[chrissnell]

Wow. I remember watching this fifteen years ago and seeing that young kid (Stuart Parmenter) join Netscape right out of high school and thinking, "Don't do it!". I, too, joined the industry early and by 2000, I'd pissed away the first half of my twenties pulling all-nighters working at tech startups while the rest of my friends were partying at college or backpacking around Europe.

Recently, I'd read something about Mozilla and wonder whatever happened to that kid. Well, looks like he's all grown up now. I'm impressed to see that he spent so many years with Mozilla. I wonder if he has any regrets at starting so young.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartparmenter

[stuartparmenter]

No regrets at all. I've been very fortunate to work with many amazing people throughout my career and have learned more than I could have ever imagined back then. The tech world is always evolving and never boring. Those early years, including all the ups and downs of the industry taught me things that would be very difficult to learn these days.

People should step back and think about all the things they do in browsers today. Without the hard work of thousands of people from Netscape and Mozilla, you probably wouldn't be doing most of those things. I'm proud to have been able to play a small role in that.

[nailer]

I read about jwz in months old copies of Wired in the 90s and basically wanted to be him. Then he left the tech industry because it was so shitty which made me question that plan.

[tomphoolery]

So then he joined an arguably much shittier industry? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_Lounge

No matter how shitty either industry is, I'd much rather own a nightclub and have my entire life be about the music than work in tech at all.

[csixty4]

I wrote jwz a fan email back then because I was afraid I'd have to give up who I am to work in computers. I'm not much of a goth anymore, but it was exciting to see someone like me in such a prominent position.