I guess this means I'm still an entrepreneur at heart. I promised the team that when Email Center Pro reached its first major milestone, I'd shave off my beard. And that happened today — both the milestone and the beard.

This is a team effort, so there's a lot of team symbolism.  I think it's good for a company. Email Center Pro has 4,000 users now, so I shaved the beard. So did Jason Gallic, product manager, and Curt Barnes, IT manager (shaved their beards, I mean, not mine). Cale Bruckner, head of product development, is dying his hair blue. Several others are now returning to Dr. Pepper, or caffeine, or desserts, and so on.

For the record, I've had a beard for almost exactly 25 years, since 1984, about a year after I went on my own with my own company. I shaved it once in 1993, while in Tokyo consulting for Apple Japan. My youngest daughter, then 6, now 21, had a clearly negative reaction to it; so I grew it back starting the same day I got home.

And it's not an easy step to take. I deserve a lot of credit. In 25 years you get used to hair on the face.