Meeting Mark Zuckerberg

Dave McClure's painstaking hard work in organizing Startup2Startup dinner paid off very well where Chad Hurley, co-founder and CEO of YouTube, was speaking. The star-studded event was one of the best I ever attended.

After spending the day hanging out with Dave, I arrived at Startup2Startup a little early so we can check on arrangements. Once at Sheraton in Palo Alto, we found that right next door, Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) was speaking at a Facebook corporate event.

As the Startup2Startup attendees started showing up, discussions started flowing. Facebook's staff wanted participants of Startup2Startup event to quietly socialize :) Dave decided to move the bar to the pool area.

I started hanging out at the bar, talking with the stars of Silicon Valley. Moments after the Facebook event ended, I spotted Zuckerberg talking with Chad Hurley near the pool side entrance. There, a desire lit up in my heart to meet Zuckerberg.

Before I knew it, my wish came true. There was a 2 minute window where Zuckerberg was free and I decided that I am not going to waste this opportunity. So I approached him and we started talking.

Zuckerberg is a very bright guy with deep insight. He was very easy to socialize with, a sign of a great CEO. We briefly discussed Facebook's growth in international markets such as Brazil among other things.

As we were parting, I asked Zuckerberg if I could have his card. He didn't have one but he generously gave me his personal email address.

I am thankful to Dave for inviting me to the event otherwise I'd not have met Mark Zuckerberg.

Happy Father's Day

Today is Father's day. Happy Father's day to all fathers.

For me Father's day has always been kind of sad as it marks the death anniversary of my dad who died in 1995. He was a good man and though I didn't get to spend a lot of time with him, I miss him.

This year's father's day, however, is a little sweeter too for me. My wife is expecting and so I look forward to the joys of celebrating father day with my son/daughter next year. Yup, we don't know whether it's a boy or girl, but we plan to find out soon :)

June 15, also marks my second year with my current employer.

Graphing Social Patterns East - Leaving for DC

Graphing Social Patterns is the premier conference on the topic of social networking and social graphs. The conference is being held in Washington DC.

In a few moments I will be leaving to attend Graphing Social Patterns East. The drive is about four hours so not too bad. I always enjoy driving this route as my first driving route in the US was from German Town, MD to New York.

I wanted to go to Graphing Social Patterns West as well but couldn't so I am very excited to attend the east one. I plan to learn about the inner workings of the platforms and engage in networking opportunities at the conference.

The conference is being held at Hyatt Regency Crystal City which is where I will be staying.

The conference explores social networks from two interesting perspectives:

Business & Marketing Strategy:

* LinkedIn: The Business Social Network
* MySpace and Facebook Social Advertising
* Apps & Widgets: The New New Ad Units
* Social Advertising & "App"-vertising
* 10M in 10 Weeks: What Stanford Learned Building Facebook Apps
* Social Networks & the NEED for FEEDS
* Social Networks for Mobile Devices

App Development & Technical Strategy:

* Google OpenSocial + AppEngine Technical Overview
* Poke Back: Facebook Platform Team Live Chat
* Bring Your Own Platform (BYOP)
* Social Games for Social Platforms
* Geek Metrics: App Analytics for Distribution, Engagement, & Monetization
* OpenSocial: Open for Business
* VIRAL vs STICKY: Designing Social Apps for Reach & Retention
* Show Me the Money: App Monetization

The keynotes at the Graphing Social Patterns conference include:

• LinkedIn: The Business Social Network by Adam Nash
• MySpace Business & Marketing Overview
• Facebook Business & Marketing Solutions by Kent Schoen
• Google OpenSocial + AppEngine Technical Overview by Patrick Chanezon and Paul McDonald
• Technical Overview: The MySpace Developer Platform (MDP) by Allen Hurff
• Poke Back: Facebook Live and Interactive by Benjamin Ling, Dave Morin, Ruchi Sanghvi, Josh Elman and Dave McClure.
  

It should be a lot of fun to see old friends and make new ones. If you are attending, ping me via this blog or by email (on the top right hand side) and let's meet up for a drink or two ;)

Azul Systems Wine Tasting Event @ Rainbow Room

Tonight, I went to a wine tasting event hosted by Azul Systems at Rainbow Room. Before the wine tasting began, there was an informative case study by Tony Bishop, Former SVP, Chief Architect of Wachovia Corporate Investment Bank. Tony pointed out that Azul Systems has become an important component of Wachovia's infrastructure and it allowed Wachovia to replace three racks with one machine by Azul Systems. He also mentioned that since IT never gets credit for increased revenue, his team had to make a case for protecting lost revenue to get funding approval for Azul Systems.

Following the keynote, there was a panel discussion with Scott Sellers (President and CEO) Gil Tene, (CTO) and Shyam Pillalamarri (VP of Software Engineering).

Azul was founded on 9/11/2001 and decision to target Java primarily was made at Java One. Azul also introduced Vega 3 which is available in 5U and 13U sizes.

At the event, I had great conversations with Maureen Fleming (Program Director, Business Process Integration and Deployment Software @ IDC) and Jonathan Levine (CTO of LinkShare).

As we were leaving the event, Azul presented each attendee with a bottle of wine.