Fogcreek Open House
Wow!
That’s the word which came out of my mouth when I saw Fogcreek office full of geeks! [Normally, I give this 'Wow!' reaction only when I see hot chicks in clubs! ;)]
Yes, I attended Fog Creek Open House on Thursday, 14th July 2005.
I was so excited when Joel announced that he will be organizing Open House in July. I have been reading JoelOnSoftware since my college days (when I was in India) and I must admit that his writing has profound effect on how I look at the world of software engineering. I had never imagined that one day I will be in US and will get a chance to meet Joel in person! 
So on Thursday afternoon, I left Office at 4:30 and headed to NY City. Instead of taking train, I decided to drive. [Lesson learnt: Never ever drive from NJ to NY City. Best way is to take NJ Transit train. 9 out of 10 times, train will get you to the city faster. ] First I went to Lincoln Tunnel and found that it has 40 minutes inbound delay so I drove all the way north to George Washington bridge. Once I was in City, I parked my car and took cab and finally reached Fog Creek Office on 8th Avenue.
I was late to the party and place was already full of geeks.
Joel was always surrounded by geeks and he was talking about topics like ‘Stock options as compensation method’, ‘How software product company are valued better than software consulting companies (the hockey stick curve) ‘, ‘How Aeron chairs costs few cents a day’ etc.
If you are avid JoS reader, you know that Fog Creek software was founded by Joel and Michael Pryor. I am sure that you know very little about Michael. Somehow he has preferred to be behind the stage. I asked one intern about him and finally I get to meet Michael. Somehow I had impression that Michael is an old guy, but lo and behold, not only he is young (he is 28), he is one _handsome_ chap. Here’s my picture with Joel and Michael.
I found that Michael and Joel met when they were working together in Juno. I asked Michael about what do they do when he and Joel are not in agreement over some particular issue. Michael answered that most of the time, he and Joel are in agreement most of the time, and in one-off cases when they disagree, depending upon who has put his foot down, they let the other person take decision. Joel talked about an incident when their new hire Ben (who did cross country bicycle trip) mailed Joel and Michael whether he can join Fog Creek earlier than his assigned joining date. Not only Joel and Michael both replied in affirmative, they both wrote the same 3 line reply to Ben!
I had always wanted to see Joel’s office and as I had expected, he has very clean and tidy office/desk. (Joel, why don’t you get a black keyboard?)
BTW, the monkey on the desk has ximian.com written on his tee. Here’s one more picture of his desk.
Here is picture of other part of office.
If you were to look through window in Joel’s office, here’s what you will see.
BTW, did I tell you that when you enter in to Fog Creek’s office, first thing you see is Fog Creek Library.
The library has books on Linux, PHP and Perl too! Here’s the proof:
I asked Joel about the secret product he mentioned in this entry on JoS. Joel answered that he wanted to create a product called ‘MailRoom’ which would handle incoming support mails and send appropriate replies/assign it to support personnel. Unfortunately, they killed the product.
One thing I liked the most in Joel’s office was his DJ Gear.
BTW, did I tell you that there was wine and some yummy snacks?
I asked Joel whether it ever happened that he couldn’t hire a person because he couldn’t offer him salary he was expecting. He told me that it happened only once when an intern wanted salary + stock options and he had to turn him down. [Joel doesn't like stock options much.] Finally, I asked him what kind of advice he would give to guy like me who is currently working in IT Services and wants to move to product companies like Fogcreek, Microsoft. Joel said, “Not knowing you personally, I don’t have specific advice. But in general, there is no action plan or strategy which will get you in product company. Just be yourself.” I think he meant that one needs to great programmer (who understands pointers! ) , a good communicator and that’s what will get him in great software product companies.
I also met some interns (couldn’t meet all of them), Babak (first hire by Fog Creek), Paul, Karan and others. Overall, it was one memorable evening, thanks Joel for organizing the open house!
July 17th, 2005 at 12:50 am
Lucky man !
I really like joel’s office.
Seems there are some indian geeks also.
July 17th, 2005 at 1:51 pm
Awesome of you to write such a detailed report on your visit there. This is the most I’ve seen of the place anywhere. I’ve been following Joel for 5 years or so too, I knew there was a co-founder but didn’t pay attention to who it was. When I met a lot of the FC folks at CFUNITED including Michael, I didn’t realize who I was talking to…
July 17th, 2005 at 10:38 pm
What a bland keyboard. If not something ergonomic, he should at least get one in black, to match the rest of his hardware.
July 18th, 2005 at 2:23 am
Lucky guy. Thanks for the tour of joel office
July 18th, 2005 at 10:52 am
Well, you haven’t been Slashdotted but you have been Joel-ed, close enough
July 18th, 2005 at 11:32 am
Hey JD!
