From Dave's words: "I graduated from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore in 88 and came out to California in 89. Did some consulting, which grew into a small company. Did some work with Microsoft and intel on a few others from 94 to 98, grew that to about 20 people. Screwed up everything I could about running a small business, but still managed to get a very small exit out of that around 2001. Got a job working at PayPal and was there through the through the I. P. O and through the sale to eBay and then a few years after that, until around 2004. Met a lot of really amazing people there, some of whom created some recognizable names in the Internet."