Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com and this is a WebXtra continuation of the radio broadcast with Whurley. So, Whurley, where did you grow up? What kind of guy where you as an early teenager, say in middle school?

WHurley: I'd say a pretty introverted, you know, I mean, I had friends that I didn't realize it at the time.

Russ: Yeah.

WHurley: So you know, like after you're in high school or you get out of high school and people I like, "Oh man!" like, "We should have this," or you know, "Why didn't you ever come to that?" And you're like, "Oh, I didn't really know I was invited."

Russ: Were you known as Whurley or the Evil Genius back then?

WHurley: No. No. I was William or Will or Bill or Billy or whatever somebody called me and nobody would call me the same thing. The Whurley thing came about in 2002. Some guys had bought the domain whurley.com because they were like, you know, really like, crazy, woo -

Russ: Right.

WHurley: - mad scientists or whatever.

Russ: Right.

WHurley: I never really used it and I had like a blue page up and it was a black page and, I yeah, I didn't want it to say, you know, "Apache error." And so I was at a conference that I was talking about how customers will tell you what to build and how to build it and how to deliver it and how to service it if you'll just listen and all this open source kind of branding, if you will. And the first question the audience, he went through this whole long story about how he'd heard that these guys in a but this thing and I didn't use it in all of this and on the bill it said William Hurley and, and if I, was I the biggest hypocrite in the world? Because if I believed what I was saying, the community had built and gifted me, if you will, a brand. Why didn't I use it? You know and I had to be up on stage and say, you know, "Well, apparently I am the biggest hypocrite ever." And that's where the WHurley thing kind of came in and between 2002 and 2004, you know, it grew so much that by the time I was, you know, hired by Benchmark Capital to go be the CTO of a company called Qlusters, they weren't hiring William Hurley, right? They were hiring Whurley.

Russ: Whurley.

WHurley: Even if you go and search the web for the BMC press release for, you know, a $2 billion company I joined, A) as the open source guy, surprised they did a press release at all, and B) the press release was like, "Whurley joins," you know, and so it's kind of taken on a life of its own.

Russ: So back to being introverted in middle school. Were you already totally fascinated by technology?

WHurley: So there's an interesting story. No, I did win a couple of science fairs, having nothing to do with technology, but when I got out of high school I played bass in a funk band. You know, we went around playing everywhere. In 1991, I was involved in a bad car accident and I took the insurance money and bought what, at the time, were called the Alesis ADAT recorders. I did the audio engineering myself. I did a number of things, music for CDs, music for studios, things of that nature. What happened was, I found that there was a problem and the problem was that you could not get the MIDI SYMPTE timing to sync up. So I was primarily a musician, not a computer person, although my dad did give me a computer very early on and he did computers in the military. I started getting ways of fixing this that nobody else had and that turned into a business, which is when you're stuff didn't line up, and the action scene didn't go with the music in your CD or your game or whatever, then you could ship it off to me and then magically it would come back fixed. That turned into quite a racket, you know, it wasn't too long before I ended up working at Apple, and that was my real first technical, actual science, computer job, if you will.

Russ: And this all evolved from the funk band?

WHurley: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

Russ: What was the name of the band?

WHurley: Well the band - well see, I've never told anybody, especially my girlfriend because you would know them. I mean, you would know a lot of the, you know, Lakeside and Parliament and a lot of the people that, you know, that they opened for and stuff but those are interesting days of my life. Completely -

Russ: Now wait a minute.

WHurley: - a completely different life. [Laughter]

Russ: But, but that's what makes it interesting. So, but, but this band was big enough to open for some big acts?

WHurley: They were big enough to open for some big acts and it was a lot of, a lot of fun, but when I got in the accident, I spent, you know, 13 hours in exploratory surgery and several weeks in the ICU and almost a year, kind of, really getting what I'd say is fully back to normal, and so goes that industry, right? Things move on without you.

Russ: Right. And so was it that you were interested in it anymore or that the band had made it so far -

WHurley: Well no, I mean I wasn't - I mean, I mean you know, come on I missed, I missed so many tour dates just being in the hospital.

Russ: They got another bass player, then?

WHurley: Yeah, yeah. There were plenty of other people ready and willing to step up and live a life of sub leisure with plenty of parties and ladies and all of that mess, so it was not hard to find a replacement. And to be blunt, there was just no way the strain on my body, they couldn't have rolled me out on stage in a wheelchair or whatever. So -

Russ: Now, my audience is going to be real disappointed, Whurley, if I don't at least ask you what the name of the band was.

