digitalNATION was purchased by Verio, which was acquired by NTT

Jul 1999 – Apr 2000 · 10 mos
Title: Advanced ASP Programmer
CEO: Bruce Waldak
5651 Cherokee Avenue, Alexandria, VA 22312 · On-site

In my role, I administered databases, mail servers, and web servers, focusing on enhancing dedicated hosting services through custom web development using Microsoft technologies like ASP, Microsoft Access, and SQL Server. I crafted website templates, generated reports using Active Reports and Crystal Reports, and collaborated with third-party components to facilitate authentication, authorization, file uploads, and chart creation. My contributions ensured the efficient operation and optimized functionality of the hosting infrastructure while delivering tailored web solutions that met client needs.

What the Résumé Can’t Show

January 6, 2026

This is about what I saw, what happened to me, and who I became. It isn’t in order, because memory rarely is. It isn’t really about a company so much as it’s about me—inside a narrow, volatile window of tech history that doesn’t exist anymore. I started on a high note: better pay, closer to home, comfortable clothes, real peers, and work that made me feel seen.

Company Background

The company primarily sold dedicated servers and claimed to have coined the term “dedicated server”. Back then, we didn’t have virtual servers or cloud hosting. Each website was usually hosted on its own computer in a large data center. Ours was in a basement with over 1,200 servers. Many were blue cobalt blade servers with a quick setup time. Our backbone was connected to MAE East, and we had a fiber-optic OC-3 line, which at the time was a significant accomplishment, providing 155 Mbps, with plans to scale to 1 Gbps while most people were still using dial-up.

The Lead

The lead programmer reached out to me, inviting me to consider joining digitalNATION after seeing many of my code snippets on Planet Source Code and ASP 101. This would not be the only time that my reputation preceded me, but it was a boost to my ego that someone had recognized the effort I had put into web development.

The Interview

I was in the kitchen for my interview. Coming from a government contract, I found the corporate culture very different. There were refrigerators with sodas and Welch’s fruit drinks – or was it Snapple? Either way, any employee was free to pick one up at no cost. I was told that it was common for the CEO to announce over the intercom that anyone left in the building should come up and have a beer. That never happened for me, but sometimes there were ice cream socials or meetings open to everyone. The primary role that I was interviewed for was to develop client sites hosted by the company. It was explained that web development was “the condiment” to dedicated hosting. Given that they hosted so many servers, the company was often asked for referrals on web development. I don’t recall being shown around, other than that things were dark and had a different vibe. It was more relaxed.

The Offer

The salary that was offered was $35k. Mind you, I was only making $25k at the time, so a $10k bump was a 40% increase, which was astounding in my book. That is an increase of $4.81 per hour (PER HOUR!!!), very close to the minimum wage at the time of $5.15. For a kid with only a high school diploma and a couple of certifications, this was exceptional. To top it all off, the company was about 2.5 miles from where I lived, or an hour’s walk with all the traffic.

The pay increase made it possible to start paying off my student loans. I also purchased a soft mattress, along with a box spring and a frame. Before that, I was sleeping on a futon.

First Day

I remember some parts of the first day on the job. I entered the tiny elevator up to the second floor that smelled of cigars – a sure sign the CEO had been through recently. There was talk about a phone call about a sale early in the morning. There was also a barbecue planned for later that day, which in this company was normal. I recall the CEO wearing a blue t-shirt with the letters OC-3 on the back – a significant flex of how the company was connected to the internet. We all had nice black t-shirts with the company logo on our chests. I believe it was around this time that we had a photo op of all of us holding a large black flag with the company logo.

NeXT Computers

Besides having a phone, everyone’s desk had two computers. I had a desktop PC with Windows 98, and next to it was a NeXT desktop. It looked like a rough Linux with a high-resolution GUI. The desktop and CRT were both black. Most people used it for their internal mail. I set up a forwarder to send mail to my work account, and I haven’t used it since.

It wouldn’t be until decades later that I would understand the significance of the NeXT brand and what it meant for Steve Jobs and his return to Apple.

Rules of Acquisition

We would later learn that digitalNATION was purchased by VERIO. A representative from VERIO came to explain that the transition would allow our company to remain as digitalNATION. Our managers stayed, but the branding became “digitalNATION, a VERIO company”. I kept my dn.net email address. Shortly after I left, the transition to VERIO was completed publicly.

