Recently, a founder of an early-stage startup asked me for tips on evaluating culture fit when building an early team. As the founder of most successful startups will agree, picking the first few members of your team is important. They set the tone for your company as it grows.

Personally, I think that the term “culture fit” can be misleading. It implies a sort of homogeneity, which is actually the exact opposite of what most companies want. I make a point of the language here because I think it can be harmful to internalize the phrase “culture fit” when what you really want is to build a community. “Community value-add” might be a better term.

If you think of yourselves as evaluating “culture fit” you’re placing your brain in pattern-matching mode, using the team you already have as a pattern and evaluating individuals against that pattern to test their fit. Even if you don’t intend to, this means you may implicitly be looking for someone who is like you and your cofounder(s)/teammate(s). Those people aren’t necessarily bad to have, but it can be a limiting perspective. A good community has people who can create some tension (in the appropriate ways!), because that’s what creativity and thinking “outside the box” are all about: respectfully challenging the status quo, for the sake of improving the company, product, etc.

Taken to the extreme, a company trapped in pattern-matching mode might subconsciously only hire people who fit their background and demographics. Aside from being potentially illegal (discrimination, etc.), this is actually very bad for your company and product. A healthy company needs a variety of perspectives represented in product decisions and day-to-day operations.

So, what is it you really are looking to evaluate? You’re looking for someone who is excited to be a member of your workplace community, to build your product, and isn’t afraid to challenge your assumptions when necessary, but knows how to do so respectfully and appropriately.

Finding people who are excited to work with you is best done by letting them self-identify. Give them opportunities to express their interest, and they will make themselves known.

As for the last part (finding who knows how to respectfully disagree), pose tough questions in interviews. You don’t want to try to set up “mind tricks” (this usually backfires), but do give them a chance to play tug-of-war with you.

In short, don’t expect people to fit your existing company culture. Instead, ask yourself what that person brings to your company’s community, and then ask yourself if that is a valuable addition

In college, I served on the board of a student group that advocated sensible drug policy. During this time, our school’s chapter was named one of the top ten most succesful chapters in the country. This honor was in part because we succeeded in passing a “Good Samaritan” policy to encourage students to seek medical attention for drug overdoses. It was also because we managed to unite a number of otherwise disparate groups – we co-hosted various events with the College Republicans, the College Democrats, the Arab students organization, Hillel (the center for Jewish student life), and more.

When we organized events with the College Republicans, they did not refuse to collaborate with us simply because one of our board members supported raising taxes to fund a single-payer healthcare system. When we organized events with the College Democrats, they did not refuse to collaborate with us simply because a different board member supported defunding Medicare extending the Bush tax cuts.

Those issues were core to what these organizations believed in, and they were actively lobbying for both issues at the same time as they sponsored initiatives with us. However, they were able to recognize what was relevant to our collaboration and what wasn’t, and recognize the difference between the personal views of our members and our stance as an organization.

Effecting social change involves building a coalition, and a coalition is by nature diverse. While I would love for the leader of every company to agree that I deserve the right to marry, I also understand that one’s allies in one movement may not be allies in every other. Disagreement about other issues is not the sign of a bad coalition; it’s the sign of a broad one.

Boston to New York City is a frequently traveled route, so a number of different bus lines provide service between the cities. Most offer free WiFi as an amenity.

However, all WiFi is not created equal. Today I was traveling by the Go Bus, and I assumed I’d be able to do some work on the bus.

I needed to access a document on Google Drive. However, when I tried to open Drive, I was greeted with this sight.

I use OpenDNS instead of relying on my ISP’s DNS servers, and I figured that there was some error on OpenDNS’s end. So, I changed my /etc/resolv.conf to use the Google DNS servers, figuring that that would work.

No luck.

At this point, I realized that the bus network must be hijacking traffic on port 53, which was easy to test.

dig gave me the following output:

Visiting 67.215.65.130 directly gives the following page.