WHurley: Well, you can but see, but my, my girlfriend is going to hear this interview and this is like a big point in our relationship. You know, you have to keep the mystery, and this is the one thing that I haven't told her. She asks all the time, every time it comes up, and if I say this, she's going to hear the interview. I can't even say it interesting to bleep it out -

Russ: Maybe -

WHurley: - I'll just go you know the name was [makes beeping noise] and there you go.

Russ: [Laughter] Now did the band play their own music or -

WHurley: Yes.

Russ: - okay. Okay. So cool.

WHurley: Yeah.

Russ: Wow. Are they still in existence today?

WHurley: They are not.

Russ: Okay.

WHurley: Those guys were kind of old when I was playing.

Russ: Okay.

WHurley: Not, not that old but -

Russ: Okay.

WHurley: - they're very old men, now.

Russ: Okay. All right, so here you are introverted, yet you are playing in this funk band that was pretty big.

WHurley: Well that was how I became - well everybody says well, "How did you go from being introverted to being, clearly, clearly extroverted?"

Russ: Yeah, right, right. And that was it? Yeah.

WHurley: And it was like, "Well, you don't spend, you know, that much time on a bus with 11 other guys doing those things without, you know, kind of opening up some.

Russ: All right, all right. And so now, I know you sort of have the Central Texas roots, was that, the band, based in Central Texas at the time?

WHurley: No, they were kind of from all over. There were so - the people that I met, that got me into that, were, you know, living in Austin and Dallas at the time.

Russ: Okay, okay.

WHurley: So I went, you know, it was great, and that's actually one of the reasons I got the gig, was I was still living in Temple and I could drive to Dallas or drive to Austin and I was kind of like right in the middle, which made since eventually. Everybody started driving to rehearsal at a warehouse that we got there.

Russ: And this was Temple, Texas and you were sort of here because your family was a military-based family and ended up in the San Antonio, Central Texas area?

WHurley: Yep, yep. I, when I was, you know, a younger child, we lived in Nuremberg, Germany.

Russ: Okay.

WHurley: My brother was born in Germany and then we moved back when I was seven or eight and we, you know, we lived in Virginia and Yuma Arizona, and several other places, but we eventually, you know, around the time of me being in middle school, we settled in San Antonio and then my grandfather had built a couple houses in Temple and so, you know, that was where we ended up moving.

Russ: Cool. Now I also know that it's unique that the extent of your real, official education is a high school diploma, I guess from Temple High School?

WHurley: Yep. That's right.

Russ: Okay and was there ever a thought of going to college at all?

WHurley: It's kind of weird because there were some thoughts. When I was not touring around with the band, I played in a lab band at Temple Junior College and I did take a couple of audio recording courses there, audio engineering courses, with a professor named Bill Christie who is fantastic. That is the total extent, an even that, you know, that was not, I mean I was, I showed up for an hour twice a week to use the studio equipment, so that was - I don't know, I don't know if that counts. The first real-time I was on a college campus, if you will, for more than an hour was that I went to Stanford to speak about, you know, some open source and some things and it was, of course, the first question, you know, fate it would seem, not without a certain sense of irony, was from a person who, she asked, "How did college and understanding computer science prepare you for the career you're in now?" And I was like, "Ooh!" Like, "Colleges are awesome and also," and it was a little bit of a, you know, I think I clearly stumbled through that one but you know, I don't have any adversity to college. I recently helped teach a couple classes at the University of Texas.

Russ: Right.

WHurley: I'm going to George Washington University soon to speak. I do a lot of speaking on college campuses. The problem with colleges that, in the field of technology, especially in the field of computer science, things move so fast that it makes it very difficult for them to keep up. Think about just this year, 2010. All of the new things that will be talked about at South By that will be thought of at South By, that will be in a matter of months new things that you're reading about.

Russ: Right.

WHurley: You know, look at the rise of Twitter, right?

Russ: Right.

WHurley: I remember when those guys came to South By and nobody knew what Twitter was, right?

Russ: Right.

WHurley: And I got whurley as my Twitter handle and I thought, you know, well this'll be interesting, see if it ever goes anywhere and it's like that has completely changed a lot of things. Some psychologists would argue the attention span of you know, hundreds of millions of people.

Russ: Right.

WHurley: But you look at these things and you think, well how's a college ever expected to keep up when two guys in a room can take a ten year-old technology and wrap a framework around it and then it's like, boom! It's Ruby on Rails or something and like that's what people want to hire out of college.

Russ: Right.

WHurley: Like, well how many of your graduates know this language or that language or this thing that we made up three months ago. So it's almost unfair, if you will, and some horrible expectations put on college, as far as computer science goes.

Russ: But at the time that you graduated from high school this technology really your thing? I mean, you tell the story -

WHurley: No. It was, it was music.

Russ: -about this band, it was music.

WHurley: Music was my thing.

