Interview with Leah Culver: Laser-Etched MacBook and Tech Culture

I had the chance to catch up with Leah Culver as she was back in Minnesota for the holidays. We first met each other as undergraduate students at the University of Minnesota. I was excited to chat with Leah about her laser-etched MacBook Pro that she purchased by selling advertising, and some of the people working for Web 2.0 and Internet startup companies in the San Francisco Bay area. It turned out we knew a lot of the same people, but in different (opposite) ways. I’ve been following some of the folks behind prominent Internet companies as an outsider, never having met these people personally. Leah on the other hand, knows many of the same individuals personally, but was usually unaware of the Internet presence of the individual prior to meeting them. We were each able to enlighten each other I think with different perspectives. Leah also had some dirt on some of these people that was exciting to hear about. Four of us got together for drinks, read on for details of our discussion.

Update January 20, 2006: Leah can be seen on a new video show called Wink!, part of the Webshots photo (and recently–video) sharing site, in the CNET Family.

Update March 7, 2007: I helped put Pioneer Press Technology writer Julio Ojeda-Zapata in contact with Leah for an article that was published in March 3, 2007 Pioneer Press.

Background on Leah

Leah graduated from the University of Minnesota in May 2006 and headed west to the technology holy land: the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco, California has arguably the highest density of fashionable technology and Internet companies, and likely the most money available from investors looking to fund the next killer app. Leah worked at Instructables.com, an entity of SQUID Labs, but recently quit to pursue programming contract work. She also blogs for Suprcilious. For more on Leah, check her About page.

Digg and geek notoriety

Leah achieved notoriety recently by selling advertising space on the top of a laptop. She needed to negotiate enough funding to cover the cost of the laptop. The plan was for Web 2.0 and Internet companies to send Leah money and a logo. If enough money was collected, the company logos would be laser-etched into the lid of a new MacBook Pro. The plan was posted to digg and eventually to some related websites. Leah set the stage by publicly complaining about her ancient Mac (video of entire process here) and describing how she couldn’t even do basic operations on it anymore and thus really needed the upgrade. Being that San Francisco is a relatively expensive place to live, she couldn’t afford the upgrade herself. When I first heard the idea, I immediately thought of the Million Dollar Homepage.

The general idea was not original, but it succeeded for several reasons (my personal, but informed opinions). (1) Leah is an attractive young female (voted runner-up on this unofficial “sexiest geeks” blog post) posting on a highly-visited (digg), male-dominated website, (2) Leah personally knowing digg employees that, had they dugg the story, would certainly have influenced it appearing on the digg.com front page (where tens of thousands unique visitors could visit the site, greatly increasing visibility of the project and value to potential sponsors) and (3) the “cool” combination of laser-etching and Apple that most geeks would love to have themselves, finally (4) 2000-3000 dollars is more realistic and tangible for small companies or individuals than someone trying to “get rich” or re-create the phenomenon of the Million Dollar Homepage, which may encourage small companies or individuals to donate.

I think the end result looks fantastic. I especially like the yellow hover highlight and linking to the sponsors. Kudos to Leah for taking the chance on something that may have seemed unlikely, then sharing the good news with everyone when it worked out as planned.

Diggnation, Kevin Rose and a brief Tech Culture history

Leah’s MacBook Pro appeared in Diggnation Episode 75, where Kevin Rose used it and described the logos on it briefly. Interestingly he and Alex were bewildered by Chipmark (”What is this acorn?”) installed on the notebook, a bookmarking service for Firefox and Internet Explorer developed at the University of Minnesota that I was familiar with. Leah is a user now and was a contributor to Chipmark while in school (an aside: my friend Josh is currently a student contributor).