Saucon TDS uses OpenDNS for DNS lookups, but they redirect undesired lookups to their block page. I confirmed this by asking my neighbor across the aisle to visit drive.google.com – he happened to be using Safari, which gave him a 404-eque page instead of the big red error message that Chrome gave, but that was enough for me to confirm that the bus was, indeed, hijacking traffic on Port 53.

But how to fix it? The correct IP address for drive.google.com is actually 74.125.228.1 (ironically, I looked this up using OpenDNS: http://cachecheck.opendns.com/). However, entering that IP address into your browser will give you the Google homepage, because unlike most sites, their servers check the hostname (the same is true for all Google subdomains).

The fix is actually rather simple – add 74.125.228.1 to /etc/hosts. This will skip the DNS lookup altogether, but the browser will still think that you’re going to drive.google.com “normally” (in a way, you are).

I write this post to illustrate how easy it is to get around this kind of traffic shaping, for anybody else who has the misfortune of running into this problem.

On principle, supporters of net neutrality oppose traffic blocks based on content (instead of volume). However, Go Bus and Saucon TDS are not simply blocking traffic – they are hijacking it. My DNS queries are made to a third party, and yet they decide to redirect them to their own DNS servers anyway. From a user perspective, this is incredibly rude. From a security perspective, it’s downright malicious. I let them know over Twitter, though I haven’t received a response yet.

Other than using a VPN (which would have required advance preparation on my part), is there a long-term solution to authenticating DNS queries? Some people advocate DNSSEC. On the other hand, Tom Tpacek (tptacek), whom I tend to trust on other security matters, strongly opposes it and recommends DNSCurve instead.

In the meantime, let’s hope that providers treat customers with respect, and stop this malicious behavior.

Last week, a friend and I had to arrange an in-person meeting after work, by email. He’s based on the Upper East Side, and I’m in Chelsea. Neither one of us wanted to make the trek to the other’s office, and there was no logical place “in between” where we’d have a quiet space.

The obvious solution would be to flip a coin, which he suggested. But how do we know that the other is telling the truth?

The procedure for having Alice and Bob flip a coin over the phone is actually fairly simple. (Conveniently, my friend’s name begins with a ‘B’, so I’ll make him Bob, and I’ll be Alice).

First, Alice flips a coin, but keeps the result of the coin flip secret. Let’s say that ‘H’ is 1, and ’T’ is 0.

Then, Alice finds a book – (almost) any book will do, as long as Bob has a copy of the book as well. She picks an arbitrary page in the book. If the coin flip was H (1) she should pick an odd page; otherwise, she should pick an even page. She notes both the page number and the first two words on that page.

Then, Alice emails Bob the first two words, and asks him to guess whether the page is even or odd. After Bob reveals his guess, Alice reveals the page number. Since Bob has a copy of the same book, he can verify that Alice is telling the truth about the parity of the page number (ie, whether the number is odd or even).

This protocol works because it is easy to find the first two words on a page, but it is hard to find a page that begins with a given pair of words. This serves the purpose of a one-way-function (a function that is hard to invert). By telling Bob the first two words, Alice is telling Bob a signature, and promising that she knows a value that produces that signature. Because Bob has a copy of the book, he is able to verify this signature.

A few interesting things to note about this technique, which is known as a commitment scheme:

• If Alice only chooses a single, common word (like ‘the’), it would be easy for her to find both an odd page and an even page that start with that word. This would let Alice change the outcome of the coin flip after Bob makes his guess.

• If Alice chooses too many words (such as an entire sentence), she runs the risk of providing enough context for Bob to figure out where to find the sentence (particuarly if he has read the book and knows the plot).

• The ideal book is one that both Alice and Bob possess, but which neither one has read, for the above reason.

• The book should be a work of fiction, as nonfictional books tend to have an index that provides a mapping of words -> page numbers.

• This technique assumes that Bob does not have access to a digital version of the book that is easily searchable.

There are certainly a few ways in which this procedure could be cheated – either to guarantee a certain outcome, or to tip the results in one’s own favor. But in cryptography, we sometimes make certain concessions (such as assuming an “honest but curious” adversary, as opposed to a truly malicious one). In this case we assume that both Alice and Bob are “honest, but temptable” – ie, Alice or Bob might be tempted to lie about a coin flip, but neither will go to the trouble of manually finding phrases that appear on both even and odd pages in the same book).

