Feeder.of.the.bears

From Lift

Feeder of the Bears

Some people ask, "David, where did 'feeder of the bears' come from?"

It's a long story. Back in 1991, when I founded Athena Design, I did not want to be the CEO or President, but I needed something to put on my business cards. I had, at the time, been reading a lot of John Irving. There are a ton of bears in John Irving books.

The bears are not necessarily good or bad characters, but seem to represent imposing forces (at least that's my take on it.) In an project, there are a lot of imposing forces and those forces need to be fed and nurtured.

At Athena Design, I was feeding and nurturing a new company and getting lots of crazy smart folks to work for me and follow my vision for very little money. There were customers including folks who traded billions of dollars of securities every day. There were the folks at NeXT who were very imposing as well. I chose the title 'Feeder of the Bears' because it just seemed to fit.

As I embarked on the lift project, I realized that there were going to be a lot of imposing forces to feed and nurture. There were going to be crazy smart folks who would have their vision of what a web framework should look like and merging visions and bringing them into the lift project was going to require a lot of care and feeding. There were going to be users with demands that would outstrip the ability of a small group of folks to deliver. They would need a lot of care and feeding. If lift became popular, there would be the legions of folks on the net talking trash because lift was not their vision of a web framework. All in all, lots of imposing forces... lots of bears to be fed.

Thus, I revived my old moniker and chose to be the Feeder of the Bears in the lift project.