The Interview

Name: Neil Patel
Occupation: Marketing, Entrepreneur

I like to keep my pockets light, so I try not to carry much with me. I usually just carry a small card holder which fits 4 credit cards, a Blackberry cell phone, and chap stick. And if I am traveling I also carry a money clip.

The main challenges I face is to keep clients happy. In my line of work everything is results driven and that is what clients expect. And even if results are provided some clients want more (which is natural). Due to this it is difficult to set costumer expectations from the start because even if a client says they understand everything, they usually do not. As for giving up, I never feel that way.

My work environment is simple. I work in a small office with a handful of people. I have a macbook laptop, a small desk, and a small chair.

As for the greatest failure in the world, I am not sure. But my greatest failure is when I first started out, I lost hundreds and thousands of dollars. I was young and had little knowledge in what I was doing. The bright side of it is that it taught me many lessons and because of that I am some what successful.

My greatest achievement is helping non-profit organizations succeed. Such as the liver society which help kids get free liver transplants. There is nothing better I enjoy doing in this world, than to help others in need.

A lot of people inspire me. My parents always push me to do better and make more money. Other than that, my business partners always motivate me.

I have learned a lot of important things in life and probably too many to list out. But a few of the things are:

1. Don’t always listen to others. Sometimes you just have to do what you want to do.
2. You should always take on risk. If you don’t you probably will not succeed in life.
3. Sometimes you just need to give up. Not all businesses are worth fighting for.
4. Always be willing to listen to others. Even if you think the advice is crap, one day they may tell you something useful.
5. You are never to big to help out others for free. The little guys are the most important people out there.

“Be careful of the toes you step on today, for they might be connected to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow.” - Christopher Rees

The Interview

My nickname is CmdrTaco and is discussed extensively in the FAQ which you should consider reading before you interview people

Me: Whoops, got me there. Well I knew that his nicky was the CmdrTaco but I just ask because I ask.

iPhone, Gameboy, Car Keys, 1gb usb thumbdrive

Some days it’s very difficult finding news worth sharing. I really want Slashdot to have the best possible content, and some days there just isn’t any news worth sharing. So I feel obligated to shine a turd just to give people something to read. August is the worst.

I don’t have any pictures available. It’s fairly clean and neat most of the time, except when co-workers kids come and move all of my stuff. I have a pet snake in a cage (his name is Col. Tubesnake). I have a 23″ flatpanel screen, and old windows machine that hasn’t been on in 2 years, a giant jar of marbles and a shelf of Dungeons & Dragons books and an array of action figures. It’s all very exciting.

I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.

I’m very proud that Slashdot has lasted 10 years and continues to maintain true to the original spirit that made it popular at the dawn of the popular internet. But if I’m honest, I think my 9 month old is a bigger achievement.

I’m inspired by the news I post. I see people doing innovative and exciting things in their fields of expertise, and I’m motivated to try to take Slashdot to a higher level as well.

Read the fine print. Pay attention to the details. Know your limitations, and hire people to do the things you can’t.

umm… read www.xkcd.com. It’s genius. Every link I ever find that I like, I post to Slashdot, so its not like I have a special private cache of awesomeness for you.

I’m fairly OCD- whatever I obsess on gets my full attention, usually to the exclusion of almost anything else. Which means I can accomplish a lot, but let stuff slip through the cracks that is not my current obsession.

To complete and launch a fully ajax enabled version of Slashdot, and to get the Offtopic Idle section of slashdot (idle.slashdot.org) to a ready state and try to fill it with the best things on the net.

I have no sense of smell.