Image provided by Филип Романски under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license (via the Wikimedia Commons)

I am very excited to announce that I’ve just joined the Dorm Room Fund team in New York City!

For those who aren’t familiar with the fund, Dorm Room Fund is a venture firm run by students and for students. The fund invests exclusively in student-run companies, providing seed financing on very founder-friendly terms. The goal is to serve as a springboard for driven, entrepreneurial students, providing support both financially and in other ways.

I have always had a special interest in students and young entrepreneurs, which is why I have been a mentor for groups such as hackNY and the Thiel Fellowship. I’ve found students are some of the most exciting entrepreneurs to work with – they bring fresh eyes to problems both new and old, and inspiring levels of energy and determination.

I’m looking forward to working with the rest of the team this year, as well as meeting all sorts of students working on a variety of enterprises.

After a great year serving as the Hacker-in-Residence at Quotidian Ventures, I’m excited to announce that I’m starting classes this fall at Cornell University, through the brand-new Cornell NYC Tech program!

As noted on the original program website (screenshot above), this program is atypical in many ways. The program focuses on preparing master’s students not just to be successful academically as engineers, but also as practitioners and entrepreneurs.

To that effect, the program extends beyond the standard requirements of a master’s degree in computer science. In addition to classes such as Cryptography and Signal and Image Processing, the semester calendar includes a number of events aimed at introducing Cornell students to individuals in the New York tech community, and at building key skills such as pitching a startup, engaging effectively with media, and hiring/interviewing. In addition, students take two business classes focused on entrepreneurship each semester, including an entrepreneurship practicum taught by Greg Pass, the former CTO of Twitter.

It also includes a semester-long master’s project. For mine, I’ll be working with a few Google engineers to contribute to the IPython project.

I’m looking forward to the coming year, and I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted once my classes and project get underway!

(I know some people will be interested in a followup post to Don’t Fly During Ramadan. I plan on writing one, but this post happens to be timely.)

Yesterday, August 28th, 2013, marks the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s famous speech, “I Have a Dream”.

If you live in the US, you’ve probably heard of this speech. You’ve also probably never read it, heard the audio, or seen the video in its entirety.

Unfortunately, the speech is under copyright, and will remain so until 2083. As a result, it is illegal to republish under most circumstances.

Except for the famous, titular line, textbooks in schools almost never publish “I Have A Dream”. Documentaries can only include small, five-second clips. Take a moment and ask the people sitting near you if they’ve ever heard the opening lines:

“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the
greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. ”

I’ll bet you they haven’t.

Your children, grandchildren, and perhaps great-grandchildren, will probably grow up without the opportunity of experiencing this moment in history. They will learn about it in grade school, based off of secondhand accounts from teachers who have never read the speech either. And so on.

Frustratingly, the copyright holders include the estate of the person who delivered the speech, but not even the estate of the two other people who wrote it (and likely wrote most of it).

Worse, “I Had A Dream” was delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. If it had been delivered in 2013, not 1963, there would have been hundreds of cell phone recordings of the speech all across the Internet within minutes. It was truly a public performance in every sense of the word.

The original purpose of copyright, as defined by the US constitution:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

Emphasis mine.

Let’s ask ourselves: if Martin Luther King, Jr. had known that six generations of students would grow up without legal access to his speech at “the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation”, would he have been more likely to deliver it…. or less?

---

EDIT Hacker News readers have been kind enough to point out that schools may be able to use copies of parts of the speech under “fair use” privileges, and that copies of the text of the speech are available online.

However, the King estate does heavily enforce its copyright on the video recording of the speech (arguably the more important part), and this recording is much harder to find online (and, when it can be found, is legally questionable).

In retrospect, this post should probably have been titled “Why You’ve Never Seen/Heard ‘I Have a Dream’”, since the argument is stronger for the video recording; however, it’s important to note that most modern textbooks don’t include the text of the speech, and that the reason for that is due to the copyright restrictions and the royalties.

