I just moved to Orcas Island in the PNW after living in cities (Seattle, Anchorage) for most of my adult life. I'm near the one town on the island (which is REALLY quiet outside of the 4 warmest/touristy months). ~4,500 people year round population. Weather is perfect with near zero rain for 4-6 months but a bit gray / drizzly for the rest. It's rarely cold, but decent ski hills are 2h inland.
The population (like a lot of small towns) is pretty old, but I found the small group of newer folks (lots of tech expats) to be really welcoming.
I can walk to the small airport, which has regular $180-$200 flights to Seattle (show up 10min before departure, 45min flight). Ferries are more work but sometimes you want your vehicle on the mainland for a big group of houseguests or whatnot.
I'm 15min away from getting a paddlboard into two mountain lakes-- both are popular swimming destinations for locals. I have friends pulling crabs and prawns out of the water all summer. There are zillions of islands and inlets around-- it's a playground if you're a boater. 4-5 good hikes on the islands with breathtaking views. There's one (never crowded) gym in town with a racquetball court. There's a board game meetup. A few fancy restaurants, one killer cocktail bar, a good locals dive bar. I leave my door unlocked. There's a "village green" with frequent concerts and a Saturday farmer's market. The schools and kids on this island are amazing. Ferries and small planes can get you quickly to Victoria/Vancouver Island, Vancouver (the city), and assorted other cool small/medium towns.
I'm pretty new to this, but am LOVING it. There are downsides-- not a lot of food variety in town, tough to make new friends if you aren't the kind of person who makes the effort. The gray season is long and VERY quiet, so you definitely need to budget time/$ to travel. The schools are pretty understanding about missed days in the winter because of this.
Hit me up if you (or anyone) ever wants to check it out. I'll buy you a drink and talk your ear off about it.
This was (originally) exactly why we created RescueTime (YC08 - and still growing!). We'd sold a tiny/new startup that we'd created IN ALASKA to a large/overfunded startup (150ppl) in Seattle. We were convinced we were moving to the big leagues. Everyone would be so smart! We'd move 10x faster will the big league technology/processes!
The reality was pretty terrible-- I felt like the entire company spent all day writing emails, going to meetings, and updating wikis... Which seemed pretty scary for a company that hadn't figured out its own product yet. We wanted a big chart showing the allocation of time spend so we could show it the exec team and say, "Is this on purpose?"
The company ended up raising $50M and selling for less than $1M. The founder went on to create Fab.com, which raised $300M+ and sold for $15M.
Sorry, I'm kind of confused by the timeline. Which company was which? You say RescueTime is still growing, but then said it was sold for $1M? I think I misunderstood.
One thing I've said to acquirers in the past is: "You're a big company that can afford to dedicate a person full-time to this deal for months with no impact to your company's focus and bottom line. We're not. I'm excited about this opportunity, can we brainstorm how to limit the cost of exploring this? And perhaps how we could share the cost a bit more equally?"
When we get into brainstorming mode, two things I navigate towards are: time-boxing the exercise (setting and sticking to an condensed schedule) and earnest money from them after some amount of diligence or discussion.
If a suitor can't commit to getting to a handshake/LOI after X weeks, I wouldn't pursue it.
Unrelated advice: try to hack your own brain and your team into believing that the default result of this is "no deal, time wasted". Many/most deals fall through, which can feel pretty brutal if you get optimistic about it.
This is a pretty ridiculous series of statements, especially if you count YC as a mid-stage startup when he joined (which it was).
If you add up all of the successful YC companies since he started leading YC, it's a pretty breathtaking number (the count, the valuations, and the value created). YC was having pretty serious scaling problems when he took the reins-- from my understanding, he resolved those pretty effectively. YC's growth since he's been leading it (in a lot of directions) has been impressive-- full-stop.
I've been in the Seattle startup scene for ~12 years and haven't ever heard him blamed for "promoting and perpetuating a toxic culture within Moz", so "widely blamed" doesn't seem accurate. I've also never heard of the other stuff you mention. If he was openly mocking/punishing customers, maybe you can provide a link where he did that?
