Theo Schlossnagle

I'm comfortable with my age. Let's put it that way. And it's good to know that you and Stephen's relationship is as old as my first daughter. So when did we meet? My guess is probably 2003 or 2004.

I'm comfortable with my age. Let's put it that way. And it's good to know that you and Stephen's relationship is as old as my first daughter. So when did we meet? My guess is probably 2003 or 2004.

Did you do a Detroit session there?

Did you do a Detroit session there?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I, maybe, maybe. My first conferences were the ApacheCon conferences.

I, maybe, maybe. My first conferences were the ApacheCon conferences.

My first conference was surreal because I was in grad school, didn't know anything about, you know, open source other than it seemed cool and, you know, communist or something. I don't know what I thought back then. It was wild. So I wrote a patchy module to do load balancing as part of my master's thesis and wrote a paper on it, submitted it to the conference, went there.

My first conference was surreal because I was in grad school, didn't know anything about, you know, open source other than it seemed cool and, you know, communist or something. I don't know what I thought back then. It was wild. So I wrote a patchy module to do load balancing as part of my master's thesis and wrote a paper on it, submitted it to the conference, went there.

And it turns out that they gave me the closing plenary slot with like 2000 people in the audience as my first talk ever. And they only got smaller from there for a long time. But yeah, it was really cool. It was in Orlando at a resort, so I spent most of my time in swim trunks with a Mai Tai. In front of 2,000 people. Not at the same time, but very close.

And it turns out that they gave me the closing plenary slot with like 2000 people in the audience as my first talk ever. And they only got smaller from there for a long time. But yeah, it was really cool. It was in Orlando at a resort, so I spent most of my time in swim trunks with a Mai Tai. In front of 2,000 people. Not at the same time, but very close.

Questions and answers afterwards, we're at the poolside, yes.

Questions and answers afterwards, we're at the poolside, yes.

Yeah, stay away from the academic conferences. Go to the commercial conferences.

Yeah, stay away from the academic conferences. Go to the commercial conferences.

It was ApacheCon. Okay. Discussion of all projects Apache, which at that point, I guess that was 1999. Yeah, that's got to be super, yeah, interesting. 1998, maybe, one of those two. Right. And there were, I don't know, there were probably 100 Apache projects back then. It felt like there were eight or 10.

It was ApacheCon. Okay. Discussion of all projects Apache, which at that point, I guess that was 1999. Yeah, that's got to be super, yeah, interesting. 1998, maybe, one of those two. Right. And there were, I don't know, there were probably 100 Apache projects back then. It felt like there were eight or 10.

But there's always been, you know, an order of magnitude more Apache projects than anyone even at Apache knows. But it was really weird because there was a convergence. It was right before the dot-com boom that you could feel the ramp up at that point.

But there's always been, you know, an order of magnitude more Apache projects than anyone even at Apache knows. But it was really weird because there was a convergence. It was right before the dot-com boom that you could feel the ramp up at that point.