The default of how you do these things is very powerful, if you've been in the industry for a long time. So we were sort of beneficiaries of our naïveté. We thought, "We don't know how to do this; let's just invent it."

Livingston: Who did you learn things from at Google? Did you have mentors? Buchheit: I didn't know anything about building these large systems before working at Google. So I'd look at how different parts of Google work and sort of say, "Does that apply to us? Can we reuse that technique?"—since there was already a successful model of how

Livingston: What's the most important part of your culture? Newmark: The culture of trust. The moral compass. Livingston: And you make sure, when you hire someone, that they have one? Newmark: The other people on my team do, yes. Since I've had such bad luck in interviewing—that's because I'm not suited to it—I have no role in the hiring whatsoever

Livingston: Did a lot of people not have resources to implement your ideas at the time, because the Web was still emerging? Greenspun: People used to say, "Why should we pay you guys $30,000 to $50,000 a month to do this thing, when we can just hire our own programmer?" What I would tell them is, "Each company has one class of stars.

The other thing that surprised me was how well companies can do if you challenge them with these big, crazy goals.

One of the things I realized was that to get strong co-op students, you had to start early because, by the second year, you've lost them already to some other company. So we started hiring first- and second-year students, knowing that they were not really going to be full-time employees for 3 to 4 years after that. It was a 3- to 4-year investment

Livingston: What advice would you give to a programmer who's thinking about starting a company? Spolsky: I've got a lot [laughs]: Don't do it. It's going to suck. You're going to hate it. Can I steal one from Paul? Don't start a company unless you can convince one other person to go along with you. If you don't have two people (or I would even say

Livingston: Do you think it's a good idea for those who have a big dream like that to section it off a bit? To try to create a successful startup to get the money to give them the freedom to pursue their dream? Kahle: Yes. I try to make sure that every year there's some accomplishment that you can actually point at and say, "OK, this year I'm

Livingston: Did you use your own money for Groove? Ozzie: Yes, I funded the first few years myself. But eventually I took some money from Mitch Kapor and then others. Not so much because I needed it at that point, but because I knew that, ultimately, you cannot accomplish something completely on your own. You really need to develop a network of peo