My short history of Engine Yard and my Resignation

Not to turn HN into a gossip site, but here's some dots to connect:<p>Alex Payne quits Twitter, moves to Portland, cofounds BankSimple, an attempted game-changer if there ever was one. - <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/17/alex-payne-twitter/?utm_source=feedburner&#38;utm_medium=feed&#38;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/17/alex-payne-twitter/?utm_sou...</a><p>"Wow. @banksimple just leveled up. In the last 24 hours we signed on four of the best engineers I know. Can't wait to announce the team." Alex Payne - 8/11 - <a href="https://twitter.com/al3x/status/20905067927" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/al3x/status/20905067927</a><p>"What comes next for me? Something truly awesome and even more challenging then Engine Yard, but that will allow me to work from home in Portland. I cannot yet reveal where I am going to work next but I can promise it will be another game changing project and I am chomping at the bit to get started." Ezra, 8/13

<i>That is the new way to build companies, College degrees don’t matter much IMHO anymore, for developers anyway. It’s more how you interact with the open source community and what you release yourself. Your github account has become your new resume and what you say on Twitter and in various IRC channels are more likely to get you the best jobs then any recruiters ever will. </i><p>I'm interested in education, hiring, and matters of accreditation. Those last few paragraphs really got my attention. I'm glad I read all the way to the end.

<i>Now is the time for me to focus on spending as much time with my son and family as I can and I can no longer commit to 100 hour weeks at Engine Yard. I also wanted to move to Portland where my folks live so my son can grow up near his grandparents and my wife and I can have trustworthy babysitters so we can have a social live of our own(even if it’s just a little bit;)</i><p>This is a man with his head on his shoulders. My only comment is I wish that more people had this level of dedication to their families.

You might as well just link to the blog entry directly: <a href="http://brainspl.at/articles/2010/08/13/4-years-at-engine-yard-what-a-long-strange-trip-its-been" rel="nofollow">http://brainspl.at/articles/2010/08/13/4-years-at-engine-yar...</a>

"We just were victims of our own success and could not deploy customers fast enough to get free time to build the automated system that AppCloud is today."<p>This is a <i>really</i> hard problem IMHO. Obviously it depends on your business model, but I've found it at times an unsolvable problem...

I still don't entirely get their model. They have all this rails deployment expertise, but you pay a more less flat fee every month, whether you're drawing on their knowledge a lot or a little.<p>I think I'd prefer to pay less for hosting, and have some experts on retainer for when they're really needed.<p>They're cool people in any case, and I wish them good luck.

Well written. I had never heard of the author or his company, yet unlike so many of the articles that come through here, it had enough context baked in that you could follow it without a Google search.<p>I found it surprising that Rails needs this level of hand-holding to keep it running though. Rails devs, is this really the experience you have deploying your applications?

You created Merb in the first place. Didn't you? Its missing from the story!

Ezra, thanks for all your help while at EngineYard. I recall many times where you would help out when I was having problems with client sites. Looking forward to hearing what your next project is.

Oh wow, memories... my first sysadmin job had our servers in the same datacenter, in 2000. It was originally called Wavve, and had been built with dot-com VC, so they had all the toys -- biometric identification, massive stacks of batteries, Starbucks-inspired architecture, riot-proof glass...

Is there anything in this<p>"Oh the stories I could tell if only I could. But I feel that telling this positive story of the history of EY is the classy way to go out and I wish Engine Yard all the best in the world"<p>Any unrest?

We have been a loyal EY customer since Jan 2009, over 1.5 years now. I'm glad that EY is still growing and doing well and it's sad to see a cofounder leave. I hope Ezra the best.