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I was a web producer (front end developer) and then web developer (CMS template developer) for BBC News online 2000-2004. It was my first job in tech at 18 and

by dotBen 9y ago

I was a web producer (front end developer) and then web developer (CMS template developer) for BBC News online 2000-2004. It was my first job in tech at 18 and arguably still my fondest time in the industry. I led some of the redesign from single column to the more modern design we see today. I'm now startup founder and a VC - v far from the non-profit public service nature of the BBC. Happy to AMA if anyone had any questions.

gggvvh 9y ago
How did you make your VCing money?
- dotBen 9y ago
  Co-founding a successful startup (WP Engine) and before that some angel investment funded by consultancy earnings in the late 2000's. I also joined Uber just around the 1000 employee mark, and I remain bullish that equity will increase further in value.
dotBen 9y ago
An interesting part about BBC News's tech stack, which was touched on in another comment here, is that we didn't have the budget to serve dynamic pages and so everything SPG'd (statically page generated) as we called it so it could be served statically from the production web servers. It meant an incredibly novel use of Apple WebObjects - which was set up to render all of the versions of the story (flavours, I think we called them) via the WOA and then FTP them to production. We used this system to produce not only web versions but content for interactive TV output and I believe even Ceefax at one point. Another curious fact now: most of the BBC News website was coded in Objective C in the early 2000's, to much chagrin as it meant us developers having to learn this 'dead' language when really we wanted to use the Java version of WebObjects instead. Many of the devs went on to have leading roles in the UK iPhone development industry when apps were enabled for iPhone given the amount of experienced we all unknowingly had received in what suddenly became a much-sought after language.
- mercer 9y ago
  I wish I had a specific question to ask, but honestly I'd love it if you just told more stories about this period in your life!

by dotBen 9y ago

gggvvh 9y ago

How did you make your VCing money?

dotBen 9y ago
Co-founding a successful startup (WP Engine) and before that some angel investment funded by consultancy earnings in the late 2000's. I also joined Uber just around the 1000 employee mark, and I remain bullish that equity will increase further in value.

dotBen 9y ago

An interesting part about BBC News's tech stack, which was touched on in another comment here, is that we didn't have the budget to serve dynamic pages and so everything SPG'd (statically page generated) as we called it so it could be served statically from the production web servers. It meant an incredibly novel use of Apple WebObjects - which was set up to render all of the versions of the story (flavours, I think we called them) via the WOA and then FTP them to production. We used this system to produce not only web versions but content for interactive TV output and I believe even Ceefax at one point. Another curious fact now: most of the BBC News website was coded in Objective C in the early 2000's, to much chagrin as it meant us developers having to learn this 'dead' language when really we wanted to use the Java version of WebObjects instead. Many of the devs went on to have leading roles in the UK iPhone development industry when apps were enabled for iPhone given the amount of experienced we all unknowingly had received in what suddenly became a much-sought after language.

mercer 9y ago
I wish I had a specific question to ask, but honestly I'd love it if you just told more stories about this period in your life!