The New York Times Magazine had an outstanding article on Boulder today. The photos paint an accurate picture and the article captures the essence of a place that I love.
I moved to Boulder in 1995. Last year while fundraising, I was regularly asked "how did you end up in Boulder?" Following is the short version of the story (which will sound familiar to anyone that has heard it – feel free to skip the indented paragraph.)
I moved to Boston from Dallas in 1983 to go to MIT. I lived in Boston for a little over 12 years – that was 11 years and 364 days too many. I liked Boston and wouldn’t trade my experience at MIT for anything, but Boston was just never home for me. I sold my first company in 1993 and told my wife Amy that by the time I turned 30 (12/1/95) we’d have left Boston. Two months before I turned 30, Amy told me she was moving to Boulder and I was welcome to join her if I wanted. I figured that my worst case scenario was that we wouldn’t like Boulder and we’d keep heading west to the bay area. When we got to Boulder we knew one person; he moved away six months later. So we were really starting from scratch. Every day was better than the preceding one and after six months we bought a house in the mountains and knew that Boulder would be our home base for the balance of our time on this planet.
I have now lived in Boulder longer than I lived in Boston (and not quite as long as I lived in Dallas.) Every day when I wake up in Boulder I fall in love with the place all over again. I have houses in Keystone, Colorado and Homer, Alaska – which are also amazing places that I’m fortunate to spend time living in. Amy and I travel regularly (for work and pleasure) to a bunch of big cities that we love spending chunks of time in (New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Paris, London, and even Boston.) However, coming back to Boulder and our place in Eldorado Springs is always magically grounding.
The article had a few inaccuracies and missed plenty of things. I’d add a couple of quick ones that jumped out at me:
While Boulder certainly isn’t for everyone, it’s definitely for me and Amy.
It looks like Chaos Reigns a Second day at Heathrow. The spiffy new Terminal Five has some "glitches." Who said modernization was easy?
I’ve had a lot of fun over the past few years as an investor in NewWest.Net. I’ve learned a bunch from Jonathan Weber – the founder – about the intersection of Internet media and print media.
NewWest.Net launched in 2005 as a local and regional online publication about growth and change in the Rocky Mountain West. The company then launched a conference series which has been quite successful. Recently they came out with their first print product, The New West Magazine.
It’s a reversal of the old-media way of doing things; the Web site is the center of the enterprise, a general-interest publication with local and regional dimensions, while the print mag is a brand extension that is focused tightly on the growth and development story. New West founder Jonathan Weber has always advocated a multi-platform approach for journalism-driven publishing, and it’s easy to see how The New West is print does some things that can’t be done as well online, even as NewWest.Net online does lots of things that can’t be done in print.
The conferences continue to be a key part of the mix as well: New West’s new conference, Designing the New West, Architecture and Landscape in the Mountain West, will happen April 24-25 in Bozeman. Even in an online-centric, social-networked world, there’s no substitute for in-person gatherings – or for the look and feel and portability of old-fashioned print. Subscribe today (free via questionnaire or $9.95 if you don’t want to fill out the questionnaire.)
Frank Gruber (Somewhat Frank) has a nice summary of the 5 Startups (that) Demo At Tech Cocktail Boulder. 200+ people at The Foundry (across from our office at Foundry Group.) I was in Berkeley having dinner at Adagia Restaurant talking about patents. Oh well, the tradeoffs one makes in pursuit of the truth.
I travel a lot. I always have. The ease of air travel runs in cycles – we seem to be at another low point where lines are long, planes are full, flights are late / delayed / canceled, and almost all travel personnel (except apparently those on Southwest) are somewhere on the spectrum between grumpy and rude.
But that’s just travel. You’ve got to get past the crazy TSA people before you can actually embark on your trip. The experience of standing in a long line, having to take your id out of your wallet so they can inspect it carefully, unpacking all your liquids and gels, listening to the same inane announcements over and over again, and having a completely random "inspect board pass as you go through the metal detector" algorithm gets old. Really old. Oh – and don’t forget to take your shoes and belt off. All in the quest to fly safer.
When Clear came out with their Registered Traveler program, I was immediately sold on it. For a mere $100 / year plus a one time $28 TSA vetting charge, they promised me that I could fly through security "faster, with more predictability and less hassle." Their PR machine has done a nice job of promoting their fast lane. I paid my money, got my retina scan, and now have my Clear card (actually – my second one – the first one was apparently lost in the mail – ah the secure irony.)
I’ve been using my Clear card regularly in the supported airports that I fly through (so far only DIA and SFO – but they promise many more soon.) And I can affirm Clear’s marketing pitch – I am flying through security much faster. But not because of a separate line or a reduction in "are you safe to get past the TSA people" algorithm based on my key biometric data matching up.