Perhaps a teacher has the right (and enough interest) to print out copies for the student separately, but students are unlikely to find it in most textbooks.

A couple of weeks ago, I was scheduled to take a trip from New York (JFK) to Los Angeles on JetBlue. Every year, my family goes on a one-week pilgrimage, where we put our work on hold and spend time visiting temples, praying, and spending time with family and friends. To my Jewish friends, I often explain this trip as vaguely similar to the Sabbath, except we take one week of rest per year, rather than one day per week.

Our family is not Muslim, but by coincidence, this year, our trip happened to be during the last week of Ramadan.

By further coincidence, this was also the same week that I was moving out of my employer-provided temporary housing (at NYU) and moving into my new apartment. The night before my trip, I enlisted the help of two friends and we took most of my belongings, in a couple of suitcases, to my new apartment. The apartment was almost completely unfurnished – I planned on getting new furniture upon my return – so I dropped my few bags (one containing an air mattress) in the corner. Even though I hadn’t decorated the apartment yet, in accordance with Hindu custom, I taped a single photograph to the wall in my bedroom — a long-haired saint with his hands outstretched in pronam (a sign of reverence and respect).

The next morning, I packed the rest of my clothes into a suitcase and took a cab to the airport. I didn’t bother to eat breakfast, figuring I would grab some yogurt in the terminal while waiting to board.

I got in line for security at the airport and handed the agent my ID. Another agent came over and handed me a paper slip, which he said was being used to track the length of the security lines. He said, “just hand this to someone when your stuff goes through the x-ray machines, and we’ll know how long you were in line.’ I looked at the timestamp on the paper: 10:40.

When going through the security line, I opted out (as I always used to) of the millimeter wave detectors. I fly often enough, and have opted out often enough, that I was prepared for what comes next: a firm pat-down by a TSA employee wearing non-latex gloves, who uses the back of his hand when patting down the inside of the thighs.

After the pat-down, the TSA agent swabbed his hands with some cotton-like material and put the swab in the machine that supposedly checks for explosive residue. The machine beeped. “We’re going to need to pat you down again, this time in private,” the agent said.

Having been selected before for so-called “random” checks, I assumed that this was another such check.

“What do you mean, ‘in private’? Can’t we just do this out here?”

“No, this is a different kind of pat-down, and we can’t do that in public.” When I asked him why this pat-down was different, he wouldn’t tell me. When I asked him specifically why he couldn’t do it in public, he said “Because it would be obscene.”

Naturally, I balked at the thought of going somewhere behind closed doors where a person I just met was going to touch me in “obscene” ways. I didn’t know at the time (and the agent never bothered to tell me) that the TSA has a policy that requires two agents to be present during every private pat-down. I’m not sure if that would make me feel more or less comfortable.

Noticing my hesitation, the agent offered to have his supervisor explain the procedure in more detail. He brought over his supervisor, a rather harried man who, instead of explaining the pat-down to me, rather rudely explained to me that I could either submit immediately to a pat-down behind closed-doors, or he could call the police.

At this point, I didn’t mind having to leave the secure area and go back through security again (this time not opting out of the machines), but I didn’t particularly want to get the cops involved. I told him, “Okay, fine, I’ll leave”.

“You can’t leave here.”

“Are you detaining me, then?” I’ve been through enough “know your rights” training to know how to handle police searches; however, TSA agents are not law enforcement officials. Technically, they don’t even have the right to detain you against your will.

“We’re not detaining you. You just can’t leave.” My jaw dropped.

“Either you’re detaining me, or I’m free to go. Which one is it?” I asked.

He glanced for a moment at my backpack, then snatched it out of the conveyor belt. “Okay,” he said. “You can leave, but I’m keeping your bag.”

I was speechless. My bag had both my work computer and my personal computer in it. The only way for me to get it back from him would be to snatch it back, at which point he could simply claim that I had assaulted him. I was trapped.

