I am originally from Boston, but I have been living in California for 21 years now. Please tell me how that happened.

I am originally from Boston, but I have been living in California for 21 years now. Please tell me how that happened.

I was one of the early bloggers and a user of Pyra Labs' Blogger, which was acquired by Google in early 2003, by which time I had left the startup. I had never met EV Williams (co-founder of Blogger), but I was a fan of his blog. After the acquisition, I sent him a note saying that I always felt like a missing member of his team.

To my surprise, EV was also a fan of my blog. He wrote back asking if I wanted to come work for Blogger at Google. Oh! He was surrounded by the best engineers in the world, but he wanted me on the team. I think he needed someone who was more than just an engineer. Someone with a sense of design and the ability to engage with and grow a community. This was before anyone was using the term "social media."

I said yes to EV; I wanted to come out and work with him. And I naively thought it was a done deal - great, I got a new job on the West Coast. Pack the car and drive left. I didn't think it was such a big deal to be hired by Google. Not only that, but Larry and Sergey didn't want me. I didn't have a PhD in computer science - I didn't even have a college degree. So, EV had to pull all kinds of strings that I didn't know about.

EV had sufficiently troubled Larry and Sergey to the point that they agreed to let Wayne Rosing, the VP of Engineering at Google, talk to me on the phone. If he liked me, that was fine. On the day of the call, I was sitting in my attic apartment in Boston, probably staring at an old RadioShack phone that was vintage. I had never actually interviewed for a job - it was either offered to me or I created it myself.

The phone rang! After a very brief pleasure (Wayne was a busy man), he asked me why I dropped out of college. I politely explained that I had been offered a design position that most people needed an MFA to obtain. As the interview progressed, I admitted that my startup had been a failure for me, but it was certainly a tremendous learning experience. I think Wayne liked my answer.