After Three Short Years, Our Soccer Dad Suddenly Discovers He's Become an Insider

摘要

Three years ago, shortly after I moved to Silicon Valley, a friend with years of experience in the high-tech scene gave me a bit of advice. "Stay with your job [I had just started working at an Internet startup] for three years," he said. "Then you'll be an insider." I wasn't sure what it meant to be a Silicon Valley insider. It sounded as cool as it was improbable. In my last job, as a writer and correspondent, three years meant just about nothing. You were still ground round. Here in Silicon Valley, insider status seemed even more elusive for a fortysomething guy without a degree in EE (electrical engineering, dummy) from MIT, indeed with little more than a well-educated layman's acquaintance with computers and the Internet. So imagine my surprise when, almost three years later to the day, I get my anointment as an insider.