Apocalypse Now, Revisited

"Berkeley. Shit. I'm still only in Berkeley. Every time I think I'm gonna wake up back in the Valley. When I was home after my first semester it was worse. I'd wake up and there'd be nothing. When I was here, I wanted to be there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the Valley. I hardly said a word to my advisor until I said yes to a Master's.

I'm here a year now, waiting for a mission, getting softer. Every minute I stay in this program I get weaker, and every minute a real programmer squats at his terminal he gets stronger. Each time I look around, the walls move in a little tighter...

[Fade in to the Doors doing "The End"]

Everyone gets everything he wants; I wanted a mission, and for my sins they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I'd never want another.

I was going to the worst startup in the world, and I didn't even know it yet. Months of work, and thousands of lines into a program that snaked through the machine like a tapeworm -- plugged straight into the kernel."

Michael Lazar (1985) [...and the original]