The Screen Savers was a television show in the early 2000s that featured Kevin Rose (though it had many different hosts over the years, I thought Kevin and Leo were the best pair) as a host, along with Leo Laporte and many others. Devotees like myself loved the show because it provided tech/computer/gaming information to a community that had only printed content as an alternate source (compare number and type of sources for Technology news with Sports news for example). I followed some side projects of Kevin, such as thebroken and Systm. I also followed when Kevin announced he wanted to become a contributor only and not a host, then later when he announced he was leaving the show (as the network was being acquired by G4). TSS eventually became “Attack of the Show” and most of the original cast is no longer there. Kevin Rose video projects would become part of Revision3, where they are positioned today along with other video content (as Revision3 attempts to position itself as a “network”).

Since I saw Leah’s MacBook Pro on Diggnation first, I assumed she’d met Kevin and Alex. She told me that in fact she’d only met Alex briefly, but hangs out with Kevin a fair amount. Leah can be seen here with Kevin Rose at the Vloggie after-party, apparently a first annual awards ceremony for “video blogs” or internet video. There are relatively few players producing high quality video blogs, but I’ve noticed more traditional media companies start to offer free video online.

Bay area social scene

Leah said she was mostly unware of Kevin Rose, Leo Laporte and the historical information I listed above, prior to moving to San Francisco. Instead she has met Kevin and others through social gatherings. She described how a lot of Internet startups will hire amongst friends and support each other at social events. Meebo appears to be (via their blog) a big Web 2.0/open source/startup supporter and example. I remember reading about an intern lunch they had last summer, inviting interns from other Bay Area companies over for lunch. Another event was web hosting company Laughing Squid’s party, where prominent Flickr user and CEO of competing photo sharing service Zooomr Thomas Hawk snapped photos of Leah, Kevin, and others.

For more Bay Area gossip, rumors and insider information, Leah informed me about ValleyWag.com.

Gossip and name dropping

I’ll be honest, the gossip and drama in the tech industry isn’t as exciting as other industries (maybe because the players are a little smarter, have a little more money, or some other factor). However hearing about some of these people and some of their secrets was fun for me and might be fun for some readers of this article. First I have to do some name dropping, then I’ll give you a small bit of gossip about Diggnation.

I asked Leah about other Screen Savers (see above) folks she may know: she didn’t know Leo or Dan Huard, I don’t think she knew Martin Sargent either. I think Leah watches TikiBarTV with LaLa and Doctor Tiki, a short video podcast that creates small comedic stories around a drink recipe.

I asked Leah about TechCrunch writer/founder Michael Arrington and she has met him. TechCrunch is important because Michael and the other writers try to cover almost every Internet startup, and seem to scoop a lot of sales and rumors that reach mainstream media (YouTube and Google, Facebook for example).

As promised, a gossip tidbit regarding Diggnation.

Diggnation is a weekly tech/web culture show based on the top digg.com social bookmarking news stories.

I’ve been asked to withhold the original secret I was going to reveal, though the description above and the information below will give a clue to the careful reader. As any diggnation fan could tell you, co-hosts Kevin and Alex live in San Francisco and Los Angeles respectively, a 6 hour drive (according to Google Maps). This presents difficulty and expense traveling back and forth for a weekly show (pause, re-read that paragraph, then read between the lines).

When I told Leah I thought Kevin must have tons of money from his television host position at TSS, [the public information about] the millions of dollars of funding going towards digg.com, his role in Revision3 etc., she said, simply: Kevin lives in a small one bedroom apartment and drives a 2000 VW Golf.

I guess that doesn’t qualify as the life of luxury I expected.

What’s next for Leah

Leah has announced on her own blog that she would like to create her own startup company with a web product that does something in the mobile messaging space. Leah described mobile service Dodgeball and how her friends use it with her to find out where the others are around the city. Dodgeball received press when it was acquired by Google in May 2005. Leah has informed me that she will be appearing in front of the camera soon doing some sort of video content for CNet. My guess is that it will be similar to what Molly, Tom, and Veronica Belmont do on the Buzz Out Loud audio and video podcasts. She currently is not able to provide more information on the CNet video work, but has assured me she’ll let me know as soon as she can. When I find out, I’ll be sure to write about it here.

Thanks Leah! Header image derived from Thomas Hawk photo with his permission.