I remember one of the running jokes back then was a guy who claimed he worked for four different companies in his career while sitting at the same desk. Corporate buyouts shared a place in the tech industry. Another joke was about people in the tech industry never seeing the light of day because they were always working late into the night.

Our CEO was known to get into his 4×4 on snowy days to pick up employees at their homes and bring them to work.

I remember hearing rumors that the CEO was unhappy that he didn’t know everyone in the company. That so many people had been hired after the acquisition meant he never got to know his employees as he had when the company was small.

Daily Commute

The daily commute was a bit long, usually around an hour. As I got closer to work and crossed the highway, some of my co-workers would offer me a ride to the office, which by then was less than a block away at about 2,000 feet.

I continued to have a few issues with my health, but nothing that I can recall was eventful at work – unless that is why the VP drove me home. It’s hard to remember what the occasion was. However, during my time at digitalNATION, I bought my first cell phone so I could dial for help when I needed it, since I would be walking for two hours a day with no way to call. I saw a flip phone in a TV ad, and I waited in line outside Best Buy to buy it as soon as the store opened. At the time, “smartphones” were just PDA’s the size of bricks.

Highway Interchange

There was one about highways, where I needed to run regular expressions to ensure that various parts of the text, such as magazine article references, were properly linked. Still, the client was inconsistent in how they cited those articles, and the code became unmanageable. I recall them saying the average person is unaware of how often manhole covers pop into the air, but in her line of work, she was getting reports almost daily.

I worked on many other sites as well. A few come to mind, but I’m leaving them out here.

Y2K

The Y2K bug was a bit serious in 1999, given all the hype. Leading up to it, a few of us went up to the conference room and watched Office Space, which featured a programmer working on software to address the Y2K bug. It was both hilarious and depressing to watch.

On New Year’s Eve, we stayed late at the office to be available in case anything happened. For some reason, I have a memory of the CEO wearing a king’s crown and cape, holding a scepter, and hamburgers being handed out as he grinned. There was definitely champagne, since it was my first time trying it. I didn’t expect the bubbles. It had an odd taste, but it was palatable.

That night, I was up on the roof with a few other employees. Some pot was passed around. (This night would become the last night that I ever smoked pot.) It was a nice feeling: talking, feeling the light breeze, and waiting for the fireworks countdown. We would sing Prince’s song “Party Like It’s 1999.” I had just gotten my ponytail cut at the mall that day as well, so I was feeling good about changing my appearance. We didn’t really have any concern over the Y2K issue. The servers were already tested for a rollover. We were there just for an unforeseen situation with clients.

In my childhood, I was a Jehovah’s Witness, and they were focused on the year 2000 as the end of the world. I grew up knowing that I wouldn’t live past 25, yet here I was – irresponsibly welcoming in the new year on a rooftop in the middle of the night.

Culture

The company’s culture was very different from any employer I had worked for. There was dating and hanging out. I was invited to a Moby concert at Nations, where Bad Boy Bill was also playing, and I picked up Bangin’ The Box v4. My most vivid memory is of one of the female coworkers I had a crush on seeing me and pulling me through the crowd toward the stage as Porcelain played. I’ll tell you, 28 seconds into the song, it’s the memories that dreams are made of. I didn’t date, but man – I had a crush. Nations and the area around it had a bad reputation for drugs and raves, but they didn’t have raves in the traditional sense. We would have to watch where we park, because the dealers might try to scam us into paying parking fees.

The group of us also saw a few movies like The Matrix and The Sixth Sense. At the time, these movies were game-changing. You were thinking about them quite often afterwards. The Sixth Sense was a nice thing to talk about in conversation, but The Matrix changed your perspective on quite a few things in the world – and was cool. The camera angles and special effects were terrific, as well as the soundtrack. It wasn’t just the story alone that moved you.

One of the new developers often listened to ambient music such as Aphex Twin. I became hooked not only on the music but also on the technology behind it, and I started collecting albums. People used to talk about spinning records backwards to hear the devil. This artist embedded a digital image of themselves as sound waves at the end of Equation, revealing it only in a spectrogram.

Another developer came to us from The Motley Fool. She had remembered when they brought me into a room full of the developers surrounding me in chairs. It was definitely an experience. At that company, the interview was odd. They set me alone with a task: to build a website that queries a database. The room was large, with employees packed everywhere, dimly lit by Christmas lights, and an inflatable dolphin near the ceiling. After the task, they brought me into the room. I didn’t get the job, but it was an experience I will never forget. In hindsight, they expected me to ask others for help with the task, but in my view, they gave me a task and expected me to figure it out on my own to prove my qualifications.

