Code Rush Documentary - Netscape / Mozilla / Silicon Valley Ups and Downs

As my son worked on file I/O in Python, I decided to watch Code Rush, a documentary that covers the amazing story of Netscape and its path to open source their core product Navigator as Mozilla.

The Code Rush story is filled with millionaires, epic stories of how people changed the world, intense human bonding, and an amazing legacy.  There was also a high human cost, with strained marriages and emotional suffering. 

The film resonated with me.  I feel that it accurately portrayed the hectic culture of the time, the belief in the Internet to radically change society, and the hope that open source with its implied philosophy of freedom and sharing was about to improve our lives. 
  
The documentary covers the time period from March 1998 to April 1999, a formative time in my life.  While the team at Netscape was changing the future of the Internet, I was on my own adventure.  During that time, I sold my Internet company, an online community in Tokyo, to PSINet, moved to Silicon Valley to kickstart the US office for Turbolinux, helped the CEO raise a ton of money, and most importantly and magically, had a child.

I started this blog to chronicle my childrens' progress to learn to program and to understand the culture of their home, Silicon Valley.  Part of what I hope to teach them is to find their own balance in a town filled with extremes.  If they are lucky, they will each have at least 10 jobs in their lives, ranging from a baker, a designer, a landscaper, therapist, a commercial fisherman, or even a programmer.  Technology could be an enabler in their future.  Or, they could never use it.

As you watch Code Rush, I encourage you to think about your own strategy to define your goals and find balance.  It's a wonderful window into the past that could help you plan your future.

Making of Warcraft

Patrick Wyatt, a famous game developer who tuned his craft at Blizzard, wrote a blog post on the making of Warcraft.  He gives us a view into the different roles of people working at a game company, the artists, the software developers, and the managers.  His blog is in two parts.  The second part has more choice tidbits on the dynamics of people in the company.

This section captures the frenzied culture stemming from working on multiple projects at the same time:

We worked together, played together, partied together, slept 10 to a hotel room for trade shows together, and in cases even lived together: I shared a house with three other Blizzard-folks which was the first of many similar dorm rooms scattered throughout Orange County, California.

Blizzard was working on at least four other games when I started on the Warcraft project, and as the company numbered only 20 everyone was mega-busy keeping those projects on track. It wasn’t uncommon for artists, programmers and designers to be working on two or sometimes three projects at a time, and of course our sole musician/sound-engineer, Glenn Stafford, worked on everything.

After Patrick's blog, I felt that I wanted more information on the culture of video game companies.  I ordered David Kushner's 2004 book called, The Masters of Doom.