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Technorati Transitions
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- 7/4 10:30 PM
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As Technorati's CEO David Sifry has written on Technorati's weblog, I will be stepping down from my role as Chief Technologist and joining Technorati's Advisory Board. Specifically my last day as Chief Technologist will be July 13th, just over three years since my first day.
Coincidentally, Adam Hertz and Liz Dunn are also leaving to pursue other interests. Both will be terribly missed at Technorati. They have each made countless invaluable contributions, both to our externally visible site(s), features etc. and to Technorati's company culture as well. This was my first time working with Adam, and I have learned a lot from him, not the least of which is admiration of and inspiration from his calm and peaceful way of handling stress and conflict in the challenging situations that are a regular occurence at any aggressive startup.
This was also my first time working with Liz, who has truly been a delight to work with. Her amazing user perspective, energy, and just overall optimism inspired not only me but everyone she interacted with. I'm definitely going to miss our informal chats and illuminating debates about user centered design. funnyordie.com is very lucky to get her.
On a positive note for Technorati, Dorion Carroll's acceptance of the role of Vice President of Engineering is nothing short of awesome. I've really enjoyed working with Dorion, even more closely over the past year, and have tremendous respect for not only his technical capabilities, but also his ability to neutrally reason about various topics while remaining a passionate user advocate.
As for me, let me first say that I'm incredibly flattered and touched by all the kind words offered by so many friends, colleagues and people that I don't even know on blogs, Twitter, Pownce, and other sites. Thank you. I appreciate the compliments. To be fair, as much I've been an outside point of technical contact for Technorati and thus particularly associated with the company (and find the alliteration between my name and the company's name a humorous coincidence as well), the incredible team of 40+ that we've built deserves the credit for the technical advances in the site, speed, reliability, user-friendliness, you name it. I have complete confidence that the team, especially with Dorion as our new VP of Engineering, will take the site to even greater heights.
Second, a lot of folks have been asking what am I doing next so here's a brief answer:
- Spending a lot more time refocusing on microformats, in particular on outstanding issues on existing formats, and community development.
- Volunteering some time to help out a nonprofit or two with their website(s) (as inspired by the recent NetSquared conference that Micki Krimmel dragged me along to at the last minute.)
- Taking the summer off from any fulltime obligations or responsibilities. I came to Technorati less than two weeks after leaving Microsoft where I had spent 7+ years. It's been quite a while since I've allowed myself the time to think and create truly independently and am very much looking forward to doing so once again. To be clear, especially to recruiters, I am NOT seeking full time employment at this time.
There is so much more I'd like to say, e.g. from our trial by fire of building two sites in under 13 calendar days back in 2004, to what I've learned at Technorati, particularly from Founder CEO David Sifry who hired and mentored me, but this post has gotten long enough and those topics deserve posts of their own.
For now, I'm inviting friends, colleagues, and anyone who has a question or just wants to share some conversation to lunch tomorrow (Thursday), noon, at South Park, on the lawn. Looking forward to seeing you there.
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