Blogs

Here are some pictures from our third annual company retreat in Los Angeles.

It was really fun hanging out with everyone.

And what do we do when we get together? Play an international sport everyone loves. Soccer! That's Ed, our head of sales, chasing Sang, our general manager in South East Asia. Glad no one got hurt.

Look at Dave chase that soccer ball. If you think he looks intense there, wait til you see him solving complex problems at a client site.

Our German and Spanish offices duked it out in the finals of the soccer tournament. Our US, China, and Brazil offices just didn't stand a chance against the eventual winner, the Spanish office. That's cause they had Jorge, and he really, really wanted to win.

But it wasn't all fun and games. We talked for hours about our business and technology in ways that can't be done except in a face to face meeting.

And then we got back to playing more games. This game involved building a structure out of marshmallows and toothpicks. The first person would get to the see the structure. He would then have to communicate what he saw to another person who would then have to tell another group of people how to rebuild the original structure.

We split up everyone into 10 teams and then competed for gift cards. Here's Scott's team intensely building the structure. They worked hard but didn't win.

Bryan may look confused... but his team won. They came up with a very good system of communication and nailed every detail.

We're always looking out for ways to save money. And the best way to save money is to house as many core developers at my house instead of at a hotel. This year, we had 9 people staying at my tiny 1000 square foot, 3 bedroom, and 2 bath house. That's actually not the record. Two years ago, we had 11 people staying in a 1 bedroom apartment with 1 bathroom. But at least we had a fast connection and were quite productive. :)