Russ: Yeah and then it was this technology thing that you figured out how to sync up sound, and that ultimately connected you with Apple.

WHurley: Yep.

Russ: And that's what really took off your technology interest.

WHurley: That's - and that's - well, and look it's a really, it's a function of economics, right?

Russ: Right.

WHurley: I was making a little money doing the stuff on my own.

Russ: Right.

WHurley: I had at that point recently been married and I needed benefits and all these other things and -

Russ: Right.

WHurley: - I was a huge Apple fanboy at that time -

Russ: Right.

WHurley: - in my career and so you know, the chance to go and work with Apple on supporting movie studios on doing all the stuff they were doing at the time and Macromedia Director, right, which I'd been working with in the studio since it was, you know, Macromind and it was an opportunity that I thought a guy with no college won't get this opportunity again.

Russ: Right.

WHurley: You know? And so I took it and gosh, I mean, Apple was - the first six months I invented a thing called the Apple Interactive Training System that saved a whole ton of money and the way that we trained people on how to work to repair the machines and that put me heading up Apple's Internet training programs. That led to a couple of books and that led to some other stuff and eventually into Apple R&D , which is where I ended my career at Apple and you know, and that led to IBM and it just kind of built - the success this kind of built upon itself.

Russ: And that was all - was that all out in the Bay Area?

WHurley: There was a good portion of it was. When I first got hired at Apple, it was after the big earthquake in was the - early '90s. I don't know what year it was.

Russ: The big earthquake was an '89, actually.

WHurley: Okay, so it must've been '89.

Russ: Yeah, right.

WHurley: So, Apple had, a couple years later, look for places to move critical operations -

Russ: Right.

WHurley: So Austin had that -

Russ: Okay, right.

WHurley: - had a place at Bridgepoint and then they had another place down the road, which was the main call support center and so that's where I was housed and then they had an R&D facility, which was the only one outside of Cupertino at the time, which was in the Echelon Buildings on 183 here in Austin.

Russ: Right.

WHurley: And you know, when I was looking at leaving Apple, I got provided that opportunity and I ended up moving into there. But of course, ever since I got into the - heading the Internet training programs I felt like I was on what they called the Nerd Bird, every day. You know, I was like, it was like, "Yes, I work and have an office in Austin, but I'm never there. I'm always in, you know, Cupertino"

Russ: Yeah, yeah.

WHurley: And I lived in Cupertino for six months . So -

Russ: Okay. All right.

WHurley: - you know, in that area. So -

Russ: But it's also interesting that IBM then wanted you after all of this background with Apple. I mean -

WHurley: Well they had bought the company locally here called Tivoli Systems.

Russ: Yeah.

WHurley: And they needed web people. I mean, this was in the heyday of like -

Russ: Right.

WHurley: - Can you spell web? You know, like you're hired.

Russ: Right.

WHurley: And so I had built a really good reputation on rich application interfaces; rich media interfaces, if you will.

Russ: Right.

WHurley: And a bunch of UX and UI experience and you know, there was an opportunity to move into a new group they were calling the Internet Business Unit that they were to start a and so, you don't wanna start an Internet business unit without a bunch of Internet people, right? So, you know, so I got that opportunity and it was a huge step in my career and led to - a lot of the patents I did were primarily at IBM. You know, they awarded me the Master Inventor title and that was a big boost to my career as far as credibility and things where, you know, you're managing 20 PhD's in Haifa, Israel or you know, in the Zürich, you know, research lab, you know, and here you are, you know, this guy that played in a funk band, got out of Temple High School, right?

Russ: Right, well, one last question before I let you go. Do you ever go back to high school class reunions?

WHurley: No. I've never been to one. Not because I don't want to or anything, it's just what's funny is just a couple months ago somebody said, "Well, you know, you graduated in '89," just had the big reunion.

Russ: Right.

WHurley: You know, but there's another one milestone reunion coming up and like you need to register with the system so we can find you. And it's always funny because it's like I always have people who are, especially - people will hear this show and then I'll meet them at an event, they'll be like, "Hey, I've been trying to get in touch with you," like it's like, well you can call me from the front page of my website and like 20 others and you could Google and, like, I'm on Facebook and I'm in all those places. So for some reason seems exceptionally hard for people to get in touch with me, which now getting a reply from me, as you know from personal experience -

Russ: I know that firsthand. It's tough.

WHurley: That may, that I will agree might be an issue but finding a way to get in touch with me, you know, that shouldn't really challenge anybody to much.

Russ: Well Whurley, I really appreciate you sharing your story with us.

WHurley: Well, I appreciate the opportunity to share the story.

Russ: You bet. We've been talking with William Hurley, more notably known as Whurley and this is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com.