Bob and Alice - an anti-love story

Anti-design patterns in life, love and tech

Photo by Chiara S

Bob and Alice - Anti-Design Patterns in Life, Love and Tech will soon be a book.  Join other smart people who absolutely love Bob and Alice today.

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Introduction

This is a book on anti-design patterns in life, love and tech.

A design pattern is a template for building solutions in different situations. 

An anti-design-pattern is a pattern that guarantees failure in different situations.

The names Bob and Alice are often used as placeholder names in cryptographic and communication protocol discussions. They represent two parties communicating with each other, often with a focus on ensuring privacy, integrity, and authenticity of their communication.

In this book, we tell the story of a tech startup. Will they succeed, or slip and fall?

We tell the story of Bob and Alice.

Bob fell in love with Alice when he first touched her hand. Will they fly or will they crash in the Pacific ocean surf?

Join me on my journey with Bob, Alice, Barry, Iris, Lena, Yasmin, Justin, Pesya and Mark as they explore anti-design patterns in life, love and tech.

Chapter by chapter.

Bob and Barry

They had worked together as fresh UCLA engineering school grads at their first tech jobs and then lost touch over the years.  Now it looked like they’d be meeting again, Bob and Barry.

Barry did six years as VP Sales in a hot Valley startup developing object-oriented database technology.  

Barry was fired the month before, and decided to start his own company.   He brought in Iris, CFO from the OODB company who was also riffed.  Iris was hard as nails and had worked for the IRS investigating tax evasion before she decided to make real money in tech.  

Now they were both looking for new opportunities.  

Barry got along well with Iris and Iris tolerated Barry.

Barry knew that Iris could manage money and Iris knew that Barry could sell snow to eskimos.  

They both had a little money of their own.  Iris’s husband was a former Navy Seal doing security consulting for Hollywood celebrities.  LA seemed like a good place and far away from the Valley.

They took the chance on a new startup at the worst possible time in history and moved back to LA.

Bob was a manager in the Google infrastructure engineering group in Mountain View when he got called into his boss’s office Thursday morning.   It was short and brutal.    He was fired and out the same day.  Sundar Pichai announced later that afternoon that Google was firing 12,000 people in order to focus on AI.   He came home and told his wife Sharon that he was history at Google.  They had 2 toddlers and were renting a small house in Palo Alto for $11,500/month.  Sharon was a systems programmer at Pixar. She had been laid off in June in Pixar’s first major job cut in 10 years. Day care, mortgage and the lease on the Benz.  And now this.

Bob’s phone rang.  It was Barry.  “Hi bro - where are you?”.   Bob picked up, smiling a little as he recognized Barry’s voice.   “Here in my kitchen in Palo Alto with Sharon.  Google just fired me. Sharon was laid off from Pixar in June,  how can I help you Barry?”   

Barry got straight to the point - “I’m working on something new, I want to pick your brain, let’s have lunch tomorrow”.   Bob said “I don’t know Barry, we’re trying to figure out how to restart our life now. We’re driving down to visit my parents in LA this weekend. It’s not a good time”.

Barry is ABC always-be-closing.  “Perfect.  We’re in LA also. Let’s meet in the Westfield Mall in Century City Sunday at 12:00 at the Shake Shack”.  And he hangs up.

12 noon Sunday at the Shake Shack in the Westfield Mall. Bob walks in and sees Barry sitting at an outside table.  They share a bro hug complete with back pats.   Barry said “Let’s order, I’m hungry”.  They order 2 burgers, crinkle cut fries and craft beer and start catching up.  They order another round of craft beer and begin to chill and catch up.  It’s been 10 years since graduation.

Giganet

Barry pitched his idea to Bob - a cloud service for collecting work hours from gig economy workers using  watches.   Barry wanted Bob to give him some help with the design.  He said, “What do you think?” 

“About what?” Bob said.

“About helping me with the design”.

“I don’t know. We’re staying in LA with my parents. We have a lot on our plate right now, Barry”.

Barry calls back the next day. “What do you think?” 

Bob said - “You know something? I have nothing to lose but I won’t help you with the design.   I’ll develop the system for you, if you can raise a little money”.

