Dead Herring

In 1993 and 94, when I was learning about the net and about how to run a business and all the scary money stuff, I discovered a weird American business magazine in the same imported magazine outlet I went to for Wired and Mondo 2000 and all those xeroxed geek zines. It was called The Red Herring. It was from San Francisco and it became a major source of inspiration. It was more grown up than those other titles – definitely more Stanford B-School than The Haight – but no less exotic. Its territory was ‘over there’ – Silicon Valley – an almost mythic place I’d never visited but had been reading about for a decade. Ten years later, even after I’ve visited these places and driven along Highway 101 in my rented car and learnt that San Jose has approximately the charm of Slough, it still makes me sad to learn that the Herring is no more.