While we waited for the police to arrive, I took my phone and quickly tried to call my parents to let them know what was happening. Unfortunately, my mom’s voicemail was full, and my dad had never even set his up.

“Hey, what’s he doing?” One of the TSA agents had noticed I was touching my phone.
“It’s probably fine; he’s leaving anyway,” another said.

The cops arrived a few minutes later, spoke with the TSA agents for a moment, and then came over and gave me one last chance to submit to the private examination. “Otherwise, we have to escort you out of the building.” I asked him if he could be present while the TSA agent was patting me down.

“No,” he explained, “because when we pat people down, it’s to lock them up.”

I only realized the significance of that explanation later. At this point, I didn’t particularly want to miss my flight. Foolishly, I said, “Fine, I’ll do it.”

The TSA agents and police escorted me to a holding room, where they patted me down again – this time using the front of their hands as they passed down the front of my pants. While they patted me down, they asked me some basic questions.

“What’s the purpose of your travel?”

“Personal,” I responded, (as opposed to business).

“Are you traveling with anybody?”

“My parents are on their way to LA right now; I’m meeting them there.”

“How long is your trip?”

“Ten days.”

“What will you be doing?”

Mentally, I sighed. There wasn’t any other way I could answer this next question.

“We’ll be visiting some temples.” He raised his eyebrow, and I explained that the next week was a religious holiday, and that I was traveling to LA to observe it with my family.

After patting me down, they swabbed not only their hands, but also my backpack, shoes, wallet, and belongings, and then walked out of the room to put it through the machine again. After more than five minutes, I started to wonder why they hadn’t said anything, so I asked the police officer who was guarding the door. He called over the TSA agent, who told me,

“You’re still setting off the alarm. We need to call the explosives specialist”.

I waited for about ten minutes before the specialist showed up. He walked in without a word, grabbed the bins with my possessions, and started to leave. Unlike the other agents I’d seen, he wasn’t wearing a uniform, so I was a bit taken aback.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“I’m running it through the x-ray again,” he snapped. “Because I can. And I’m going to do it again, and again, until I decide I’m done”. He then asked the TSA agents whether they had patted me down. They said they had, and he just said, “Well, try again”, and left the room. Again I was told to stand with my legs apart and my hands extended horizontally while they patted me down all over before stepping outside.

The explosives specialist walked back into the room and asked me why my clothes were testing positive for explosives. I told him, quite truthfully, “I don’t know.” He asked me what I had done earlier in the day.

“Well, I had to pack my suitcase, and also clean my apartment.”

“And yesterday?”

“I moved my stuff from my old apartment to my new one”.

“What did you eat this morning?”

“Nothing,” I said. Only later did I realize that this made it sound like I was fasting, when in reality, I just hadn’t had breakfast yet.

“Are you taking any medications?”

The other TSA agents stood and listened while the explosives specialist and asked every medication I had taken “recently”, both prescription and over-the-counter, and asked me to explain any medical conditions for which any prescription medicine had been prescribed. Even though I wasn’t carrying any medication on me, he still asked for my complete “recent” medical history.

“What have you touched that would cause you to test positive for certain explosives?”

“I can’t think of anything. What does it say is triggering the alarm?” I asked.

“I’m not going to tell you! It’s right here on my sheet, but I don’t have to tell you what it is!” he exclaimed, pointing at his clipboard.

I was at a loss for words. The first thing that came to my mind was, “Well, I haven’t touched any explosives, but if I don’t even know what chemical we’re talking about, I don’t know how to figure out why the tests are picking it up.”

He didn’t like this answer, so he told them to run my belongings through the x-ray machine and pat me down again, then left the room.

I glanced at my watch. Boarding would start in fifteen minutes, and I hadn’t even had anything to eat. A TSA officer in the room noticed me craning my neck to look at my watch on the table, and he said, “Don’t worry, they’ll hold the flight.”

As they patted me down for the fourth time, a female TSA agent asked me for my baggage claim ticket. I handed it to her, and she told me that a woman from JetBlue corporate security needed to ask me some questions as well. I was a bit surprised, but agreed. After the pat-down, the JetBlue representative walked in and cooly introduced herself by name.

