This New Internet Thing, Chapter 18

When It's Over

I wrote a book. The publication date is May 29, 2024 (if you’d rather not deal with Amazon, your bookstore can also order it from the distributor Ingram Spark, or print-on-demand if they have the equipment). You can read it for free here, although it’ll be in serial form. My fond hope is that you’ll find it so compelling that you just buy the book instead of waiting 8 months to see what happens. There will be a chapter each week, 33 in all.

In Chapter 17 (the Notes are here) Janet makes her big decision. In this one, Matt and Miriam make theirs. Len, Janet’s father, quizzes her about tech companies of the early 90’s. People were still fixated on the winners of the 80’s: Walmart, Home Depot, Circuit City, etc.

Reading in serial form has a long and honorable history. My cover artist sent me this “Read Like a Victorian” website. Enjoy.

============== When It’s Over =============

Dan’s phone rang one day in September, 1993. It was Janet! She shared her big news: she wasn’t managing anymore.

“Oh, my God. I thought you were going all the way to the corner office! Congratulations.”

“Thanks. It was not easy, I gotta tell you. My dad had his heart set on his daughter becoming a CEO someday. He still hasn’t gotten over it.”

They chatted about what led up to this, and what she was doing now. It turned out that she was now a senior engineer on something related to Dan’s old project: the network management station. It sort of fit, since “managing networks” had been her job, more or less, except that was people management and administration, not writing code. She was busy reading documents and learning all about network management on the Internet, which turned out to be exactly what Dan was doing, too! They were reunited again. He had an idea:

“Hey, you should come to Porter’s Thursday lunch at Gordon-Biersch sometime! A lot of the old Xerox folks go. It’s not at the Goose anymore.” He told her some of the regular attendees that she might remember, and to bring lots of cash. Porter’s algorithm for paying was, “Everyone throw $20’s on it, until the bill is covered!”

Janet thought that sounded like fun. She hadn’t seen most of those people since Xerox days, or maybe when she used to go to the Dutch Goose after she moved up here. It would be good to get back in circulation again. The Old Boy Network really was a reliable source of jobs, even if you weren’t a boy.

At G-B on Thursday, she had a great time reconnecting with the old Xeroids she knew. They’d moved over there from the Goose because the beer was brewed onsite, but she wasn’t much of a beer drinker anymore, especially in the middle of the day. The garlic fries were to die for, though. 

A bunch of them worked at one of the three DEC research labs in Palo Alto, which had scooped up Xerox refugees all through the 80’s. Porter himself had come from one of them, where he had pioneered the X-Windows system.

They all remembered Bob Metcalfe and asked if he was still at 3Com. Everyone had been on the Internet for years and years, so it was nothing new to them.

Porter asked Janet if she was interested in “visiting” Oracle. She knew that could easily turn into “interviewing,” and it was somewhat appealing. She knew a bunch of people there, but Redwood Shores was a long way from Campbell where she lived. And it was yet another big company. After TRW, Xerox, Apple, and 3Com, maybe it was time to try a startup, just so she didn’t become too much of a bureaucrat. She thanked him but was non-committal about coming up there.

* * *

Janet’s dad, Len, was indeed brooding about her career switch. He’d always loved telling older people he met about his high-ranking executive daughter in Silicon Valley, especially when they bragged about their grandchildren. Now what was she? A programmer. Not quite as brag-worthy.

She did seem happier, though, he had to admit that. When he had a technical question about UseNet or AOL or the Internet, she actually knew the answer without having to ask Cassie. And she didn’t have that guarded manner she used to adopt with him sometimes. That was nice. So OK, maybe she wasn’t going to be a CEO someday after all.

Watching her now, she reminded him of the little girl he’d take to the library, and she’d ask him questions about the astronomy and physics books she brought home. Most of what he knew on those subjects, he’d learned by getting an Encyclopedia Britannica volume off their shelf and reading it with her. 

Anyhow, back to investing. It seemed like everyone on his investing forums was chasing the big winners of the 80’s: Home Depot, Circuit City, Coca-Cola, Merck. A lot of his friends were scarred by the boom-and-bust history of technology stocks and refused to have anything to do with them anymore. Companies in the early 80’s used to have their IPO, have a big run, and then die. Who needed that?

Len had a daughter in high tech, though, and now he lived only a few hours away from the beating heart of it, so he had a different take. He thought that all those retail stocks everyone loved were yesterday’s news. “You can’t go back in time and buy those!” he used to say, until people got tired of hearing it.

He had a Dell computer himself, and Dell had had a great run in ‘90, ‘91, and ‘92, but this year it crashed. To all the tech skeptics, which included most of his online friends, this was just deja vu all over again. But the stock seemed to be coming back now. On their next weekly call, he asked Janet what she thought about it.

“Dell? Well, we’re still ordering PC’s from them. I heard they hired a guy I knew at Xerox as a VP, and he’s a really sharp guy. So it might be worth a flier.”

“How about Sun Microsystems? Are they going to get wiped out by Microsoft?”

She thought about the Mosaic effort at 3Com, and her own work at home on SCO Unix.