Meals

Not only did we see movies, but we would also go to various restaurants. Early on, I often rode with everyone else because I didn’t have transportation. I wouldn’t know where we were going, or where I was once we got there. There was one place that was an Ethiopian food. It was unique in that instead of forks, you used special bread to grab the food with your hands. I comically referred to it as Klingon food, not out of disgust, but at the curious appearance of all the bubbles in the bread and the sliver of food in the center in a dark environment. Another thing I remember is that the menu centered on a town called Christmas in Ethiopia and included a backstory about it. I wish I knew where I was, and I would welcome the experience again.

Another restaurant we went to was on 236. It was a long drive, but it was for Taco Tuesday. It was more of a drinking outing with stiff drinks. One of the employees would have a little cart in the dining area, where he would prepare tacos for you with any fixings you want. It was a big deal at the time, especially with all of the drinking that went on. Unfortunately, when you are one of the last people left in your group, you are stuck with the bill for everyone rather than just yourself. Something I wasn’t aware of, and was unprepared for. I believe it was about $300.

Our group once went to Hard Times Cafe for lunch, known for its chili. After our meal, I was about to drive off when I noticed the waitress running out to take down my license plate. I went back in to find out what was going on. She claimed that we didn’t pay. We did, but I ended up having to pay for everyone’s meal who had already paid. When I returned to work, I told my coworkers what had happened. They suggested calling the store’s manager. He offered an appetizer with our next meal. I never returned to the restaurant.

The Drawing

Soon after the acquisition, the CEO announced a drawing for all original digitalNATION employees to win a black Land Rover Discovery Series II parked in front of the building. Over the weeks (or months) leading up to this prize, the qualification date kept changing. Sometimes it was before I was employed, and sometimes after. The frustrating part was that my employment started on the day the acquisition was announced, and I felt somewhat in limbo.

Eventually, a meeting was called, and all employees were summoned to the conference room on the top floor. I don’t recall any question about when people were hired as we entered. As everyone entered the room, they were handed an envelope and told not to open it.

The CEO began to explain how the drawing would work. On the table, visible to everyone, was a safe. Inside the safe were the keys. Each person’s envelope contained a four-digit code. We would go around the room, with each employee trying to open the safe using the code in the envelope. Just as he was about to go in, the vice president interjected, saying we couldn’t do it that way. After a few unsuccessful attempts, the safe would lock itself out, regardless of whether the code was correct.

A bit disgruntled, the CEO asked everyone to hold up their envelopes, the numbers facing him. He looked at the room a few times, and then he looked at me. I opened the envelope and found a one-hundred-dollar bill and a piece of paper with a code. Everyone got $100. Walking to the safe, with everyone looking at me, and the impact of what it would mean for me, my legs felt like jello. My hands were a bit shaky as I pressed the digits, and it unlocked. Inside was a bag that had the keys. Everyone clapped and cheered, knowing of my effort to walk a few miles to work every day.

Days after were… surreal. It’s being on autopilot. You hear people talk, but you are not precisely in the moment. Your brain is still processing in the background what just happened and the implications.

Getting the Title

There was a problem acquiring the vehicle. It wasn’t exactly as stated in the title, and the keys were handed over to me. It was a weird situation that went on for what seemed to be weeks. I won the vehicle, but it wasn’t mine. I was just an employee. I never went up to the upper floor with management, let alone the CEO. I didn’t know the guy. I never had a one-on-one talk with him. I didn’t know how to address the situation, if I was being too forward if I strait up asked him for it.

I don’t know how it all worked out, but eventually I got everything I needed. I recall getting into the SUV once, starting to back up, and then pulling forward into the parking spot again. The thing drove like a boat. It was big and bulky. I tried selling it. A man and his father came by, but I didn’t know what I was doing, and the whole situation probably spooked them anyway.

The Trade

I walked into a Dodge/Chrysler dealership close to where I was living at the time. I told them I was interested in a Dodge Neon. I recall them saying that the 2000 model was available, but it was only 1999. I didn’t know they sold model years in advance until then. I handed them the title, unsigned, to look at. Again, I was way out of my element here and didn’t know how things worked.

