Mafia CITY H5: How a parlour game became a tech phenomenon


O'Reilly Media is the biggest name in tech publishing, and the men gathered round its boardroom table this July morning in 2008 are typical of the mavens who frequent its Sebastopol, California, HQ. Here is Brian Fitzpatrick, head of engineering at Google Chicago; Rich Gibson, an O'Reilly author and member of the GigaPan panoramic camera project; and Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. Just another networking day in Silicon Valley, then.

Except the workday doesn't begin for hours -- it's 6am, and no one has slept. Fitzpatrick Segwayed into the room three hours ago, and hasn't left. Tempers have frayed, and language has descended into the gutter. Wales is making wild accusations. Fitzpatrick is begging and pleading. Gibson, overwhelmed by the pressure, lets out a scream and starts pelting the others with pretzels. No one is drunk or under any narcotic influence, and yet all three men are moments away from what Fitzpatrick will later describe as "a mindfuck". A year on, Gibson concurs. "It left me with the sense that one of my basic anchors on reality had been ripped loose," he recalls. Wales still talks about the all-nighter with reverent awe:"It was amazing. It was a work of art. It was a thing of beauty."