She explained, “We have some questions for you to determine whether or not you’re permitted to fly today. Have you flown on JetBlue before?”

“Yes”

“How often?”

“Maybe about ten times,” I guessed.

“Ten what? Per month?”

“No, ten times total.”

She paused, then asked,

“Will you have any trouble following the instructions of the crew and flight attendants on board the flight?”

“No.” I had no idea why this would even be in doubt.

“We have some female flight attendants. Would you be able to follow their instructions?”

I was almost insulted by the question, but I answered calmly, “Yes, I can do that.”

“Okay,” she continued, “and will you need any special treatment during your flight? Do you need a special place to pray on board the aircraft?”

Only here did it hit me.

“No,” I said with a light-hearted chuckle, trying to conceal any sign of how offensive her questions were. “Thank you for asking, but I don’t need any special treatment.”

She left the room, again, leaving me alone for another ten minutes or so. When she finally returned, she told me that I had passed the TSA’s inspection. “However, based on the responses you’ve given to questions, we’re not going to permit you to fly today.”

I was shocked. “What do you mean?” were the only words I could get out.

“If you’d like, we’ll rebook you for the flight tomorrow, but you can’t take the flight this afternoon, and we’re not permitting you to rebook for any flight today.”

I barely noticed the irony of the situation – that the TSA and NYPD were clearing me for takeoff, but JetBlue had decided to ground me. At this point, I could think of nothing else but how to inform my family, who were expecting me to be on the other side of the country, that I wouldn’t be meeting them for dinner after all. In the meantime, an officer entered the room and told me to continue waiting there. “We just have one more person who needs to speak with you before you go.” By then, I had already been “cleared” by the TSA and NYPD, so I couldn’t figure out why I still needed to be questioned. I asked them if I could use my phone and call my family.

“No, this will just take a couple of minutes and you’ll be on your way.” The time was 12.35.

He stepped out of the room – for the first time since I had been brought into the cell, there was no NYPD officer guarding the door. Recognizing my short window of opportunity, I grabbed my phone from the table and quickly texted three of my local friends – two who live in Brooklyn, and one who lives in Nassau County – telling them that I had been detained by the TSA and that I couldn’t board my flight. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but since nobody had any intention of reading me my Miranda rights, I wanted to make sure people knew where I was.

After fifteen minutes, one of the police officers marched into the room and scolded, “You didn’t tell us you have a checked bag!” I explained that I had already handed my baggage claim ticket to a TSA agent, so I had in fact informed someone that I had a checked bag. Looking frustrated, he turned and walked out of the room, without saying anything more.

After about twenty minutes, another man walked in and introduced himself as representing the FBI. He asked me many of the same questions I had already answered multiple times – my name, my address, what I had done so far that day. etc.

He then asked, “What is your religion?”

“I’m Hindu.”

“How religious are you? Would you describe yourself as ‘somewhat
religious’ or ‘very religious’?”

I was speechless from the idea of being forced to talk about my the extent of religious beliefs to a complete stranger. “Somewhat religious”, I responded.

“How many times a day do you pray?” he asked. This time, my surprise must have registered on my face, because he quickly added, “I’m not trying to offend you; I just don’t know anything about Hinduism. For example, I know that people are fasting for Ramadan right now, but I don’t have any idea what Hindus actually do on a daily basis.”

I nearly laughed at the idea of being questioned by a man who was able to admit his own ignorance on the subject matter, but I knew enough to restrain myself. The questioning continued for another few minutes. At one point, he asked me what cleaning supplies I had used that morning.

“Well, some window cleaner, disinfectant -” I started, before he cut me off.

“This is important,” he said, sternly. “Be specific.” I listed the specific brands that I had used.

Suddenly I remembered something: the very last thing I had done before leaving was to take the bed sheets off of my bed, as I was moving out. Since this was a dorm room, to guard against bedbugs, my dad (a physician) had given me an over-the-counter spray to spray on the mattress when I moved in, over two months previously. Was it possible that that was still active and triggering their machines?

