I understand that the change is for the better, but as I miss the day when engineering in a start-up meant C/C++ hacking in a UNIX environment, as evidenced by Richard Stevens' books on Max's shelf:
Even though you no longer _need_ to be a C hacker to build a web application (and that's generally a good thing, as anyone at Paypal who still deals with the legacy C++ code, or anyone at Amazon who remembers OBIDOS can tell you), you should still work your way through Advanced Programming in UNIX Environment, and UNIX Network Programming: you won't regret it a bit.
If you want to learn low-level programming but aren't really enticed by networking / operating system hacking, I'd recommend writing a software rasterizer. It's a fun project, and it's satisfying at a visceral level to see your creation come to life.
And it will make you a better programmer for the rest of your life. If nothing else, you'll come away with a much more solid understanding of memory, CPU caching, etc.
Here's my (terrible) software rasterizer: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/programming/demos/viewer.zip (Windows only, sorry. But there's no reason why it has to be. All you need is the ability to make a pixel change color, and you can therefore write a software rasterizer.)
Russ and Max were the two smartest guys I went to college with and were also great friends. Everyone knew that they were both going to be very successful.
Fun fact: Russ was the coder for a Chicago 'burbs-based demo group when he was about 17 (I met him at NAID 1996, when I was also 17. He later described PayPal to me as a method for transferring money with your Palm Pilot, like at a restaurant, and I thought it was the stupidest idea I'd ever heard).
If only paypal was still that personal and inspiring today.
Every new client I introduce to paypal these days I have to give them a lecture that "paypal is not your friend, do not trust them" (ie. they are not a bank and not a credit card company and will not help you, they are there to protect only themselves).
i genuinely have no idea why people would give a negative vote to this post. he's obviously just excited about having photos of his colleagues posted online.
If I could time travel, I would make it a requirement of some web specification that "previous" and "next" buttons go above the content, at fixed widths, so they don't keep moving around.
Paypal was a merger or two companies very early on:
"The current incarnation of PayPal is the result of a March 2000 merger between Confinity and X.com.[10] Confinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery, initially as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company.[11] X.com was founded by Elon Musk in March 1999, initially as an Internet financial services company. " per the wiki
[+] [-] strlen|15 years ago|reply
http://levchin.com/images/PayPal/1840-yellow.JPG
Even though you no longer _need_ to be a C hacker to build a web application (and that's generally a good thing, as anyone at Paypal who still deals with the legacy C++ code, or anyone at Amazon who remembers OBIDOS can tell you), you should still work your way through Advanced Programming in UNIX Environment, and UNIX Network Programming: you won't regret it a bit.
[+] [-] palish|15 years ago|reply
And it will make you a better programmer for the rest of your life. If nothing else, you'll come away with a much more solid understanding of memory, CPU caching, etc.
Here's my (terrible) software rasterizer: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/programming/demos/viewer.zip (Windows only, sorry. But there's no reason why it has to be. All you need is the ability to make a pixel change color, and you can therefore write a software rasterizer.)
[+] [-] hvs|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a1k0n|15 years ago|reply
Group was called Beyond, and he went by Armitage. http://pouet.net/groups.php?which=881
Other guys in that group are also in the SF startup scene.
He went on to co-found Yelp.
[+] [-] dr_|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ck2|15 years ago|reply
Every new client I introduce to paypal these days I have to give them a lecture that "paypal is not your friend, do not trust them" (ie. they are not a bank and not a credit card company and will not help you, they are there to protect only themselves).
[+] [-] wuster|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mohsen|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] speedracr|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zabraxias|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kanamekun|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jodrellblank|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterquest|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulitex|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freshfunk|15 years ago|reply
"The current incarnation of PayPal is the result of a March 2000 merger between Confinity and X.com.[10] Confinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery, initially as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company.[11] X.com was founded by Elon Musk in March 1999, initially as an Internet financial services company. " per the wiki
[+] [-] fedd|15 years ago|reply
http://yourforum.gr/InvisionBoard/lofiversion/index.php?t463...
(the guy second to left seems familiar, show it to Max)