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by carterac
4847 days ago
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A personal anecdote to demonstrate Joe's awesomeness: After hearing him give the keynote speech for Princeton's entrepreneurship conference, I was able to wiggle through the crowd of people surrounding him and blurt "Hey Joe! I loved your talk. I'm also a computer science major about to graduate and start a company that is essentially Pandora for art--there's even an Art Genome Project too [of course none of this existed at the time]. I'm moving out to Silicon Valley when I graduate this spring. Could I meet with you when I'm there and get your help?" He managed to say "Sure, my email is X" before the crowd reformed around him. I was convinced he would forget about me or be too busy to reply to a random student who approached him after a conference (which I now know is the worst time ever). To my surprise, he remembered me and invited me to visit him at Pandora's offices for lunch. He even took me on a tour of the whole company and showed me the "genomers" (who I remember being mostly bearded men staring into space thoughtfully while listening to music on gigantic headphones--strikingly different from Artsy's genomers today). The whole time he never made me feel like I was imposing or wasting his time. It was amazing to meet someone so successful yet also so humble and genuinely interested in others. Joe continued to stay involved and add value even after I moved to New York. A computer scientist himself, he even helped me think through the original (very simple) similarity algorithm for Artsy's own Art Genome Project and despite how busy he must have been, would always take the time to answer my emails or get on the phone. And of course, having his name involved was critical social proof in the early days of the company. Although I'm a proud NYC'er now, I've often said that Silicon Valley will always have a place in my heart for teaching me the value of paying it forward. And that lesson started with Joe's kind actions, without which I'm not sure Artsy would be what it is today. |
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I still have your camera that you lent me when I let you keep my backup squash racket. I didn't know you had moved to NYC without returning it to you, and I still feel pretty bad about it.
I'm sorry, but the little guy just up and stopped working. He had a good life. Can I return the favor?