Powerset Interview

I was recently interviewed by my buddy Ryan Ferrier as part of a series of Powerset employee interviews for Steve Newcomb's blog. I know you think interviews are boring, so here's a little taste of mine to dispel any myths:

Rumor has it that you listen almost exclusively to techno music, is this true?

My dream is to code in a large, white, egg-shaped room wherein a large, omnidirectional speaker system is suspended at one locus, and an elaborate, 9 screen, multi-platform computing setup is suspended at the other locus. In this dream, I am sitting comfortably at the computer locus while thundering trance emanating from the opposite locus is parabolically focused upon my exact location. Then I could get some *real* coding done.

Rumor also has it that when listening to said techno music, you get in a trance-like state for hours on end and transform into a coding machine. Could you describe this altered state of being for us?

Remember the guys from "The Matrix" that could look at those screens of waterfalling green glyphs and see real world objects in them? It's nothing like that. That's impossible and ridiculous. If you've ever sat zazen and meditated on some ancient koans, that would be another good example of what it's not like. It's also not like watching your dog eat peanut butter. I'd keep going but it would take infinitely long to describe everything that it's not, so I'll have to stop and leave you mystified by the enigma of it all.

Continue reading the full Tom Preston-Werner Interview.