The Man in the Kilt

We were in our Pearl River, New York office — 39 East Central Avenue — the building I bought from the pizza man because he’d been annoying us since the day we moved in.

I hadn’t driven home to Jersey City in about six months. Instead, I was crashing at the office, sleeping under the conference room table. At some point, the place stopped feeling like work and started feeling like home — part office, part apartment, part psychological experiment.

After hours, the office became my living room. I walked around barefoot like I paid rent. My beard and hair were five months overdue for a barber visit — and honestly, that felt optimistic. My jeans barely zipped anymore, and when they did, it was a negotiation.

We still had a few hundred leftover T-shirts from the last show. I grabbed a clean one and pulled it over my head. They were all the same color — generic giveaway stock — with STAFF printed across the back.

Which was perfect.

Because at that point, I didn’t look like the founder.

I looked like the first homeless man you’d cross the street to avoid if you saw me coming.

One day, while moving between offices, I noticed a man wearing a kilt — the full ethnic outfit. I stopped and asked Robert who he was.

Robert said, “He told us he’s from Scotland. He’s a Java developer. He’s in love with Java Developer’s Journal. He wanted to meet the team behind the magazine.”

Then he added, almost casually, “He’s been asking Jim questions for the last hour.”

My conference-room bedroom at night doubled as our SYS-CON Radio studio during the day.

Robert’s college friend, Chad Sidler, wanted to become a radio personality when he grew up. So Robert gave him a chair and a microphone — and that was that. Chad went live from the conference room every day. He had a great radio voice too. Deep. Confident. Professional. I was pretty sure he was just reading articles from our own journals, but on the air it sounded like breaking news.

After a few days, I noticed Alan Williamson acting strange. He moved carefully around the office, always trying to impress Chad.

Eventually, once he felt comfortable enough, Alan pulled Carmen aside and whispered,

“Who’s the homeless man? He’s scary-looking. I’ve been avoiding him since I arrived.”

Carmen didn’t miss a beat.

“That’s Fuat,” she said. “He’s the owner.”

Alan froze.

The problem was that Chad was taller than everyone else, sitting behind a microphone, speaking in that deep bass radio voice. So Alan naturally assumed he was the boss — and had been kissing his ass nonstop since day one.

After that very awkward introduction, Alan became one of the key members of our team. He went on to play a major role in the global success of both Java Developer’s Journal and LinuxWorld Magazine. In fact, Alan produced the very first issues of LinuxWorld — long before anyone imagined how big it would become.

Years later, Carmen practically adopted Alan and gave him one of the bedrooms in my Upper Saddle River mansion. Once, while we were having drinks, he casually announced that all three of his children had been conceived in that house.

Shortly after our meeting, we named him editor-in-chief of Java Developer’s Journal. With the content he put together, JDJ’s monthly audited circulation quickly exceeded 200,000 copies — serious, targeted reach for our advertisers.

At the time, I was publishing twelve monthly magazines, all carried by Barnes & Noble and on newsstands worldwide.

For Java Developer’s Journal, Carmen and her six sales managers consistently generated more than $1 million per issue in advertising revenue for nearly two decades.

The first time she walked into my office and said, “This month JDJ’s ad revenue is one million dollars,” I didn’t believe her.

I asked Joan to audit the numbers — and told Carmen that if they were correct, I’d take her entire department to Hawaii.

They were.

So I did.