What drives you?

Being really good at what I do, staying on the leading edge of the industry, and having an impact on people who see/use my work. Too many people stagnate, if I ever start stagnating I want to be taken out back behind the chemical shed and ended.

When not by your computer, where might we find you on a Friday night?

There’s about a 95% chance I’ll be with friends, a 90% chance I’ll be up past 2 A.M., a 70% chance that I’ll be out on the town, and a 50% chance that at some point during the evening I’ll drink a great glass of scotch. Other possibilities include: beating people at Halo, playing pool, chess, or watching amazing movies like No Country For Old Men.

What’s more important loyalty, honesty or passion?

If it’s just one thing I think it has to be honesty. At least if someone is honest you know right away if they will be loyal or not.

Still I’d say ideally it’s a blend of all three. Passion is incredibly important to me, and therefore I need to see it from other people from time to time. If they don’t have passion chances are I won’t associate with them for too long.

If you were a rockstar, who would you be?

I’d like to say Zack de la Rocha from Rage Against the Machine. He has a cause, he has a path he wants to follow, and he does it. The truth though is I don’t think many people could be Zack, even me, so I’d have to say Jon Bon Jovi. He seems nice, he’s into sports, and he knows how to rock it out.

Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Tiger Woods or John Gruber? Which would you most want to grab beer with and why?

Steve Jobs terrifies the shit out of me. And while I’d love to pick his brain about his approach I think I’d just sit there being nervous. Obama I think I could actually open up to and have a good discussion with. He seems like he’d really listen and take ideas to heart, not to mention tell you when he thinks you’re wrong.

Barack is definitely my choice.

If Internet Explorer was a human and you were alone with it in a room for 30 minutes what would you say or do during that time?

There’s a very very high possibility that after I got the limbs off I’d eat them. Except IE8, I assume IE8 would join me in the feast.

Your bachelor pad is on fire, what are you grabbing as you leap out the window and race down the fire escape?

iPhone. It’d be the fastest way to get ahold of people and figure out the situation. Plus think of all the great tweets you could write.

“My house just burned down, fucking crazy. Want to grab a burger? – twitpic.com/holyfire”

*note: if I had a dog I’d take her instead of the phone.

What rules or general principles guide your coding or interface design?

I guess I look at the whole experience and what I really appreciate when using something. Sometimes you run into a site or concept that is just mind blowingly good and you think to yourself, “wow, someone really refined and nailed that, I should strive to do that in what I do.” That doesn’t mean I always achieve that level, but I’m constantly trying.

Give me a joke. Don’t hold back.

How do you make a baby cry twice? Hahaha, just kidding I’m not going to give that punch line on our blog.

Instead let’s go with: “How many Chuck Norris’ does it take to screw in a lightbulb? None. Chuck Norris likes to kill in the dark.”

What 3 things are you afraid of?

1. I’m terrified of death. Hence the reason I don’t drive with Scott often.
2. I’m really afraid of losing a coding finger. Especially to the garbage disposal.
3. I’m afraid of Kat’s raptor impression.

What 3 things could you improve on?

1. When I learn the most is when I do things on my own and don’t have people show me. I get too reliant on people around me from time to time.
2. I could be more conscientious of how my actions and approach effect other people. I think I know how I’m perceived but I’m sure I miss things.
3. I’d like to be more well read in other areas besides geek topics. I find people with a vast knowledge and cultural background to be fascinating.

What 5 artist are on your iPod right now?

• Rage Against the Machine
• Michael Jackson
• Dj Vernimal
• Brian Transeau
• Abdominal

If I could grant you one super-power what would it be?

The ability to read and grasp information 200x faster than I do right now.

What current trend just baffles you?

Girls wearing abnormally massive sunglasses. What is the fucking deal with that? Do they think covering their entire face with fake plastic gold plated glasses is attractive in any way?

Fill this in. I can’t believe I didn’t get tossed in jail for ____?

Using the blink tag.

* you could also replace blink tag with “spacer gif” and it’d be equally as hideous and revolting.

If you were a pro-wrestler, what would be your name?

It’d definitely be Pyrodeath. I mean… there’s no way I couldn’t name myself Pyrodeath. I’d light my pants on fire right before my final move of the match. It’d be seriously epic.

It’s called charging people a monthly fee.

Why are so many web-services scared to charge their user base? Especially when the service kicks ass like Facebook or Twitter. TechCrunch is saying that 1 in 5 people on the web have accessed Facebook. I’m sort of thinking that there is something of value there for that many people have an interest. Why then are these companies still looking for a way to make money when the answer is in their face?

Charge us!

Facebook is struggling with ad supported revenue and Twitter is anyone’s guess. Their customers are asking to be charged and would gladly pony-up some cash if it meant a better service.

Facebook and Twitter set bad examples for start-ups by not charging. It creates the impression that all web-services must be ad-supported. This simply isn’t a good approach to building a long term sustainable service. Locally, I try to attend the monthly Boulder / Denver New Tech Meetup, and I’m continually heartbroken by all the startup founders looking for ways to capture VC funding when they already have a fairly nice service to offer. It’s as if everyone is trying to cash in on building the ‘next big thing’ by growing fast and selling to Google.

I fully understand giving a service away in the beginning in order to draw in the users, but have a clear plan to stop the free services and convert to a paid model. The “try before you buy” model isn’t used enough. Facebook could charge for users who’ve been on their services for over 1 year. Twitter could easily charge by volume of Tweets.

I can already see the comments coming in about how charging will diminish the social / community value of these services. Yet, I would be MORE likely to use these services if I was confident they would be here in the future and not sold off to Google, Yahoo or Microsoft.