I talked to my coworkers the next day, excited to get a car, and they had the VP speak to me. The VP was a transplant from VERIO. I hadn’t been to any of the upper management offices before. He had a flat screen monitor, which was all the rage back then. He definitely saw through the situation, just like my coworkers, but he also had the power to help.

The VP drove me to the dealership about two miles from the office, and I was shocked by how far I had been walking to work every day. It started to really sink in what my situation with commuting to work was.

We then went to the dealership to get the title back. The salesman didn’t want to, but the VP had plenty of confidence he’d cause them a bit of trouble. As we left with the title and headed back to the office, the VP admitted he didn’t think it would go well. He wasn’t as confident as I’d seen him.

We went back to his office. He said his wife was going to kill him. He wrote a check from his money market account for the vehicle. I didn’t name a price. I think he just went by the Kelly Blue Book value.

Dodge Neon

I went back and got my Dodge Neon at the same dealership. I always liked the commercials, and I was a fan of the latest one, narrated by George Carlin. Plus, they looked like the windows’ background. Where else was I going to go? I also got it with pearl coating and a car jack. If the kid’s got money, why not sell him a few options?

Life Changes

With the extra cash, I was able to change my life. I moved out of my brother’s condo and into an apartment closer to work, shared with my coworker. I bought a floor-model furniture set: a coffee table, a DVD player, a TV, and shelving. The TV wasn’t a flat-screen TV, thin like the ones we have today. Instead, the screen was flat instead of a dome, which was a big deal at the time, and it had an S-Video connection. I recall everyone being excited about Trinitron TVs with deep blacks and high resolution.

I got an ADSL router since cable internet wasn’t available yet. Knowing me, I probably purchased a new computer as well. Around that time, I usually spent around $3k on new computers. I also bought a flat-panel TFT/LCD for about $700.

I also opened an e-trade account, where you can purchase individual stocks, and they charge only a $15 commission per trade. At the time, most brokers wanted you to invest $10,000. I bought a few stocks of tech brands I was familiar with before the dot-com bubble burst. Ask Jeeves, Cisco, Microsoft, Apple, etc. I even purchased UPS since they just had their IPO. I didn’t know much about stocks. I didn’t spend too much either.

Did I splurge – yes. But I still had about $10k left over that slowly dwindled.

The Drive

Life was getting stressful. Mostly work. There was a lot of pressure to crank out work on multiple projects. The company focused more on dedicated servers, and web development was the black sheep of the family. As VERIO became more corporate, more things felt detached. The company expanded into a building across the street. It was nicer and darker, but mostly empty, a farm of cubes. I had to walk a long way to talk to anyone in that building. New people began coming in, but they were kept far apart. The company then expanded into another building for a separate data center, moving all of the server folks to the new space. As everyone was splitting apart, no one really wanted to hang out after work anymore, or it was more like they didn’t reach out to see what my plans were. Texting wasn’t big back then. It was more cost-prohibitive at 10 cents per text. And with the new buildings, we no longer had the intercom system with phones. There wasn’t anyone hanging out at the entrance when I left work any longer to chat about where to go.

One night after work, I just got in my car and drove onto 395/95 South. I was thinking of going to Potomac Mills Mall after hearing people talk about it, but I missed the exit. So I kept driving until I got tired and checked into a hotel. I woke up and just kept going south. I didn’t have a plan. Eventually, it turned into Florida as a destination. I remember it was warm in Miami. No snow. There wasn’t much further to go. I didn’t have a destination. Looking back, I should have gone to Disney World. It just wasn’t in my mind.

I returned home to find everyone in a panic, wondering where I had gone, and that they had been talking to a detective. Work was upset. I saw a psychiatrist or a therapist. One of them diagnosed me with Depression. When I went home to visit my parents in July, we were at the Mineral County Fairgrounds. We were on the stands watching mud bogging. I told my mom that they said I was depressed, and she said I had nothing to be depressed about. And that was our conversation.

I’ve never done that before, and never did it again. It’s like when your parents ask you where you want to go when you threaten to run away from home. There just isn’t anywhere to go, other than away from whatever situation you are in.

Leaving

Towards the end of my employment, I continued to feel drained by the work and by the detachment I felt from my coworkers in the new building. I had started to wise up with the median income in my area being around $65k, almost double what I was making. My brother contacted me about a startup that needed programmers and was offering a salary close to what I was looking for.

Looking back now, this job taught me as much about environments and belongings as it did about technology.