Thanks for writing up the party, it was a fun time. I havent seen so many geeks in one place since my last LAN party. We spoke for a while there (I was there with the girl in pics #3 and 4), but I didnt get your card at the time. Thanks for taking pics and keep in touch!
Chris
July 18th, 2005 at 11:52 am
For what it’s worth, Microsoft has a lot of IT Services-type jobs, both supporting external customers as well as supporting Microsoft internally. If you like working in an IT Services capacity and want to work for a company like Microsoft/IBM/Sun/etc, you can do it.
There’s not quite as much opportunity for that at a smaller product based company, though. Depends on what your goals are.
July 18th, 2005 at 2:46 pm
“What a bland keyboard. If not something ergonomic, he should at least get one in black, to match the rest of his hardware.”
A typical statement from young punks who value style more than actual substance!
White keyboards are better (more readable) than black. There’s a reason that centuries of book printers still do most printing in black on white — it’s the most readable to human eyes. (And even touch-typists read the keyboard at times.)
They didn’t have no stinkin’ black keyboard on my 026 keypunch! (See http://www.tietokonemuseo.saunalahti.fi/images/kuva10.jpg)
July 18th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
Thankyou for the nice pictures and description. Please continue to be yourself - Things like these pictures are what will certainly bring you success in the future
July 18th, 2005 at 4:25 pm
That’s great, thanks for the photos.
BTW, the building reminds me Matrix scene :
Mr. Rhineheart: You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson. You believe that you are special, that somehow the rules do not apply to you. Obviously you are mistaken. This company is one of the top software companies in the world because every single employee understands that they are part of a whole. Thus if an employee has a problem, the company has a problem. The time has come to make a choice, Mr. Anderson. Either you choose to be at your desk on time from this day forward or you choose to find yourself another job. Do I make myself clear?
http://www.sabon.org/matrix/index.html
July 18th, 2005 at 6:49 pm
It is great to have a look at the inside of FCS and Joel’s office, but i really have to complain about the *style* that this blog post was written in. It reads like it was written by a sycophantic 10 year old who works on a helpdesk and wants to be like Joel when he grows up. Sorry, but that is the way it reads
July 18th, 2005 at 9:00 pm
If you’re reading JoS and have imbibed his way of thinking, you’re well on your way to getting a product-oriented job: Just start applying!
July 19th, 2005 at 2:21 am
Thanx for your description of the party, it was very enjoyable. Pictures were a big plus.
July 19th, 2005 at 3:10 am
As I don’t know you and Michael, the pic #5 is not very informative. You’re at the left or at the middle of the pic?
Thanks for pic #4, I doubt if there was a girl in the house and yes, there is the girl!
July 19th, 2005 at 4:47 am
My two cents to the keyboard matter; I don’t care about the colour, but with two giant monitors this close I think you have to do a lot of head movement to keep an eye on everything
Now my real question: has Joel ever written about DJ-ing? He’s written a lot of other off-topic stuff on his blog of “software”, but I don’t recall anything about superior disc spinning techniques
July 19th, 2005 at 7:33 am
Andrej,
On Left is Me and Michael is in center.
JD
July 19th, 2005 at 8:40 am
JD - Ignore the “sycophantic” comments. Nice to see someone who isn’t too cool to get excited.
July 20th, 2005 at 1:06 am
hey JD! so, u didn’t sms me ur blog link…but you cudn’t hide it for long! i knew it…a geek w/ camera in hand had to be a blogging veteran!
good to read about the day. you covered it well. not everyday that i read abt smthing interesting and get to say ‘been there, done that’ 
July 20th, 2005 at 7:38 pm
JD,
I’m sure it must be nice party as you did call me and told about your excitement about the party!
You people are really lucky that lives in US
We dont have much luck here to meet with GeeKs.
Savani
July 26th, 2005 at 8:56 pm
Hi JD:
Thanks for these pics and your descriptions. I’ve been following JoS for some time, and it’s nice to get another persepctive of the office and the people.
One suggestion for improvement in your writing: You need to use articles in your writing. Articles include “a”, “an”,and “the”.
For example, you write:
“Instead of taking train, I decided to drive.”
For the sentence to flow more smoothly, you should write:
“Instead of taking the train, I decided to drive.”
Again, great site, great pics. Thanks.
July 29th, 2005 at 3:59 am
blah blah blah..
July 29th, 2005 at 6:33 am
hey JD,
Thats a good one.
i dont know whether u remember me. we used to work in mangalore infy. we both went to a trek some where in dec 2003 to unchalli falls.
have fun
Tamada
March 15th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
nice collection….except for the excel thing