Yes, Rachel, we started off in a small spare bedroom of our home in Los Altos with the bases of our desks made out of black and yellow plastic saw horses from Home Depot and long pieces of plywood from our garage as desktops. Our lovely office chairs (a plastic cream colored lawn chair taken from our back patio for me and from what I recall a cheap barstool for Donna) became unbearable to sit on after 2 months of working 12+ hour days. What a surprise! Our first client was Jim Barksdale followed by VA Linux Systems and Tellme Networks (both were in stealth mode at the time). When we finally got around to billing our clients (at the time we didn't have a billing or time tracking system but just sent a letter with an amount owed!) and received our first checks, Donna and I decided it was time to splurge and we purchased the most expensive office chairs we could find. I think we might have even cracked open a bottle of wine to celebrate the occasion. If you look at the chair Donna sits on today you will see it's the same chair we bought 8 years ago in Palo Alto. Donna, I think it's about time for an upgrade!

When we started the company, our vision was to become a global technology firm with international offices. I'm absolutely thrilled to see us executing on our original plan and opening our first international office in London. In many ways, our London office is like a start-up. The good news is that you have a lot more support and infrastructure in place to get this office up and running than Donna and I had when we started the company and you've worked with so many start-ups that you know what to expect on some level. Of course, there will be many challenges along the way. However, I am confident that your skills and abilities will enable you to navigate any challenge that comes your way. Your first challenge was accepting to take on this major assignment. I am so proud of you (and Rick) for taking the personal risk to go on this journey. It's going to be a wild ride. In the weeks and months ahead, you'll be getting lots of advice from many different people. If there are a few words of advice I can offer at this juncture, it's this. Make sure you get yourself a comfortable chair!

Chris