Never Growing Up
I recently answered a question on Quora about what it’s like to drive a Lamborghini. I hesitated answering the question. For some reason, cars bring out the best and worst in people and it almost doesn’t matter what car it is. The more exotic, the more polarized people are about the car, the driver, and everything in between. It all becomes a big distraction.
When I answered the question, I didn’t try and put the car in any context, as I didn’t have the time. People don’t know me, so they project who they are on me, such as my motives for buying the cars in the first place. My identity was never in cars. I saw them as a thing to experience. In fact, it never occurred to me.
When my friend Kim Bria and I picked up my Lamborghini in Orange County, we drove a few miles and we noticed people were staring. We had no idea why. We got to a place where I could pull over so I could walk around the car to see what was wrong. I thought maybe the gas cap was open, or there was some other thing that had their attention. I got back in the car and said to Kim, “I think the fuss is about the car.” Welcome to exotic car ownership.
I knew the car would be a discussion topic for some, but I had no idea what my life would be like, just because of a car. It’s what led to my eventually getting rid of the car. But it doesn’t change who I am, and I’ll explain that in a bit.
In Orange County, nobody much cares what you drive. They will notice the car, and look at it, but that’s about it. One of my favorite memories with that first car was a month later when I drove it to Laguna Beach. An extremely fat woman came over and said she flew in from Wisconsin with the hope of seeing exotic cars up close. I told her I too was from Wisconsin and I invited her to sit in the car, not at all thinking about what would happen next.
No sooner did she flop into the seat, when she started to laugh hysterically the second she realized she couldn’t move. Her husband and I were laughing too. Then it was time to pull her out and the two of us had each arm with one of my feet against the door sill. As the two of us struggled to yank her out, she laughed even harder, which made all of us laugh just as hard. Another person came by to help and we were all bent over laughing too hard to get it done, but when she finally squeezed out we were all laying in the road crying laughing at the situation. It was a best day ever moment for all of us. I still laugh every time I think about it. Those moments were what it was about for me. Doing something that created pure joy for all of us.
When I shipped it to Seattle six months later, I hadn’t driven three miles before someone flipped me off for no reason, other than I was driving a lime green Lamborghini. I still remember the guy’s face.
I never saw a Lamborghini in person until the evening after I bought Open Interface North America. I saw a Verde Ithaca (lime green) Murcielago and an orange Gillardo inside a tiny showroom in Tokyo. I made a promise to myself that at the right time, I’d buy the same color Lamborghini and I did. It was another check box in my life, of which there have been many.
I’m a fairly private person, so it’s not like me to share all my experiences with the world. Instead, I try and stay quiet so I can work my ideas. But one post on Quora, from some intellectually lazy human, who thinks he knows everyone’s motives for owning an exotic, got my attention. He said something about men in their 50s trying to go back and relive something from their youth. I thought I’d set the record straight. I never left my youth.
It’s my youth and the way I think that had led to my success. It’s what causes me to ask, “why not?” It’s what led to most of the best decisions I’ve ever made and the risks I’ve taken, not to mention the fun life I’ve had. I’ve made huge sacrifices and spent many years broke because I believed in the impossible. I have no interest in “growing up.” I believe in remembering our greatness as kids when we’d push the boundaries of just about everything in a series of endless carefree experiments that led to all kinds of discoveries and for many set the course of their lives. It is my youthful thinking that keeps my work fun and my mission clear, and I make no apologies. I’m having fun and my wish is that others would focus on where they are going, and that they find joy in their own experiences. I won’t judge.