Thanks to everyone for the thoughts on my 41st birthday yesterday! I really (& sincerely) enjoyed seeing the stream of notifications on my phone throughout the day — each one a small note, but reminding me of times we’ve worked & played together, all around the world, and in may different contexts.
As an event, 41 is not exactly a major milestone. But it was a very nice weekend & birthday, and caps off a pretty significant 41st year on the planet for me. It’s a funny sort of age — not really old or young at this point.
Last year a lot happened — we moved to Palo Alto, SPL started kindergarten, I started at Greylock (and as an investor, a very new discipline compared to the operating that I’ve done over the last 15 or 20 years), and a bunch of other stuff, big and small.
As I turn 41, I feel both old and young — somewhere in between, I suppose. But I’m looking forward to my 2nd year of investing at Greylock with partners I really, really enjoy and learn from every day. I’m looking forward to continuing to see SPL grow and develop every day, week, month. I’m looking forward to Kathy & my 12th year of marriage (and 27th year of being friends!) I’m looking forward to getting involved with more amazing entrepreneurs and companies of all stripes (commercial, non-profit, civic, and more). And to my extended family continuing to be amazing.
And then a huge thing, as Kathy & I are looking forward to the arrival of our 2nd child, which we’re expecting in June. It’s such a funny thing — new babies arrive in our world every second of every day — but each one that arrives in your own life is just such a massive thing that it’s a little hard to even get your head around.
Having a January birthday always feels great to me — it resets and renews above & beyond the end of the holidays and the New Year. And I find that I’m as excited about my 42nd trip around the sun as I’ve ever been. So much to do this year.
Thanks again to everyone!
John, you have done so much for technology entrepreneurship so happy birthday. My research in Silicon Valley Mafias confirms that your baby, Reactivity, has been a true (albeit unnoticed) force. Best of luck in your new year.
About to make millions on the Facebook IPO, Mike Schroepfer’s lineage points to Reactivity, the poster child for 1990s style Silicon Valley Incubator that brimmed with top talent but failed to cash on incubation. Pivoting itself into a product company to be acquired by Cisco Systems in 2007, it also produced a lesser known mafia that created Mike among others:
Mike Schroepfer: VP Engineering Facebook, VP Engineering Mozilla, Founder CenterRun (a Reactivity company) that was acquired by Sun Microsystems. Stanford University.
Akash Garg: CTO Bebo, Founder of hi5 Networks, Architect at Reactivity. Stanford University.
John Lilly: Partner Greylock, CEO of Mozilla, Founder/CEO/CTO Reactivity. Stanford University
Brian Axe: Director Google, Founder Zaplet (a Reactivity company), EIR Reactivity. Stanford University.
Brian Roddy: SVP Engineering Jive Software, Director Cisco, Founder Reactivity.
Graham Miller: Founder Marketcetera, Market maker Jane Street Capital, Architect Reactivity. Stanford University.
Aaref Hilaly: CEO Clearwell Systems, Founder/CEO CEnterRun, EIR Reactivity.
Bryan Rollins: GPM Atlassian, Director Dell, VP PM MessageOne, Founder Reactivity. Stanford University.
Oltac Unsal: Investor World Bank, SPM Microsoft, Founder TZero Technologies, Senior Manager Cisco Systems, EIR Reactivity. Stanford University.