Sounds like an incredible period. Do you miss it at all?

I’ve had phases of my life where I was lucky to have periods of absolute and undisturbed focus (grad school, summers during college, etc.). It’s easy to forget how valuable that type of focus time is until it goes away!

Oh sure, lots of things to miss about that time... startup vibes, underdog causes during the worst of the Bush years, and work that ranged from the Mac stuff to Linux/BSD backend admin, PHP dev, introduction of the tech team to SVN/version control, even some music composition for a video. And close work with a bunch of folks on the team who now have their own Wikipedia pages, as well as high-profile clients. My boss left eventually in mid 2005 to go work for (then Senator) Obama and personally interviewed him for / produced his podcast, posted to his Flickr, and that sort of thing.

The commuting... not so much. Moved into DC proper after that year, which itself was a great adventure. Leaving the house at 5:30-6:00am and returning at 8:30-9:00pm was no way to live.