NBC Universal has created a role called 'talent branding specialist' - a marketer whose job is essentially to put the company on the radars of the most sought-after candidates.

GE rolled out a popular TV ad campaign in 2015 explaining why youthful techies should give the 'digital industrial' giant a second look.

We like the John Gruber model - he writes some long stuff that's very thoughtful and analytical, and then other stuff, he just adds a bit of commentary. I like that.

I feel like Valleywag has been different things with different writers over the years. Up and down. I think it's at their best when they get a legitimate scoop, like when someone leaks them documents. I feel like we could do more of that, breaking stories.

My job, originally, was to write blog posts for their 'HubSpot' blog. They have a business model built on content. Then I was writing e-books for them, and after I came back from L.A., they had this new plan to launch a podcast.

My prior stint at 'Newsweek' was a very different world. So it's what it's like to be in one of these kooky software startups as a grown up. It's not entirely pleasant! It's like, 'Oh, I don't fit.'

I wanted to learn how to blog, so I was playing around with Wordpress and Typepad and Blogger, starting all these different blogs just to learn how these things work. I had a fake Sergey Brin blog, an anonymous, fake Ph.D kind of blog. I did it for, like, I don't know, six weeks, and the Steve Jobs one just caught on.

I was working at 'Forbes,' and I covered big enterprise companies - IBM, Sun, and EMC - and it was kind of boring. 'Forbes' only came out every other week, so it was not the most fast-paced job in the world. It was very nice, comfortable.

I wouldn't say that I know a lot about 'Silicon Valley'. I live in Boston, for one thing. And I don't live and breathe this stuff the way most of the guys out there do.

The people running Silicon Valley are not making the show because they want to do a satire of Silicon Valley. They are just comedy writers, and they want to make a funny show.

Some people don't have a sense of humor.

'Silicon Valley' likes being satirized. They've all been waiting for someone to come along and make fun of it.

Even in the business department of a magazine, tech was a backwater.

Every new HubSpot employee has to go through training to learn how to use the software. That's a good idea, and it also keeps me from having to worry about what I'm supposed to be doing here or why Cranium, who hired me, still has never come by to say hello or talk about what he wants me to work on.

HubSpot is divided into 'neighborhoods,' each named after a section of Boston: North End, South End, Charlestown.

The office-as-playground trend was made famous by Google and has spread like an infection across the tech industry. Work can't just be work; work has to be fun.

HubSpot's offices occupy several floors of a 19th-century furniture factory that has been transformed into the cliche of what the home of a tech startup should look like: exposed beams, frosted glass, a big atrium, modern art hanging in the lobby.

I feel like there are some careers that do have a higher meaning.

I was drawn to journalism as a young guy because I felt like there was some purpose to it, not always but sometimes.

There are two types of young people - the partiers and the people who wanted a sense of purpose in their life.

I guess I always had made some assumptions about what it would be like to work in a tech company, and some were right, and some were wrong. I had a lot of, looking back on it, now naive ideas about how companies build their brands, and a lot of those notions I ended up realizing were kind of wrong.

I think the issues around diversity of all kinds are really a huge problem in the startup world.

My role on 'Silicon Valley' was so small that I didn't have a lot of influence anyway in the show. There are four guys who really write that show and run that show and then six or eight hanging out in a room kicking in a few bits.

I wanted to write a book about what it's like to be 50 and trying to reinvent yourself - that struggle. There are all these books and inspirational speakers talking about being a lifelong learner, and it's so great to reinvent yourself, the brand of you. And I wanted to say, you know, it's not like that. It's actually really painful.