Now that the American Idol Finale is over and that all the voting deadline has passed, I thought I would share my thoughts on the two contestants' performances tonight.
David Archuleta had a slight advantage going into the night since he won the coin toss and chose to sing second. Historically speaking, I think the singer who sang second always won at the finale.
Cook did a good job on the first and the third song. The second song was a little too boring for a finale song. I suspect he had a tough time picking a rock song that could really play with the audience's emotions, and for that I felt sympathetic for him.
Archuleta really delivered on all three songs. There were no surprises on song choice - he chose songs with lyrics that really won over millions of teeny boppers. By the time he was done with his second song, I already knew that he would win the competition. Cook really had no chance there.
After not voting at all throughout the entire season, I thought I really needed to cast my vote on whom I think should win the whole thing. As much as I liked Archuleta's performances tonight, I voted for Cook. Just like Chris Daughty, a contestant who didn't even make it to the final three a couple seasons ago, Cook posesses the same creativity and originality throughout the season. He took risky song choices week after week, and his singing style is certainly more current than Archuleta's. Will I buy an album by Archuleta? Probably not. Will I buy an album by Cook? You bet!
Now that the season is over, I guess I'll check out So You Think You Can Dance? next week.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Why I left Google to Join a Start-up
I left Google in August, 2007 to follow my dreams to co-found a new start-up with my friend Dennis Fong in online gaming named Raptr. Many of my friends thought I was crazy for leaving the #1 place to work for in America. I thought I was crazy for leaving at the time too :). But looking back nine months from now, it don't regret moving on to take the plunge to join the start-up world.
Other ex-Googlers will agree that leaving Google is not that easy. In fact, Google makes it so hard for you to leave I described my experience to my friends as breaking up with a long time girl friend who pampers me, understands me and loves me dearly.
Working at Google was different from working for any other company I'd ever worked for in the past. Instead of feeling I was working for a company, they made every effort to make me feel I was part of the company from the very first day I joined. I guess since everyone had to go through the grilling interview process, everyone was treated with respect from day one. A lot of companies at this size would have a deep organization chart - so deep that after awhile you have no clue how your work impacts the company anymore. Google management trusted its employees by sharing its vision and secrets to its employees openly. Employees at other companies may leak those info immediately, but this rarely happened during my time at Google. I had an awesome manager who really trusted in me and gave me the freedom to do what I wanted. Everyone was highly academic, and you're encouraged to continue to learn through internal and external Tech Talks all the time. It was the closest thing to going to college without going to college. It was my dream job. I remember saying to myself that wow, this place is awesome. I can see myself working here for decades!
I can also talk forever about how hard it was to walk away awesome perks like the good food, snacks, free gym, discounted massages, ski trips, crazy X-mas parties, sand volleyball court, etc, etc. But the hardest thing to walk away from was all the phenomenal Engineers whom I got to work with there. I really feel fortunate to have been surrounded by so many Engineers who are not just brilliantly smart, but are also nice, modest, and self-driven. While I was there, I had the chance to launch over 50+ products (Video, Checkout, Docs & Spreadsheets to name a few) and work with 500+ engineers. I learned all about how to design and deploy complex web infrastructure, and mostly importantly I became good friends with many people that will last for a life time.
So given all the good things I've got to say about Google, why did I decide to leave? I knew I was pretty good at what I was doing at Google, and I knew I could continue to stay happy doing working there. However, I was 28 at the time and I had never worked full time at a start-up before. Being inherently a pretty entrepreneurial person, I guess you could say that I had the itch to find out what it's really like to be at a start-up from ground up. So when my friend Dennis approached me to be part of the founding team of his new company, I knew it was an opportunity for me to apply what I'd learned from Google to take on a bigger challenge in my career. I was of course a bit worried at the beginning for leaving a bigger company and joining a risky venture, but I soon realized that if things did not work out, I knew I could always go back to the big corporation world.
It has definitely been fun working at Raptr so far. We grew the company from a team of four at the beginning to 13 in a little less than eight months. Being at a small company, I have the opportunity to not only work with a small group of bright, talented people, but I also get to wear many different hats and be exposed to the blueprint of how to start and run a company from the first day and the decision making that goes on at every single stage of a company. There are also many things that I learned from the Google culture that I am now trying to apply to a start up, but I will save the details for another post. :)
My experience at Google will stay dearly in my heart. I plan to continue to keep in close touch with all the Googlers I've come to know. Hopefully one day I'll get the opportunity with some of them again. Google is a great company and will continue to stay great for decades to come. It would be cool to one day tell my future grandchildren that "Yes. Your grandpa once worked at Google and used to play volleyball with Sergey Brin back in the day."
