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That's nothing. In 1998 (I'm pretty sure) Seattle had 96 days of light drizzle with nary a ray of sunshine. The suicide rate went up massively, and I decided to move to CA as soon as I had the means.


I remember that winter well. I was founder-CTO of a Silicon Valley-based startup, and we were working on a big deal with Microsoft. After they hired away the first two people we put on the project, I stepped in, and spent several weeks a month up in the Seattle area. I still remember telling the board, "the only way they'll be able to hire me is to buy the company!" and we all had a good laugh.

Which is of course what happened -- they decided they wanted the technology and the engineering team (including me) and after some negotation got to a price that worked for everybody. Moving up to Redmond was part of the deal.

At the celebration party, people gave me various presents -- including a scuba mask, flippers, rubbers, several umbrellas...

And yeah, everything they say about the winters here is true. So please please please don't move here :)


Hey Jon - I don't think I've seen you since you ran those Ad Astra hackathons inside MS. Hope you're doing well!

Huh, just noticed this: http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2007/11/low-hanging-late-harves...

It looks like you and I left Microsoft in the same week. Funny timing.


Hi Aaron, hah, I had forgotten all about that link. Thanks Mini! And as for us leaving at the same time, funny how that works :)




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