AskJeeves Sold

When I was getting back into the game in 1998, one of my specialties was IIS 4 on Windows NT 4. At the time, a little knows search engine, ask.com, was using that technology and I interviewed with them for a position as a system administrator. They were a small startup at the time in the Bay Area and hardly anyone had heard of them. They had to explain to me who they were because I hadn't heard of them. The interview went well and I was offered the job on the contingency that I could prove that I had housing in the Bay Area. Because, at the time, housing was so hard to find that the impressive salary (at least to me at the time) that they would be paying was not, in their opinion, likely to allow me to get an apartment anywhere in the area. If I could just show that I had a place to live, I would have been all set. Not knowing anyone in the Bay Area and living almost 3000 miles away made that very difficult and I had to give up the position. Why do I mention this? Because that little startup just sold for $1.85 Billion!