Today is, somehow, the 25th anniversary of Panic. (We originally
registered as an LLC in 1997, but then re-registered as an Inc in
1999 on the advice of our accountant.)
Our company is older than Facebook, a little bit older than Google.
Our company is older than I was when we started it. I started
writing our first apps on a PowerMac 7500/100 in the living room of
our shared apartment.
We had no idea what we were doing, but at least we were aware of that.
Our only guiding thought was to create things that didn't exist that
we wanted to use ourselves, and, maybe if we got lucky, there were
other people secretly wanting those same things.
We've grown from 2 people to around 30. Never taken a cent of funding.
Spurned acquisition offers from some really big companies. I honestly
don't know how all this happened. I think we just have more dumb
luck than I can even comprehend. Just an incredible case of being
in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. That, and an
extremely wonderful group of family, friends, and customers.
Always a person to temper my expectations, I hoped the company would
last maybe 5 years. That would be a good, solid run that I could be
proud of before we ran out of money. Never, ever would I have imagined
that we'd still be here 25 years later and.. making a game console?
I still don't know where this all leads, but I guess we'll find out.
I couldn't be more grateful. I hope we can pull some other people
up along the way.
