TheoremOne Retreat 2019: Day 1
Español: Retiro de TheoremOne 2019: Día 1.
The day started with breakfast from 7:00 to 8:45, and given that there are going to be many activities, you have to start with some proteins.
Some folks also decided to go for a run at that time! The landscape around here certainly is beautiful to do that… if that’s your thing.
The first meeting of the day was the kick-off meeting by our CEO, Brady Brim-DeForest. In it he delivered an update on the company’s past, present and future. I’m excited about how much the company grew and where are we headed.
Next there was a Q&A Panel, moderated by Mike Joyce and myself. The night before we asked the whole company to write down any questions they would like to have answered, no topics forbidden. Over 70 questions were delivered, so we only selected a few, although the rest will be answered in the upcoming days by email. The members of the panel were:
- Alex Finnemore, Head of Revenue.
- Lucas Nasif, Director of Engineering.
- Chris Clark, Head of Product.
- Brady Brim-DeForest, CEO.
- Will Jessup, Founder and Head of Services.
Next activity: LEGO building exercise. We divided in groups of five people each, and each one got a role: client, PM, designer, and two engineers. The goal was to, ideally, play a different that you already have. I was the client, and I only had interactions with the PM; PMs then talked with the designer to do some sketches, and then with engineering to start building the thing. We did some iterations and at the end of the exercise we clients were presented with was built based on our verbal descriptions of the product.
After that we headed to the main terrace for lunch. It was a BBQ, European style: sausages, corn, shrimps, that kind of stuff.
Then we split among roles: engineering, design, sales, etc. Our Engineering Breakout consisted of a programming contest, and some lightning talks:
- Aaron Greenlee: distributed ownership.
- Denis Sokolov: data in the UI.
- Brian Pruitt-Goddard: keyboards.
- Don Becker: security at Theorem.
It was a long day so we got some free time to enjoy before dinner. I decided to walk a little too enjoy a better view from the valley 😉
Dinner was family style, meaning that instead of an open serve yourself buffet we had a fixed menu and we were encouraged to share the table with some friends.
After dinner some more leisure time at the lobby, game room, and the fire pit: just chilling, getting to know each other better, and more importantly, having a great time surrounded by awesome people.
Tomorrow we have some activities outside the hotel, so I went to bed while listening to the people at the fire pit enjoying themselves, listening to music and living the life the TheoremOne Way.
