shame.

It’s all over the news: IBM acquired Diligent Technologies, the place I work for (or worked for, I wonder what the right term is.) I think IBM made a good choice because I truly believe that ProtecTIER, our flagship deduplication product, is a great product of great value to customers.

I joined Diligent Technologies just about 2 years ago (April 23rd 2006 was my first day at work.) This is the first time a company I work for has been bought. From a personal point of view there are mixed feelings – on the one hand, the ride was too short. I wish we had more time to operate as a (relatively speaking) small company so that I would feel I contributed more than I did during the past 2 years. Also, even if we won’t feel the change immediately, we are probably no longer the small family we used to be. On the other hand, being an IBM employee is definitely a good thing for many obvious reasons.

Diligent Technologies (now “an IBM company”) is a great place to work. We have great, award-winning products and technology. Most importantly, Diligent has great people who care about their work. These were definitely 2 good years, career-wise. I hope the next 2 will be at least as good.

p.s.

In the past, during the difficult post-bubble times, IBM’s HR would not even consider interviewing me for a job despite my many attempts. Kind of funny :)