A Review of 2010

So, here's my story so far, in short...

1. Joined a high-ranking open source project, FCKeditor as Core Developer (2007)
   
2. Made it to computer mags (2008)
   
3. Made it to newspapers (2009)
   
4. Made it to TV (2009)
5. Went to Beijing and caught a glimpse of the central government's ambition with the high tech industry in China (2009)
   
6. Traveled to Silicon Valley and lived for six months (2010)
   
7. Made it into two Silicon Valley incubators almost simultaneously and accepted one of the offers - SSE Labs (2010)
   
8. Produced two prototype demos within the six months in SV, one of them was made public (SayCheeze), demo-ed to VCs. (2010)
   
9. The other idea is more promising... so I'm working on that ;)
10. Hooked up to an editor from Apple Daily HK which allows me to write column articles in weekends. (2010)

So I've seen plenty of action in 2010. The people I've seen were almost a blur - the top VC partners and angels (i.e. principals from funds like August Capital, Sequoia, KPMG, etc. and then people like Paul Graham - yes, I've talked to Paul Graham, in person), the Sandbox network, met a number of SV entrepreneurs from having IPO'd to having got significant funding to having sold their stake for good like RockYou's Jia, Webshots' and Stumbled Upons' founders... I've even talked to someone affiliated with the White House for a good 45 minutes.

It's quite surprising what a determined enough person can do in 3 years. But still, I'm very far from Mark Zuckerberg...

... and that kinda puts in perspective, how big this world is. Mark is only 1 year older than me. A Forbes ranking is not too significant in my eyes - plenty of people can get insanely rich by being lucky - but a hand that guides the path of technology and thus, civilization, is significant. And I mean all these in a concrete, pragmatic sense, in case you think I'm just another dreamer.

Having seen all these powerful people, the body of knowledge and business practices they've built, reminds me of a quote from H2G2:

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. - Douglas Adams