Reboot. 3rd Ed. A founder story.
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From the days of BSoD. A time capsule from 1999.
Jawwad Farid
Reboot. 3rd Edition. A founder story. — A time capsule from 1999. From the days of BSoD
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Writers write, sprinters sprint, founders fail. Failure is our most common outcome as builders. In 2001, in the days of Blue Screen of Death, I ran into a personalized edition of the screen. Reboot is my story.
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Jawwad Farid
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So many similarities between how hard things were for founders in July 2001. And how hard they are in July 2024. The mistakes we made then and the mistakes we make now. Like worshiping the altar of the bleeding edge in our space. Whatever that edge or that space maybe. Or trying to shoot the biggest elephants in the room, all at once. Or chasing perfection, scale and features. Not understanding how anti-climatic launches are. Outsourcing execution. Or short circuiting processes, thinking maybe the fates will look elsewhere this one time. When I wrote Reboot (originally titled Blue Screen of Death), I didn't think it would be relevant a generation later. I didn't think readers would be downloading and reading it in 2024. Nothing last forever in our part of the world. Then CrowdStrike put Blue Screens of Death on the front page and center stage of the world again. Somethings never change. Reboot is my story. It's dated. It's old. Its cringeworthy. It's a time capsule. And perhaps that is the purpose it will serve today. A short weekend read about a founder from the other side of the planet. From a world that now only exists in our memory. Why did we do the things we did? Is there anything you can learn from our mistakes? "Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."