Morrie the Toupee Salesman

This is kind of a bittersweet post. I was chatting with Eli this week about process, and programming, and politics. Eli has been a huge part of the V1 project we’re launching soon, and we wouldn’t be launching it in February (or in 2009) without his contributions. Unfortunately he’s leaving us before then. When we were chatting, he talked about the “perfect” way to do things – where you had one business person, and one programmer, and the programmer could cut corners and hack what needed to be done, and the business person could hack corners and cut out what needed to be not done. Zero politics, concentrate on what worked and move forward every day, pile up the advances until it was something real. And I couldn’t help but comment.

That’s what digg was from Oct. 2004 till Jay Adelson and 2.8 million dollars joined the company in August 2005. Jay’s contribution (and I’ve probably denigrated it repeatedly) was that he architected our exit from Eden. Before he arrived it was me, and Kevin, (Daniel and Ron too) and a lack of original sin.

Eli joined that company after that, and he joined our group at travelpod labs under mostly the same post-paradise conditions. After the fall from innocence, before the rise to power, to my mind, that’s Eli’s niche. He works tirelessly every day to move whatever project you put in front of him, forward. He was a huge part of digg, and a huge part of what we’re launching.

Sometimes working at a startup is kind of a religious experience. Times two. Feb. 9 is our launch date.