Other ex-Googlers will agree that leaving Google is not that easy. In fact, Google makes it so hard for you to leave I described my experience to my friends as breaking up with a long time girl friend who pampers me, understands me and loves me dearly.
Working at Google was different from working for any other company I'd ever worked for in the past. Instead of feeling I was working for a company, they made every effort to make me feel I was part of the company from the very first day I joined. I guess since everyone had to go through the grilling interview process, everyone was treated with respect from day one. A lot of companies at this size would have a deep organization chart - so deep that after awhile you have no clue how your work impacts the company anymore. Google management trusted its employees by sharing its vision and secrets to its employees openly. Employees at other companies may leak those info immediately, but this rarely happened during my time at Google. I had an awesome manager who really trusted in me and gave me the freedom to do what I wanted. Everyone was highly academic, and you're encouraged to continue to learn through internal and external Tech Talks all the time. It was the closest thing to going to college without going to college. It was my dream job. I remember saying to myself that wow, this place is awesome. I can see myself working here for decades!
I can also talk forever about how hard it was to walk away awesome perks like the good food, snacks, free gym, discounted massages, ski trips, crazy X-mas parties, sand volleyball court, etc, etc. But the hardest thing to walk away from was all the phenomenal Engineers whom I got to work with there. I really feel fortunate to have been surrounded by so many Engineers who are not just brilliantly smart, but are also nice, modest, and self-driven. While I was there, I had the chance to launch over 50+ products (Video, Checkout, Docs & Spreadsheets to name a few) and work with 500+ engineers. I learned all about how to design and deploy complex web infrastructure, and mostly importantly I became good friends with many people that will last for a life time.
So given all the good things I've got to say about Google, why did I decide to leave? I knew I was pretty good at what I was doing at Google, and I knew I could continue to stay happy doing working there. However, I was 28 at the time and I had never worked full time at a start-up before. Being inherently a pretty entrepreneurial person, I guess you could say that I had the itch to find out what it's really like to be at a start-up from ground up. So when my friend Dennis approached me to be part of the founding team of his new company, I knew it was an opportunity for me to apply what I'd learned from Google to take on a bigger challenge in my career. I was of course a bit worried at the beginning for leaving a bigger company and joining a risky venture, but I soon realized that if things did not work out, I knew I could always go back to the big corporation world.
It has definitely been fun working at Raptr so far. We grew the company from a team of four at the beginning to 13 in a little less than eight months. Being at a small company, I have the opportunity to not only work with a small group of bright, talented people, but I also get to wear many different hats and be exposed to the blueprint of how to start and run a company from the first day and the decision making that goes on at every single stage of a company. There are also many things that I learned from the Google culture that I am now trying to apply to a start up, but I will save the details for another post. :)
My experience at Google will stay dearly in my heart. I plan to continue to keep in close touch with all the Googlers I've come to know. Hopefully one day I'll get the opportunity with some of them again. Google is a great company and will continue to stay great for decades to come. It would be cool to one day tell my future grandchildren that "Yes. Your grandpa once worked at Google and used to play volleyball with Sergey Brin back in the day."
Sunday, May 11, 2008
MacBook - Thin Enough
Anita really wanted to get the Macbook Air when it first came out a few months ago. It took me some time to convince her of all the technical reasons why the Macbook is actually a much better buy than the Air (lack of ethernet port, firewire, less stable HD, no DVD drive, etc).
The debate about whether or not the Macbook is better over the Air lasted for a few weeks. After awhile, I came to realize that she didn't really care all that much about the technical specs of the computer. Rather, she wanted the Air because it was thin and cool looking. Nevertheless, being the geek that I am, I refused to go against my own believe and got her a Macbook for her birthday instead.
She turned out to really like it afterall. And to top it off, I found this video for her to convince her that the Macbook is thin enough to be cool:
The debate about whether or not the Macbook is better over the Air lasted for a few weeks. After awhile, I came to realize that she didn't really care all that much about the technical specs of the computer. Rather, she wanted the Air because it was thin and cool looking. Nevertheless, being the geek that I am, I refused to go against my own believe and got her a Macbook for her birthday instead.
