I was at Pandora at the time, my boss was your friend Tom Conrad and we watched as you wrote reviews of our app, not sure if you were going to say nice things or slam us. Arab spring had come and gone, and we still believed social media held the key to goodness and truth for the world. Tech was leading us out of the great recession and house prices were climbing steadily, but older industries were still dragging their feet. Silicon Valley was not yet completely reviled by both the right and the left, and Tesla was still a promising little car company with big ideas.

I met Sheryl Sandberg at an Andreessen Horowitz event and she gave a fireside talk to the assembled 40-50 people, in which she bragged about Facebook's ability to predict flu epidemics where Google could only tell you when it's current. She would never say that today.

I still thought employees of tech companies were nice people, and I still believed Silicon Valley was more inclusive and diverse than the rest of America. I still believed the architects of stagnation in their corridors of power would be toppled by tenacious engineers inventing transformative technologies.

Today I still believe kindness and truth count for something even when it doesn't always feel that way.

PS - isn't it a pity Pandora never did anything after its saggy pants IPO?