Moz did spend a bunch of $ on new stuff vs. core stuff-- but I think that was after Rand stepped away from the CEO chair. Certainly the layoffs were after that by several years. Not saying he bears ZERO responsibility, but hanging that on him seems pretty unfair. Here's his post about the strategic zigs/zags and layoffs: https://sparktoro.com/blog/moz-returns-to-seo/
Here's a quote from the post:
"I’m also really thankful that I wasn’t in a managerial position and didn’t have to make what were, I’m sure, insanely tough calls about who stayed at Moz and who didn’t. I feel guilty and awful for all who were in that position, and all those who are seeking jobs now. I remember what it was like when Geraldine and many of her coworkers were laid off and the feelings of doubt and fear, resentment and confusion that washed over us. My empathy and my heart are with everyone on both sides of this heart-wrenching process."
It's not a big deal as described in the article. The effort to apply to YC is nominal, not terribly distracting, and probably a good exercise even if you don't get accepted.
In Anchorage, Alaska there is a moose roadkill call list you can get on. The authorities will call you (day or night) when a moose is struck. If you're willing to come out and harvest it, it's yours. If not, they move down the list to the next person. My brother has gotten a moose or two that way.
Usually the impact point(s) is/are pretty wrecked, but the majority of the meat is good. And, of course, Anchorage is a natural refrigerator (or freezer) most times of the year.
As someone said upstream, as a content-creator, I feel like I should just try the game someone spent many hours of their life building. But as a content-consumer, I'm irrational with my attention span for some reason.
I'd go to LinkedIn (or their About page if they are small enough) and just look at the people. The more diversity you see, the more they are walking the walk. You can also look thru past employees via LinkedIn (might require premium account) and reach out to diverse folks who've left the companies you're considering.
Funny thing about the beer-- we got draft cold brew coffee at work and went out of our way to design and laser-cut a tap handle that says "Coffee" so candidates wouldn't think it was a beer keg.
Side note: I find it funny that 9/10 of Textio's software engineers are men, but they do have two "customer success engineers" who are both women. No women in senior technical roles.
I just moved to Orcas Island in the PNW after living in cities (Seattle, Anchorage) for most of my adult life. I'm near the one town on the island (which is REALLY quiet outside of the 4 warmest/touristy months). ~4,500 people year round population. Weather is perfect with near zero rain for 4-6 months but a bit gray / drizzly for the rest. It's rarely cold, but decent ski hills are 2h inland.
The population (like a lot of small towns) is pretty old, but I found the small group of newer folks (lots of tech expats) to be really welcoming.
I can walk to the small airport, which has regular $180-$200 flights to Seattle (show up 10min before departure, 45min flight). Ferries are more work but sometimes you want your vehicle on the mainland for a big group of houseguests or whatnot.
I'm 15min away from getting a paddlboard into two mountain lakes-- both are popular swimming destinations for locals. I have friends pulling crabs and prawns out of the water all summer. There are zillions of islands and inlets around-- it's a playground if you're a boater. 4-5 good hikes on the islands with breathtaking views. There's one (never crowded) gym in town with a racquetball court. There's a board game meetup. A few fancy restaurants, one killer cocktail bar, a good locals dive bar. I leave my door unlocked. There's a "village green" with frequent concerts and a Saturday farmer's market. The schools and kids on this island are amazing. Ferries and small planes can get you quickly to Victoria/Vancouver Island, Vancouver (the city), and assorted other cool small/medium towns.
I'm pretty new to this, but am LOVING it. There are downsides-- not a lot of food variety in town, tough to make new friends if you aren't the kind of person who makes the effort. The gray season is long and VERY quiet, so you definitely need to budget time/$ to travel. The schools are pretty understanding about missed days in the winter because of this.
Hit me up if you (or anyone) ever wants to check it out. I'll buy you a drink and talk your ear off about it.