11 A.M. 2 weeks later, Bob and Sharon were back in LA.   They returned the keys to the small house in Palo Alto and drove down to LA, after Bob’s Dad found them a rental apartment a few blocks from Century City. 

Bob’s phone rang.  It was Barry.  “Hi bro - where are you?”.   Bob picked up, smiling a little as he recognized Barry’s voice.   “Here in my kitchen in West LA, unpacking”.   

“Let’s meet tomorrow in Venice and get started on the design”. 

Bob asks “Why Venice and where?” 

“I have a friend who relocated to Singapore for a few months and he’s letting us have his apartment.  We’ll work out of his apartment.” 

“Ok, give me the address, I’ll meet you there tomorrow and we’ll get started”.

Sharon has the car. They’re a one car family now; job hunting and living off savings.

Bob takes the Rapid down Wilshire.    He feels like he’s the only white man on the bus.

He gets off at the Santa Monica Pier and decides to walk down to Venice Beach to the address Barry gave him.  It's a beautiful day.    

He thinks - that's LA for you - it’s either nice weather or beautiful weather.   

Bob walked into the studio apartment.

The woman at the table smoking a cigarette saw Bob and got up. 

“Hi, I’m Iris - I worked with Barry at the object database company”. 

Bob keeps looking at her: slim, hard lines, designer-ripped jeans, black sleeveless top, barefoot, and a tattoo on her left arm, the one close to Barry.

Barry put on weight since graduation, Italian loafers, chinos, t-shirt, smoking a cigar.

Bob looks around and sees a modern design studio apartment with a stunning view of the beach and ocean. 

Barry says “Let's get started on the design”. 

Iris has a good understanding of the process of collecting work hours, computing salaries and labor law requirements. They start by interviewing her.  

Over the next 2 weeks the 3 of them put together a spec and mockup the UI with Figma.

One morning, Bob turned from them and grinned as he said “You look happy”.   

Iris said “Of course we are happy, we have a design”.   

Bob said “What’s going to happen next?  I can’t develop this on my own for free”.  

Barry looks at Iris and says, “We’ll give you some equity and a bit of cash - Iris is closing an angel round this week”.   

Bob said “In that case, I want to bring in Lena to work with us.  She worked with me at Google. They moved to LA after Sergei got a job at Grumman in El Segundo. She’s not working right now. She was the best engineer in my group.

I’m warning you, she’s a great programmer, but a pain-in-the-ass. No pain no gain with Lena”.

Bob calls up Lena. She’s up to it.  They fight constantly and deploy several releases/day.

Bob settles into a routine.  Bus to Santa Monica. Bike to Venice. 

For the next few weeks they meet in the studio in Venice beach and develop an MVP.  A week after they release the MVP, Barry closes their first customer.  

Iris is collecting leads from her old IRS contacts and building a pipeline for Barry.

Still smoking in the apartment.

The dynamic duo.  

Bob thinks “There is life after big tech.”  

Bob and Alice

One day, Bob is waiting at a traffic light on his bike.   

A short 30-something California blonde is on the other side of the sidewalk. 

They exchange smiles and go on their ways.   

Bob decides to sign up for a gym in Venice and starts training before work in the Venice beach studio.  Barry’s friend decides to relocate to Singapore and they take over the lease.

One morning Bob is in the gym doing circuit training.    

The short 30-something California blonde is working on the machine in front of him on the circuit.  She’s wearing an old USC sweatshirt, shorts and sneakers.

She’s shoving the handles on a cable fly machine, bending her wrists as she pushes, instead of holding them straight.

Bob the engineer and cyclist, smiles and goes over to her:  “Bending like that can cause damage to your wrists”.

He takes her wrists with both hands and straightens them.  “Try now”.  

 She smiles and says “Much better”.

He smiles back.  She smiles back. They stand there smiling at each other.

And, at that exact moment, something clicks.  

They move back into the circuit. 

Once/week  in the gym, Bob sees the short 30-something California blonde. 

They smile at each other and go back to their routines.

Bob thinks “what’s going on?”

After 6 weeks of smiles and insanely in love; Bob finally goes over to the short 30-something California blond in the gym, and introduces himself.

“I’m Bob.”   The woman said “I’m Alice”.

They stand there smiling at each other.