She turned out to really like it afterall. And to top it off, I found this video for her to convince her that the Macbook is thin enough to be cool:
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Reflexology, pressure points, and orgasm
Last night I threw a surprise birthday dinner for Anita at the red crane in Cupertino. What an awesome dinner. We also had a lot of interesting conversations to complement the great food. Here's one that's worth mentioning:
Me: "There's this reflexology place that just opened recently around the corner. It's only $20 for an hour! I go there all the time!"
Mariam: "Oh I want to go!"
Dennis: "No you are not supposed to go if you are pregnant. Different parts of your feet represent different parts of your body. Getting one might give you a miscarriage."
Tim: "Have you heard much about different pressure points on your body? It's like they can press on a certain part of your body, and all of a sudden your hand might freeze or something."
Pat: "Whoa really?"
Tim: "Yeah. I've heard of cases where you go there and if they press on your temple, you'll get an instant orgasm or something."
Mariam: "Oh! I'd get it all the time!"
Diem: "Hmm I don't know if it's worth it. It's like they press on your temple really quick and they just go 'here! orgasm! done!'"
Me: "There's this reflexology place that just opened recently around the corner. It's only $20 for an hour! I go there all the time!"
Mariam: "Oh I want to go!"
Dennis: "No you are not supposed to go if you are pregnant. Different parts of your feet represent different parts of your body. Getting one might give you a miscarriage."
Tim: "Have you heard much about different pressure points on your body? It's like they can press on a certain part of your body, and all of a sudden your hand might freeze or something."
Pat: "Whoa really?"
Tim: "Yeah. I've heard of cases where you go there and if they press on your temple, you'll get an instant orgasm or something."
Mariam: "Oh! I'd get it all the time!"
Diem: "Hmm I don't know if it's worth it. It's like they press on your temple really quick and they just go 'here! orgasm! done!'"
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
office shopping at ikea != fun
After being at the Plug & Play Tech Center for almost 10 months, we are finally moving to our own office space!
For those unfamiliar with the PnP Tech Center, it's a big incubation space made up of hundreds of early stage start ups. What's nice about this place is that they provide you with all the furniture and most of the network/phone capabilities, and you just need to focus on building your product.
Lately, our team has gotten bigger and louder (thanks to all the epic nerf gun battles that we have there), and we decided that we should get our own space so that we will have room to grow and that we will not disturb any other companies. What this also means is that we now have to buy all kinds of new furniture for the new office.
Dennis, Kevin and I stopped by IKEA on Monday to pick out the furniture. It started out pretty nice as the place was relatively quiet on a weekday, and we were taking our time trying out different couches, desks, etc. Midway through, fatigue sat in and we realized we were trapped by IKEA's brilliant floor plan design, forcing us to walk around and around the god-damnned building. To top it off, us three had to load up 6 big carts with heavy pieces of furniture.
We were all pretty tired near the end, and we saw from far away that they were selling hot dogs and cinnabons. We were starving, and we wanted to eat badly. But we were afraid someone would take away our cart if we just abandoned it in the aisle. So we went up to one of the guys working there:
Dennis: "Hi. How can we leave our carts here without someone taking them away from us?"
Ikea guy: "Oh yeah. Just park them over in that area to the left and I will give you a sign that says "I'm still shopping" and you can put it in your cart."
What a brilliant idea. They really have all these scenarios thought through for the customers.
It must have been my first time eating at IKEA in ages: I'd forgotten how cheap the food is there. Hot dogs were $0.50 each. Or you can get 2 hot dogs, chips, and a soft drink for $2.50. You also get a box full of 6 cinnabons for $4. We went ahead and bought 6 cinnabons and 4 hot dogs. By the time we're done eating, we still have 3 extra cinnabons sitting on the table.
Dennis: "Should we just toss it?"
Kevin: "That'd be such a waste. Let's bring them back to work."
Dennis: "But we've got 6 cart full of stuff with us. Let's just leave it on the table and see if anyone will just take it."
Me: "Wait. If they have a 'I'm still shopping sign', naturally shouldn't they also have a 'I'm still eating' sign?"
It ended up taking us four hours at IKEA to get everything that we needed. I'm so not going there again for the next few years.
For those unfamiliar with the PnP Tech Center, it's a big incubation space made up of hundreds of early stage start ups. What's nice about this place is that they provide you with all the furniture and most of the network/phone capabilities, and you just need to focus on building your product.
Lately, our team has gotten bigger and louder (thanks to all the epic nerf gun battles that we have there), and we decided that we should get our own space so that we will have room to grow and that we will not disturb any other companies. What this also means is that we now have to buy all kinds of new furniture for the new office.
