Neylan McBaine

I am, yes.

Well, I actually started at one of the sort of high-flying dot-coms right in San Francisco in the Soma area at the time.

Which one?

It was called eGreetings.com.

And I had just come out of Yale, which in 1999 was still priming us for the old boys club.

And I came into an office that had purple walls and Mastiffs lounging in the halls.

Oh, yeah.

No, no, no.

Real dogs.

Yeah.

And I called the CEO Mr. Somebody by his last name.

And it was a fantastic education.

But it was also a sort of flash in the pan company.

And I sort of had that front row seat during 99 to 2001, watching that crash right there from downtown San Fran.

You know, to be honest, I was 22 years old and all I cared about was that I still had a job.

So I actually got promoted three times the first year I was there because the way was cleared by other people.

who unfortunately were not able to stay during the layoffs.

So it was a kind of strange thing.

But I did live right downtown San Francisco, and it was funny to see from 99 to 2001 how the sort of culture of downtown really changed.

It went from being a bustling place with all these young people to being very quiet, you know, a sort of traditional financial district feeling.