Nope – Clear has a simpler approach. They help me cut in line. I go to my special Clear line (there’s only one at DIA – you’ve got to find and it remember to go to "the other left" when you enter on the west side of the airport.) I show the Clear person my boarding pass and id (just like the TSA person, but this person says hi and smiles at me.) I go to the biometric machine and get asked for the Nth time if I’ve used this before (I say yes.) I put my card in the machine and do a retina scan (most of the time it works – sometimes it takes a few tries.) Once I pass, a nice person grabs my bags, helps me undress myself and my laptop into two TSA buckets, and leads me, shoeless – but with the two TSA buckets – to the very front of the TSA check line. The 126 people behind me in line sneer at me. The TSA person gives me a really dirty look and then proceeds to double check my boarding pass and ID. Once I’m cleared, the nice Clear person once again takes me to the very front of the line – this time the front of the metal detector / x-ray machine / whatever it’s called line.
Pause. The reactions here have generally been priceless. Last week the the woman that I cut in front of said "why are you cutting in line?" I explained that I had paid $128 to Clear (including pointing at the Clear line machine) to "get through security faster." She smiled a very cynical smile and said "ok – I was just checking to make sure you weren’t an asshole." And that was one of the nice ones.
Overall, I’m saving a ton of time getting through security with Clear. It’s easily worth the $100 to me since I get hit with a $40 change fee by United on a regular basis when I miss a flight (even though I’m a treasured 1k / Million Mile flyer with one of those fancy dark brown get out of jail free treat me nicely cards.) But it’s not because of any fundamental innovation or extra magic biometric security. It’s because I just paid $128 to cut to the front of the line.
Yesterday, it was announced that ConocoPhillips is the mystery buyer of the old StorageTek campus. There was much revelry and prognosticating about how magnificent this is for the universe. I agree – but only if ConocoPhillips razes the entire grotesque ugly thing and builds something nice and integrated into the natural beauty of the 432 acres they just bought with perfect views of the flatirons.
I was at a board meeting yesterday when this was announced and my first reaction was "superb – it’s not a large tech company." A friend – who is on the board with me – said "damn, it’s not a large tech company." One of the founders said "thankfully it’s not a large tech company."
The early rumors were that Google or Microsoft had bought the campus and were going to build out one of their largest non-HQ campuses. This never made sense to me because the local tech community could never support a buildout like this. The positive argument was "it’ll bring loads of new jobs to the area." The counter argument is "yeah – right now we are strapped for great talent anyway, so bunches of people will have to move here to make it work." You can go around and around in circles on this discussion, but I think to ultimately make it work you have to believe that you are going to be a huge net importer of new people. While the Boulder/Denver software industry has been a large net importer of great folks from the coasts, I’m skeptical that we’d gracefully add 10,000 new high end software engineering jobs to this region without some real "entertainment."
Now – ConocoPhillips is planning to turn the campus into "a center to research hydrogen fuel cells, solar and wind power, and clean diesel fuel made from renewable resources. It also plans to establish a learning center to train employees from more than 40 countries." That actually sounds perfect – the "cleantech" interest, talent, and expertise in the Boulder area is extensive but there are relatively few real non-govt / non-academic jobs. Many people around here have been talking about how important the cleantech industry is – now Boulder is going to have an anchor tenant that is making a serious investment in it. That feels much more sustainable and achievable to me.
Of course, it might be that ConocoPhillips has figured out a cost efficient way to extract fuel from the massive stores of shale located under the 432 acres and will be digging big holes in the ground. That’ll stir up all my eco-friendly buddies in town.
Regardless – the big mystery is over. And no – I’m not going to suddenly start investing in cleantech.
There is a magic spot on Highway 36 between Boulder and Louisville where 99.4% of all cell phone calls drop. While on a call tonight, the person I was talking to went through this magic spot. Our call dropped.
I called him back 30 seconds later. We continued our call after having a chuckle about the inevitability of a dropped cell phone call at that particular spot on 36.
My friend suggested that it is further evidence of the unique cosmic forces around here. We are found of saying that Boulder is 25 square miles surrounded by reality. We concluded that there is a wormhole on 36 that one goes through during the transition from Louisville to Boulder. This is the only explanation that we could come up for the reason that the mega-amazing-cell-phone companies can’t figure out how to do a handoff from one cell to the next at this particular spot in the universe.
When people find out that I’ve spent a lot of time in Alaska, they often ask me what it’s like. After struggling to describe it in a simple way that anyone in the lower 48 can relate to, I finally came up with something several weeks ago.
Alaska is an order of magnitude larger than Colorado and has an order of magnitude less people. Plus it has an ocean.
Square 1 Bank has officially opened their office in Boulder with Ken Fugate moving to town full time. Bob Van Nortwick – one of Square 1’s founders – had done an awesome job of pioneering the Colorado market for Square, providing solid and constructive competition for the other main early stage banker in the area – Silicon Valley Bank. We work with (and love) both banks – and I’m delighted that there is a healthy enough entrepreneurial ecosystem in my backyard to support both of them.