[mitchbob]

I started there as an intern in 1982, and it was my first job out of college. Tandem was Kleiner Perkins's breakthrough: it was the fastest-growing public company in America, and the growth was anticipated and carefully planned for. There were brilliant people everywhere: Jim Gray's office was on the other side of the wall from ours, and Tom Van Vleck, who wrote the first email program for CTSS at MIT, was down the hall. It was the closest to a Manhattan Project I had in my career, and pure luck that I was there.

[thvv]

I started at Tandem in 1981. It was a great company to work for. CEO Jimmy Treybig came to new employee orientation and said, "The goal of Tandem is to make a lot of money and have a good time." Well wow. (Previous company would have seen good times as an error.)

There were a lot of good times: 4:30 on Fridays at Beer Bust, standing around the pool with colleagues. Working hard with great people.

[mitchbob]

Hi Tom! Fond memory of mine: running with Jimmy T. at lunch. What a great guy he was. Haven't done anything like that with a CEO since. Hope you're doing well!