"How did three Stanford computer science alumni and a friend make a huge mark on the world of social networking? With social networking, of course. The story of the founding of FriendFeed, an influential social information sharing site acquired in August for a rumored $47.5 million by Facebook, is a tale of investing in relationships. Eleven years ago, Jim Norris (BS 2002, MS 2004 CS) and Bret Taylor (BS 2002, MS 2003 CS) arrived on the Stanford campus with vastly different interests. Norris came to school focused intently on a long-time interest in computers. From his childhood days in the Napa Valley tinkering with code on an Apple IIc computer, he knew he enjoyed making technology work and the Stanford classes he enjoyed the most were hard-core, operating systems and compiler courses taught by Professors Mendel Rosenblum and Monica Lam." - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

"Taylor, on the other hand, expected to spend his days in the History Corner of the Main Quad, preparing to be a lawyer. But like many Stanford undergraduates do every year, he took what he figured would be an elective, CS106X, “Programming Abstractions,” with lecturer Jerry Cain (a full-time employee of Facebook) and that hooked him on computer science. He had done some Web design a high school student at Acalanes High School in the East Bay city of Lafayette, but mostly because it was preferable to his prior job of changing oil and cleaning bathrooms at a “76” gas station." - Anne Bouey

"By sophomore year, Norris and Taylor had found so many common interests that they started taking classes and doing projects together. Midway through his co-term year, Taylor went to work for Google. Norris joined him there six months later. At the then fast-growing search startup, they helped create now-familiar products such as Google Maps. Meanwhile, Sanjeev Singh (BS 1996 CS) and Paul Buchheit (who studied at Case Western Reserve University), were working to create Gmail." - Anne Bouey

"Like Norris, Singh cut his teeth programming an Apple II. Singh grew up in Singapore but what brought him to the Bay Area for college was the inspiration he felt in high school when he read Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach by now Stanford President John Hennessy and leading UC Berkeley computer science professor David Patterson. Cal didn’t accept Singh but Stanford did. At Stanford he was indeed able to indulge his interest in computer architecture, taking an electrical engineering class taught by Professor Kunle Olukotun that he recalled as being “crazy awesome.” - Anne Bouey

Love this Anne! So young and sweet :) - Myrna

Thanks, Myrna. - Anne Bouey

Well done, guys! :) - Skye Miller