Startup School Diary Entry #2

I am TIRED (look at the picture!). I left the hotel in Palo Alto, CA this morning around 9:30 and I didn't

get back here until I started this post (around midnight). It probably doesn't help that I'm still mostly living on East Coast time.

I prepared for my day starting around 8 AM got into San Francisco by 11, at which point I met with Pyramind. Great group of individuals over there and they seemed pretty psyched about what I had to say.

One thing about San Francisco- parking meters are a nightmare. There are no convenience stores to get quarters at, and once you do, all the meters are only good for short periods of time such as a half-hour. Somehow I didn't get ticketed.

I then made my way over to Hyde St. Studios to meet with Jeff Cleland. This place is just amazing- James Brown, George Clinton, the Grateful Dead- they all recorded here. The rooms sound amazing and the mixing consoles are unbelievable.

I got the full tour and even got to check out the mastering studio. I've never experienced a real-life echo chamber, but it's definitely interesting. It looks like a fairly normal room, but it's designed with the goal of creating as many acoustical reflections as possible.

I had an hour or so to kill before I met up with the guys at Justin.tv so I decided to do a little sight-seeing. I drove up to Coit Tower which was pretty cool. You can see Alcatraz, both Bridges (Golden Gate and Bay) as well as all of downtown San Francisco. Quite a view if you've only got time to stop at one place.

I drove down from the incredibly hilly areas near the tower and made my way over to Justin.tv's headquarters right near the Bay. They've got a killer place; it's a huge barn-like structure with three levels, and it doesn't resemble any working space I've ever seen. We talked about some things for the Battle of the Boroughs and then got some Chinese food (my first meal of the trip NOT from Jack-in-the-Box).

I drove with their CEO, Michael Seibel over to the Y-Combinator private reception, which was really great of them to invite me to- thanks guys. On the way we came up with a new marketing concept called "Create the Bait." I'm not sure if it was more inspiration or delusional tiredness, but the concept is interesting. That's a topic for another blog. I met some amazing people and had a great time, but I'm extremely tired and have to get up for another long day at Startup School at Stanford starting at 8 AM- hooray for sleep!

More to come tomorrow!

Brian