My Rockstar Gift

As a kid playing my Gibson SG in a rock band, I had dreams of being a rockstar. I used to practice for hours with a friend, Keith Howland. Keith was far better than me, his fingers moving across his Les Paul like liquid lightning, playing “Freebird” to the swaying masses. I’d strum along and do my best to not lose the beat. That was then. Today Keith is a rockstar, playing for Chicago. I’m a CTO/VPE for early stage companies, like Photobucket and Heavy.

Way too many years later, I had my first rockstar experience. Its not what I had in mind. VC Mike from Polaris introduced me as a “rockstar CTO” in Boston’s Amazon Web Services meetup. That’s quite humbling, especially from Mike, who I deeply respect. As the Rolling Stones say so poetically, you can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.

I was scheduled to talk on migrating from managed hosting to Amazon’s new web services. A few minutes before I was called to the podium, I was sitting next to an engineer who specialized in SEO. We chatted for a bit, exchanging backgrounds, talking shop. He handed me his card and I stuffed in it my shirt pocket. He looked at me, puzzled.

“If you’re going to give a talk, you need to do it right. I’ve been doing some research on membranes to optimally protect your pens and cards you collect, without causing your Listerene strips to melt from body heat. I have some rather interesting results with different composite materials.”

What the… this guy reaches into his bag, shuffles around. His hand emerges, holding a flimsy piece of transparent plastic. “Ah, this is the one! Here, you need this.”

He hands me a pocket protector. I gave my talk. He came to see me afterwards. “Loved your talk, Scott! Please keep the membrane as my gift.” I was floored.

Note to VC Mike: Rockstars have screaming girls throw underwear on stage and paper airplanes with phone numbers written in lipstick. What do I get? A limp pocket protector. I can only hope Keith is faring better with his fans.