Every part of my body jolted awake, soaked in sweat, because suddenly—at two-something in the morning—I realized I was in love again.

And not the adult, “we share a mortgage” version of love. I mean the stupid kind.

The high-school-gym-dance kind.

The kind where your brain rewinds a two-hour conversation with someone mysterious at a party and tries to decode every word, tone, blink, sigh.

It was that feeling of hovering at the top of the diving board, weightless for a split second, right before the water swallows you in applause.

So I did what anyone would do: I got out of bed and Googled her.

Which was easy.

Because her name was—literally—Google.

They Made Me Sign an NDA

This was early 2007.

I’d spent the afternoon inside Google’s offices on 18th Street, trying to get them to buy my company Stockpickr.

And why wouldn’t they buy my company? They owned the whole block.

Actually, it felt like they owned an entirely new dimension of reality. A space where every smart person who ever existed got unlimited snacks, free toys, and permission to skateboard indoors.

A place built by kids who were smart enough not to grow up.

I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to get inside.

 A real, corporate NDA. The kind that says: Don’t write about anything you see. Don’t talk about it. Don’t even think about it.

I broke every rule immediately.

There were vertical monitors. Ping-pong tables. Gourmet food. Hologram-ish conference calls.

Everyone in the room questioning me was sharp, curious, alive. They nodded at everything I said—not because they agreed, but because their brains were already rushing to the next question.

I wanted to ask them, “How does it feel to be loved by Google?”

Because I loved her. And I wanted her to buy my company. And I wanted to be one of them.

I was jealous. Not of the engineers. Of Larry Page. Because he loved Google and Google loved him back.

Spoiler: Google Didn’t Buy My Company

When Larry was 30, he was a billionaire. When I was 30, I had 40 employees and an office plant I kept forgetting to water.

When he was 32, he bought YouTube. When I was 32, I bought a burrito and wondered if my credit card would go through.

When he was 38, he became CEO of one of the most powerful companies in history. When I was 38, I built Stockpickr—a site with one million users that I prayed would become part of Google’s universe.

But, in the end, Google didn’t want to buy it. And I was crushed.

Rejection is usually the end of a story. This one turned out to be the beginning.

Because every now and then, life gives you something better than the thing you thought you wanted.

Something you don’t understand until many years later.

A Good Beginning to an End

If Google had bought Stockpickr, maybe I would’ve worn the cool badge.

Maybe I’d be eating catered lunches and learning how to skateboard through hallways without breaking my legs. Maybe I’d be a lifer at one of the most powerful institutions on Earth.

But I wouldn’t have written things I’ve written. I wouldn’t have met the people I’ve met. I wouldn’t have built the weird, unpredictable, magical life I have now.

Sometimes the thing that doesn’t choose you is the reason you get to choose something better.

Not bigger. Maybe not shinier. Just yours.

And when I look back now, at 2025, I can finally see the shape of the story: that moment in 2007 wasn’t the ghost of the life I missed.

It was the doorway into the one I’m living.

And I didn’t need Google to love me back for that to happen.