Dennis, Kevin and I stopped by IKEA on Monday to pick out the furniture. It started out pretty nice as the place was relatively quiet on a weekday, and we were taking our time trying out different couches, desks, etc. Midway through, fatigue sat in and we realized we were trapped by IKEA's brilliant floor plan design, forcing us to walk around and around the god-damnned building. To top it off, us three had to load up 6 big carts with heavy pieces of furniture.
We were all pretty tired near the end, and we saw from far away that they were selling hot dogs and cinnabons. We were starving, and we wanted to eat badly. But we were afraid someone would take away our cart if we just abandoned it in the aisle. So we went up to one of the guys working there:
Dennis: "Hi. How can we leave our carts here without someone taking them away from us?"
Ikea guy: "Oh yeah. Just park them over in that area to the left and I will give you a sign that says "I'm still shopping" and you can put it in your cart."
What a brilliant idea. They really have all these scenarios thought through for the customers.
It must have been my first time eating at IKEA in ages: I'd forgotten how cheap the food is there. Hot dogs were $0.50 each. Or you can get 2 hot dogs, chips, and a soft drink for $2.50. You also get a box full of 6 cinnabons for $4. We went ahead and bought 6 cinnabons and 4 hot dogs. By the time we're done eating, we still have 3 extra cinnabons sitting on the table.
Dennis: "Should we just toss it?"
Kevin: "That'd be such a waste. Let's bring them back to work."
Dennis: "But we've got 6 cart full of stuff with us. Let's just leave it on the table and see if anyone will just take it."
Me: "Wait. If they have a 'I'm still shopping sign', naturally shouldn't they also have a 'I'm still eating' sign?"
It ended up taking us four hours at IKEA to get everything that we needed. I'm so not going there again for the next few years.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
My mom cracks me up sometimes
Background: My parents and I are meeting up with my grandma and my relatives for dim sum today to celebrate Mother's day a week early.
[happened last night after dinner at my parents' house]
Mom: "There's still a lot of food left. Do you want to take some home?"
Me: "Hmm. No it's ok. I'm going to be getting dim sum tomorrow. I don't think I'll have a chance to eat the leftovers"
Mom: "Oh you are getting dim sum tomorrow? Me too! Which restaurant are you going to?"
[happened last night after dinner at my parents' house]
Mom: "There's still a lot of food left. Do you want to take some home?"
Me: "Hmm. No it's ok. I'm going to be getting dim sum tomorrow. I don't think I'll have a chance to eat the leftovers"
Mom: "Oh you are getting dim sum tomorrow? Me too! Which restaurant are you going to?"
kidism
I gathered with my family to celebrate my little nephew Jason's 4 year old birthday. Just like all other birthday parties, my sister had bought him helium balloons.
While he was walking around the house with the balloons, he had accidentally let go of one of them, letting it float all the way up to the ceiling. Instant sad expression on his face.
Not wanting the rest of the balloons to get away from his hands, I decided to tie the balloons that he's holding on to with the little toy car that he had in his other hand.
Me: "Jason, now you can let go of the balloons and they will not fly away anymore."
Jason: "No!"
Me: "Come on, Jason. Just let go. Trust me, the balloons won't fly away!"
Jason: [holding on to the balloons with his right hand and the toy car with his left]
At this point, Jason started to look more and more distressed. Dude, just let go of the balloons! Didn't you take chemistry and physics?
So there I was, staring at a traumatized little nephew who had just lost a balloon a minute ago and is now fighting not to let go of another balloon, right?
Me: "Jason, how about I untie the car from the balloons so that your car will not float away?"
Jason: "Ok!"
Ahh... I miss being a child sometimes.
While he was walking around the house with the balloons, he had accidentally let go of one of them, letting it float all the way up to the ceiling. Instant sad expression on his face.
Not wanting the rest of the balloons to get away from his hands, I decided to tie the balloons that he's holding on to with the little toy car that he had in his other hand.
Me: "Jason, now you can let go of the balloons and they will not fly away anymore."
Jason: "No!"
Me: "Come on, Jason. Just let go. Trust me, the balloons won't fly away!"
Jason: [holding on to the balloons with his right hand and the toy car with his left]
At this point, Jason started to look more and more distressed. Dude, just let go of the balloons! Didn't you take chemistry and physics?
So there I was, staring at a traumatized little nephew who had just lost a balloon a minute ago and is now fighting not to let go of another balloon, right?
Me: "Jason, how about I untie the car from the balloons so that your car will not float away?"
Jason: "Ok!"
Ahh... I miss being a child sometimes.
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