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url = https://blog.chriszacharias.com
chris zacharias
Feb 8, 2016
Aug 26, 2015
During a recent trip to the Disney Museum in San Francisco, I became immediately fascinated by the multiplane camera that was on display there. The gigantic machine represents so much of what I find inspiring in graphics and technology. It is fun to get lost in thought, imagining what the modern equivalent of the multiplane camera might be and how to foster the intersection of art and technology from which the multiplane camera emerged. The multiplane camera was invented in 1933 by famous Disney animator/director Ub Iwerks. It worked by enabling animators to position their layers of acetate animation cels at varying distances and offsets in a vertical column. They could then shoot a camera downward to compose the cels into a single frame. While animators had been using acetate celluloid frames composited over painted mattes for decades prior, the technical effects that the multiplane...
Dec 21, 2012
When I was going through YCombinator in the summer of 2011, I felt like I was the only person in the entire class who knew nothing about taking investment. I remember distinctly when Jessica Livingston announced the $150K we would be getting from SV Angel and Start Fund. When she told us the terms, the room erupted in shouting and applause. I sat there Googling nervously, trying to understand what had just been said and wondering if I really belonged in YC at all. Being surrounded by such a select group of founders, each in varying stages of building their companies, you pick up the knowledge you need very quickly. This is the most valuable part of the 3-month YCombinator session. One piece of knowledge you learn very early on is that investors tend to have a herd mentality. What I would later realize through observation was that founders tend to as well. I remember getting the...
In July of 2010, I made the decision to leave YouTube. The first thoughts I had were “How am I going to explain this to anyone? How will I tell mom?” To my family, I had the greatest job in the world and the amount of money I was making was unfathomable. They were certainly not wrong in thinking this. Google is absolutely the best place in the world to work and they do pay very well. It certainly was not an easy decision on my part. About 4 months before, I was backpacking through Europe, stopping off in major cities to present our latest HTML5 work at the local Google offices. It was my first time really exploring a different part of the world. I met fascinating people and experienced many random adventures. I was trapped in Stockholm for 9 days due to the Icelandic ash cloud. I was a successful stowaway on a train from Copenhagen to Hamburg. I had a girlfriend break up with me during...