“Well… they still have a pretty good toehold. Almost all the Internet work is getting done on Unix. Microsoft hasn’t figured out why that’s a problem yet.”

“Thanks, I think I will buy some of that for the fund. Oh, wait, can I ask you one more?”

“Shoot.”

“American Online, or AOL.”

Janet laughed out loud. “The company that’s buying up a quarter of all the CD’s manufactured in the world? That one?”

Len said, “Don’t laugh. Advertising works. Sometimes!”

“OK. We have enough drink coasters now to last us until 2020 or so.”

“Yeah, well, I’m buying some of that, too, Miss Smartypants!”

“I’m sure you know what you’re doing, Dad!”

“Anyhow, how’s the programming going? Are you ready to go back to managing yet?”

She laughed. “Not yet, Dad. Maybe not ever.”

He didn’t really expect to win her over.

“Well, as long as you’re happy.”

“Thanks, Dad. I am.”

They chatted about real estate prices in the Valley, which always amazed him. Janet was going to be a millionaire  just from her house, without all the hassle of being a big-shot manager! This daughter of his really did have it together. Then he remembered something.

“Say, how’s your friend Cassie doing? I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

Janet had finally found out the truth from Cassie: that she wanted to adopt a child, and Dad was going to be the godfather. He didn’t know that she knew, though. She wanted to see if he’d tell her.

“Oh, last I heard, she was working 24-7 at Palm. Any particular reason you’re asking?”

He figured out that she must know.

“Maybe she told you I was going to be the godfather of her child?”

“Oh, yeah, I think she did mention that. Any progress on that?”

“I haven’t heard anything. I think her plans are on hold for now.”

“Yeah, it would be pretty hard to have a new kid when you’re in a startup.”

“You Silicon Valley types! There’s more to life than work, you know.”

“I’ve heard rumors like that. But I do have a husband, you know.”

Len said, “And a wonderful one, too. You’re both welcome up here anytime!”

“Thanks, Dad. You’re welcome down here anytime, too.”

They chatted a little further and then hung up. Len thought maybe he should pay a visit down there. Maybe he’d get to see all her friends again, too.

* * *

Miriam dragged Matt to another of Abigail’s charity fundraisers, this time for TheatreWorks, the local “professional” theater company in Palo Alto, and he hated everything about it.

They had a major fight about that. She started in the car on the way home.

“Wasn’t that wonderful? I just love that we have real professional theater down here and you don’t have to go to The City for it anymore.”

“So what’s their annual budget now? Why do they need even more money?”

She was tired of just ignoring him when he got this way.

“I have no idea, Matt. It costs money to hire professionals.”

“Evidently. I guess it takes more than just developing your own talent.”

She got more irritated.

“So what — we’re supposed to have a bunch of community college graduates put on shows, because they’re ‘local’? I’d rather see something like we used to go to in New York.”

“In New York there was this excitement about going to a show. Here it’s… what? One more reason for rich old Menlo Park people to go out for the evening.”

“We have to start somewhere, Matt. TheatreWorks is trying to start something down here.”

“If they were actually ‘starting something’ we’d have lots of other high-toned theater companies springing up, wouldn’t we? But we don’t, because they’re sucking up all the money.”

“What is it with you, anyway? You’re getting so… I don’t know, cranky about everything lately.”

Matt knew he should just ignore this, he realized, but he just couldn’t help himself.

“I’m getting cranky? You’re getting to be Little Miss Social Climber.”

“I’m not going there with you, Matt. We’re not doing this.”

“Fine.” They didn’t speak any more that night.

Miriam was constantly on the phone asking people for donations to TheatreWorks, West Bay Opera, the local high schools, or some other Palo Alto-related cause. Fortunately, she didn’t consider their house a suitable place for a fundraising event, so he was spared that much at least. But she seemed to be spending most of her time outside the house now. That asshole Patrick, the former VP of Marketing at 3Com, was always calling about some charity event or other, and he was elaborately polite to Matt whenever Matt picked up the phone.

Whenever there were marches about the Rodney King trial and the riots in LA, Miriam was always there. He just knew he was going to set her off when he brought that up, so he wasn’t too surprised at how it turned out.

“So Miriam, you know there are a lot of black people in East Palo Alto. I haven’t seen you being all that involved with helping them!”

She got a frozen smile on her face.

“Or you, either, Mr. Workingman’s Hero. At least I’m doing something.”

“Yeah, like trying to keep them from using ‘our’ parks here!”

Matt was referring to a series of City Council meetings where the residents complained about poor people from East Palo Alto coming over and picnicking in Palo Alto parks because they didn’t have any nice places in their own neighborhood.

“You know perfectly well what that was about,” she said, stiffly.

Matt just sniffed. Miriam went into the bedroom for a half hour or so and talked on the phone to someone in a hushed voice. He knew this was probably not a good thing. She came back out.

“I think maybe we need to talk about a divorce, Matt. We got married in college and we’re totally different people now.”

They agreed that Matt would move out until the divorce was finalized. He finally got an apartment in Foster City, ironically a place he’d driven by every day when he worked at GO.

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