Why, hello there. It’s been a full year since we’ve posted anything on the blog. < Embarrassed silence.> It’s just so much easier to check-in on Foursquare or share a pic via Instagram or dish on Facebook. And sharing via those venues has the added benefit of supporting the portfolio (all three are Andreessen Horowitz investments).
But I realize even as I write these words that the real culprits are laziness and short-attention-span-ness. So just once this year, let’s see if we can activate the part of the brain that marshals paragraph-length thoughts. No promises. If I just trail off into 140-character bursts and #hashtags, you’ll know what happened.
The First & Last Year of One School to Rule Them All
The first half of 2011 was the first and last year we had all three kids at Fox School, our cozy local elementary school. Colin (now 11) was in 5th grade, Katye (8) was in 2nd grade, and Cameron (now 6) was in kindergarten. I’m pleased to report that despite a few close calls on the way up or back from school, all three survived the experience. And now we have two at Fox and (gasp) a middle school student.
Colin
Unbelievably, Colin is now a Ralston Ram in his inaugural year of middle school. He had some first-timer anxieties, but has settled nicely into the new rhythm of homerooms, lockers (surprisingly 3: main, gym, and music), rushing between different classrooms, and a student body more than twice as large as Fox’s.
Just over a thousand students jam the hallways between classes, requiring they all exercise some speed and agility to get to their next classrooms on time. Luckily, the Ralston PE program provides insanely rigorous training to equip the students with the stamina they need. Seriously, they are running for their lives with timed 1-mile runs on a regular basis. Colin is now fitter than he’s ever been–and far fitter than either Frank or Fedora have ever been. In fact, he’s earned the school’s coveted Gold Trunks, which requires 6th grade boys to run the mile in less than 6:50, do two pull-ups and 18 push-ups, and crunch 48 sit-ups in under a minute. Well, given the sorry state of California school finances, we bought him the gold trunks. But nonetheless, we are quite the proud parents. Go, Colin!
Like many of his friends, Colin is now an avid videogamer and has started playing multiplayer games such as Team Fortress 2 and Supreme Commander 2. For a while, your faithful correspondent tried to keep up with him. But after several humiliating defeats in head-to-head competition, we mostly now just play the co-op modes. If you want to test your skills against the game master, the master himself bids you friend him on Steam where he reigns as Li’l Midget (tagline: “Have you ever been beaten by someone half your size? Midgets will eventually rule the world! JUST WAIT!”).
Katye
Katye continues to excel in school and be our resident enthusiast about, well, everything–books, dance, piano, food, and more. I can’t tell you how delightful it is to have a child whose face completely lights up when she sees a good plate of chicken or pork katsu. Mmmmm, golden brown and delicious. :-)
Like both of her parents, she’s constantly got her nose in a book. In fact, I think the greatest danger she poses to herself is the risk of falling down the stairs or into a ditch because she’s constantly reading. Kinda like the whole falling into a fountain at the mall while texting thing–but with books instead of a smartphone.
But we’re thankful she enjoys enthusiastic about reading–and about life in general. She’s plain fired up about everything she does: dance (she is taking Ballet and Lyrical and Jazz and Modern, and is competing with the Junior Lyrical Petite Novice Small Group team–wow, that’s a mouthful!–regionally for the first time this year), mixed martial arts (which the kids insist on calling “FF” or “Fearful Fitness” rather than its official name “Fearless Fitness”), and eating (notable highlight this year: Ethiopian food).
Katye wanted to share the list of new gymnastics skills she’s acquired this year: a front walk over, a back walk over, a headstand, a back bend, and a front handspring (kind of).
Cameron
Third-born children have to blaze their own way, and Cameron is no exception. I think it might be a biological adaptation: without some personality pyrotechnics, they might not get enough food or love or water or some such.
Cameron is settling into a good first grade routine. His teacher Ms. Schilling apparently drew the short straw each year and is now teaching her 3rd and final Chen child. She reports that Cameron is very engaged in the classroom and talks much more than Colin (though, like his father before him, Colin set a pretty low bar on chattiness). This is the first year the school district has had iPads in the classroom, and of course they are a huge hit. I wonder if schools will ever switch from teaching cursive to advanced iPad navigation techniques.
Outside the classroom, Cameron is in Fearless Fitness and (his favorite–not!) Chinese class. Also, as part of his trailblazing, he’s in a hip hop dance class which he claims to enjoy. His teachers are very impressed with his gymnastics skills. We don’t know exactly where this came from genetically speaking, but he’s just about able to land an aerial, which (I learned this year) is a cartwheel with no hands.
When interviewed for this piece, Cameron wanted everyone to know he loves French fries. So now you know.
Life in venture capital
Yours truly is still having a blast at Andreessen Horowitz. We still think of our firm as a startup in venture capital, and we’re in the fun rapid growth phase of our life. We’re almost 40 people now, which is large for a venture firm, though still delightfully small enough to feel like Cheers where everyone know your name.
To accommodate growing A16Z team, we move to a bigger office. Here are the kids helping with the move:
I’m thrilled with the team I’m building, and still relish the rhythm of (1) hanging out with energetic entrepreneurs everyday and (2) learning something new pretty much every hour on the hour.
The firm has been blessed to have a few “exits” (that’s VC-speak for either an Initial Public Offering or a bigger company swooping in to buy a company we’ve invested in) earlier than typical for a VC firm. After 2.5 years in the business, we’ve had exits with Skype (which Microsoft bought), Fusion-io ( the 2nd best performing tech IPO of the year), Groupon (the fastest company to reach a $1b in revenue in history), and recently Zynga (the social gaming company behind the fastest growing games in history such as Farmville and Cityville).
People who are friends with Frank on Facebook will be relieved that he finally found the Facebook controls for sharing Zynga updates. Ditto for Foursquare check-ins. What can I say folks? Trying to support the portfolio companies here.
The new digs
In a surprise move (pun intended), we’re now just down the street from where we used to live. The big picture on the left side of the Christmas card photo is in front of the new house (thanks to Amy for taking the photo!). Here’s the view out back with the trademark Peninsula fog rolling in from Half Moon Bay:
We had been half-looking for a slightly larger place to accommodate the growing family members (and book collection), but had pretty much given up. At one point in our search, Fedora declared that she’d rather move to China than Redwood City. (I wasn’t sure whether to take that as a joke or a challenge.)
Literally a week before signing a remodel contract for our old place, we stopped by an open house down the road. Four days later, we put in an offer and (God is good!) it was accepted the next day. A few weeks later, we were rolling down the street with our crazy movers (which is a story in itself).
We’re now mostly settled in, though the cars are patiently waiting for their triumphant return to inside the garage. We’d be delighted to see you at the new place, and even have a fully functioning guest bedroom for out of town visitors. Come see the bookshelf wall, which is how I enticed Fedora to move at all. It’s big. :-)
Miscellany
Like many fellow Americans, we stay-cationed this year. The move was the only big activity we managed. But we were thrilled to clamber through a real life World War II aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet.
And of course, we were pleased as punch to become an uncle and aunt again with the arrival of Harrison (Frank’s brother’s first son).
My poor dad missed seeing his 4th grandchild by just a few months, and of course we miss him. But we’ve been able to visit dad a few times this year and know he’s pleased to have a resting place where he can view a steady stream of airplanes overhead.
Well, that’s the 2011 update from the Chen family, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average. Oh wait, that’s that other place in Minnesota.
See you next year.
