It was very exciting to work at Apple. In one way it felt like I was at the center of the creative world (despite not being in the hardware or software division). But the interesting _web_ stuff was all happening elsewhere. Stewart Butterfield kindly kept asking me to join the Flickr team, and eventually the pull of that outweighed the allure of Apple.

I spent the next four and a half years at Flickr and it was foundational to the rest of my working life. The people I was lucky enough to be around and learn from there were extraordinary, and the environment and opportunities were second to none.

In retrospect another six months at Apple, further taking advantage of their employee stock purchase program, would have been life changing. Shares were about $7 each back then after the discount. But you do what you think is right at the time, and I'm grateful for every moment I got to spent in Cupertino.