When I interviewed at Wired Online, I was struck by the head of the whole deal - the Online Tsar, as it were. He had a huge head of frizzy black hair, birkenstocks, and a cocky attitude. I hadn't really known what to expect, I was impressed by his powerful personality. I was brought on board as an intern, and during my first day I went to a meeting chaired by Herr Steuer. I was again impressed, this time by his command of the attention, and his knowledge of what was going on. Each person was reporting on their feild of interest - what they would contribute to our new venture (at that time called @Wired). He could talk to each person, on their terms. He knew what was up from the geek side, the technical side, as well as the planning, marketing and community development angles.
And he was only 28. The head of our brave venture.
By the end of June, Chandra and I were still apartment hunting. We wanted to live in the Mission, but two month sublets were hard to come by. Jonathan had a roommate moving out. We auditioned, the Cyborganites dug us enough to take us on. I was now rooming with Jonathan.
Jonathan has built up around himself a community of fun twentysomething computer freaks - most living on Ramona street, in the Mission district of San Francisco. Most everybody used to work at Wired, and most everybody works on Cyborganic.
He enlisted my labour on a contract job, a report on Online Services for Henry Holt Publishers. In addition, I picked up work digitizing the Maze book.
Living with him can be a challenge. It was extremely stimulating on one hand, him being the publisher meant that he had a head full of HotWired, often available for download. As the job became more stressful, and less fun, there was a lot of line noise on the downloading. He was unhappy, and it was contagious to the people sharing his dream. The worst was Alita, chronically down herself. The two of them would spiral each other's depression. It was horrifying to watch - two spunky people, whose shoulders were sloping further and further each day. It neatly paralleled me and Chandra.Cyborganic is Jonathan's dream. Virtual and real cafes in major cities linked to create community. Sit down, order a latte, surf the web for an hour. Pay a monthly fee, and you can go there to check your e-mail.Things spiralled, both with Alita, and HotWired. Conflict over community, contributors and deadlines had Andrew and Louis taking over Jonathan's brainchild to nurture it into extreme profitability. Jonathan was demoted to Information and Technology Architect before HotWired even launched. He waited to see the project through labour, and quit to work on personal projects, consulting for c|net on the side.
He wasn't the only one disillusioned - ten of twenty people left within eight months of launch.I love his vision because it could bring the net to thousands of people who wouldn't otherwise have access to the computers and the net hookup. I would love to have a place to hang out with cyber-funky folks, teach some classes, meet my friends.
Sometimes Jonathan talks too loud, and talks over people. He's got good things to say, sometimes he lacks the confidence to say them quietly, or to let other people get a word in edgewise.Jonathan has trouble dealing with stress. I keep telling him to get a massage, some counseling, integrated relaxation. "I don't have the time!" he cries, upset. If he made the the time, he'd be happier, and more productive. Wouldn't we all?
He has strouble setting his boundaries. He complains that people are in his face, asking him to do stuff, preventing him from productivity. If he could say no to people before he got pissed off, we would all be less tense.
Why people depend on him becomes immediately clear when you check out his CV - this is a smart guy with a broad range of talents. He helps Rick string phone cable, works with Jenny on the business plan, talks music with Steve and deep unix gunk with Jon.
He is terribly smart, and extremely resourceful. Quite funny, when he's not taking himself too seriously. He's funny then too, just don't let him catch you laughing.
He hails from Wisconsin, so we've got a midwestern connection. His father's a lawyer, like mine - and he's estranged from his too. He's a Sagittarius, as am I.
We have fun together. We share similar tastes - he's had a few more years to develop his. They're actually monumentally mutated - he's a big Pee-Wee Herman fan with a deep fondness for peanut butter Captain Crunch.
We are weird in some similar ways, but Jonathan may be weirder: I remember the first time I visited him at his house, he had just finished re-watching the flight of OJs white bronco - he'd videotaped it.
I heard him spelling his name out to someone on the phone - "S, as in sugar, T, as in toy, E, as in elephant, U, as in underpants..."