“I also have a bedbug spray,” I said. “I don’t know the name of it, but I knew it was over-the-counter, so I figured it probably contained permethrin.” Permethrin is an insecticide, sold over-the-counter to kill bed bugs and lice.

“Perm-what?” He asked me to spell it.

After he wrote it down, I asked him if I could have something to drink. “I’ve been here talking for three hours at this point,” I explained. “My mouth is like sandpaper”. He refused, saying

“We’ll just be a few minutes, and then you’ll be able to go.”

“Do you have any identification?” I showed him my drivers license, which still listed my old address. “You have nothing that shows your new address?” he exclaimed.

“Well, no, I only moved there on Thursday.”

“What about the address before that?”

“I was only there for two months – it was temporary housing for work”. I pulled my NYU ID out of my wallet. He looked at it, then a police officer in the room took it from him and walked out.

“What about any business cards that show your work address?” I mentally replayed my steps from the morning, and remembered that I had left behind my business card holder, thinking I wouldn’t need it on my trip.

“No, I left those at home.”

“You have none?”

“Well, no, I’m going on vacation, so I didn’t refill them last night.”
He scoffed. “I always carry my cards on me, even when I’m on vacation.” I had no response to that – what could I say?

“What about a direct line at work? Is there a phone number I can call where it’ll patch me straight through to your voicemail?”

“No,” I tried in vain to explain. “We’re a tech company; everyone just uses their cell phones”. To this day, I don’t think my company has a working landline phone in the entire office – our “main line” is a virtual assistant that just forwards calls to our cell phones. I offered to give him the name and phone number of one of our venture partners instead, which he reluctantly accepted.

Around this point, the officer who had taken my NYU ID stormed into the room.

“They put an expiration sticker on your ID, right?” I nodded. “Well then why did this ID expire in 2010?!” he accused.

I took a look at the ID and calmly pointed out that it said “August 2013” in big letters on the ID, and that the numbers “8/10” meant “August 10th, 2013”, not “August, 2010”. I added, “See, even the expiration sticker says 2013 on it above the date”. He studied the ID again for a moment, then walked out of the room again, looking a little embarrassed.

The FBI agent resumed speaking with me. “Do you have any credit cards with your name on them?” I was hesitant to hand them a credit card, but I didn’t have much of a choice. Reluctantly, I pulled out a credit card and handed it to him. “What’s the limit on it?” he said, and then, noticing that I didn’t laugh, quickly added, “That was a joke.”

He left the room, and then a series of other NYPD and TSA agents came in and started questioning me, one after the other, with the same questions that I’d already answered previously. In between, I was left alone, except for the officer guarding the door.

At one point, when I went to the door and asked the officer when I could finally get something to drink, he told me, “Just a couple more minutes. You’ll be out of here soon.”

“That’s what they said an hour ago,” I complained.

“You also said a lot of things, kid,” he said with a wink. “Now sit back down”.

I sat back down and waited some more. Another time, I looked up and noticed that a different officer was guarding the door. By this time, I hadn’t had any food or water in almost eighteen hours. I could feel the energy draining from me, both physically and mentally, and my head was starting to spin. I went to the door and explained the situation the officer. “At the very least, I really need something to drink.”

“Is this a medical emergency? Are you going to pass out? Do we need to call an ambulance?” he asked, skeptically. His tone was almost mocking, conveying more scorn than actual concern or interest.

“No,” I responded. I’m not sure why I said that. I was lightheaded enough that I certainly felt like I was going to pass out.

“Are you diabetic?”

“No,” I responded.

Again he repeated the familiar refrain. “We’ll get you out of here in a few minutes.” I sat back down. I was starting to feel cold, even though I was sweating – the same way I often feel when a fever is coming on. But when I put my hand to my forehead, I felt fine.

One of the police officers who questioned me about my job was less-than-familiar with the technology field.

“What type of work do you do?”

“I work in venture capital.”

“Venture Capital – is that the thing I see ads for on TV all the time?” For a moment, I was dumbfounded – what venture capital firm advertises on TV? Suddenly, it hit me.

