Deja Vu

The following is quoted directly from Paul Ferguson's blog here http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/2005/05/some-thoughts-on-how-to-succeed-or-not.html = Some thoughts on how to succeed... or not. = I've been thinking, and admittedly, that's always a dangerous endeavor. And anyone who knows me would probably agree. However, here lately, I've been feeling vindicated in the fact that my beliefs, and sticking to my proverbial guns, my closely-held engineering principles, will eventually prove themselves in their truths. I've been thinking about this: Why is it that, when someone has a technical problem or crisis in the Internet community, they want to sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened? This really pisses me off, and if nothing else, violates the Tao of the Internet community-at-large... if you're not part of the solution, you are certainly part of the problem. Well, I know why, or at least I think I know why. I've seen it first-hand working amongst the movers-and-shakers in the heady days of the high-tech, VC-money-for-virtually-every-start-up-over-the top, heady days of the mid- to late-1990's when this business was a tad more raw, over-inflated, and experimental in the business sense, than it ever was, or has been to to this day. However, some events of the past few weeks have left me feeling a few tinges of Déjà vu. I left Cisco Systems, Inc. in 2001, after taking a leave-of-absence -- probably the best move for both me, and Cisco. But believe me, I've been doing this for a long time. And all I've ever wanted to do was engineer -- not manage. not direct -- just be an engineer. Keep my hands dirty, so to speak. That's what I still do -- engineer -- and that's what I hope I can always do. However, I reached a point (back before the dot.com bubble bust) where the enjoyment factor had been sucked out of the job -- everyone was more worried about appearances than real tech. You know, no