“Oh! You’re probably thinking of Capital One Venture credit cards.” I said this politely and with a straight face, but unfortunately, the other cop standing in the room burst out laughing immediately. Silently, I was shocked – somehow, this was the interrogation procedure for confirming that I actually had the job I claimed to have.

Another pair of NYPD officers walked in, and one asked me to identify some landmarks around my new apartment. One was, “When you’re facing the apartment, is the parking on the left or on the right?” I thought this was an odd question, but I answered it correctly. He whispered something in the ear of the other officer, and they both walked out.

The onslaught of NYPD agents was broken when a South Asian man with a Homeland Security badge walked in and said something that sounded unintelligible. After a second, I realized he was speaking Hindi.

“Sorry, I don’t speak Hindi.”

“Oh!” he said, noticeably surprised at how “Americanized” this suspect was. We chatted for a few moments, during which time I learned that his family was Pakistani, and that he was Muslim, though he was not fasting for Ramadan. He asked me the standard repertoire of questions that I had been answering for other agents all day.

Finally, the FBI agent returned.

“How are you feeling right now?” he asked. I wasn’t sure if he was expressing genuine concern or interrogating me further, but by this point, I had very little energy left.

“A bit nauseous, and very thirsty.”

“You’ll have to understand, when a person of your… background walks into here, travelling alone, and sets off our alarms, people start to get a bit nervous. I’m sure you’ve been following what’s been going on in the news recently. You’ve got people from five different branches of government all in here – we don’t do this just for fun.”

He asked me to repeat some answers to questions that he’d asked me previously, looking down at his notes the whole time, then he left. Finally, two TSA agents entered the room and told me that my checked bag was outside, and that I would be escorted out to the ticketing desks, where I could see if JetBlue would refund my flight.

It was 2:20PM by the time I was finally released from custody. My entire body was shaking uncontrollably, as if I were extremely cold, even though I wasn’t. I couldn’t identify the emotion I was feeling. Surprisingly, as far as I could tell, I was shaking out of neither fear nor anger – I felt neither of those emotions at the time. The shaking motion was entirely involuntary, and I couldn’t force my limbs to be still, no matter how hard I concentrated.

In the end, JetBlue did refund my flight, but they cancelled my entire round-trip ticket. Because I had to rebook on another airline that same day, it ended up costing me about $700 more for the entire trip. Ironically, when I went to the other terminal, I was able to get through security (by walking through the millimeter wave machines) with no problem.

I spent the week in LA, where I was able to tell my family and friends about the entire ordeal. They were appalled by the treatment I had received, but happy to see me safely with them, even if several hours later.

I wish I could say that the story ended there. It almost did. I had no trouble flying back to NYC on a red-eye the next week, in the wee hours of August 12th. But when I returned home the next week, opened the door to my new apartment, and looked around the room, I couldn’t help but notice that one of the suitcases sat several inches away from the wall. I could have sworn I pushed everything to the side of the room when I left, but I told myself that I may have just forgotten, since I was in a hurry when I dropped my bags off.

When I entered my bedroom, a chill went down my spine: the photograph on my wall had vanished. I looked around the room, but in vain. My apartment was almost completely empty; there was no wardrobe it could have slipped under, even on the off-chance it had fallen.

To this day, that photograph has not turned up. I can’t think of any “rational” explanation for it. Maybe there is one. Maybe a burglar broke into my apartment by picking the front door lock and, finding nothing of monetary value, took only my picture. In order to preserve my peace-of-mind, I’ve tried to convince myself that that’s what happened, so I can sleep comfortably at night.

But no matter how I’ve tried to rationalize this in the last week and a half, nothing can block out the memory of the chilling sensation I felt that first morning, lying on my air mattress, trying to forget the image of large, uniformed men invading the sanctuary of my home in my absence, wondering when they had done it, wondering why they had done it.

In all my life, I have only felt that same chilling terror once before – on one cold night in September twelve years ago, when I huddled in bed and tried to forget the terrible events in the news that day, wondering why they they had happened, wondering whether everything would be okay ever again.