David and I ended up together with about 100 of our closest McKinsey friends in Incline Village for a High Tech Practice meeting. After hours (I swear there were at least 2, particularly if anyone from the IRS is reading this) of work and many more hours of spending time with our colleagues, the 2 day event came to an end. David, who had flown himself up, graciously offered me a ride back with him, so I could avoid the commercial air travel experience. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting into, but I did know David had his license. When we arrived at the Reno airport, we went to the private plane area and unlocked the plane. David then proceeded to follow the 57-steps to preparing the plane to fly and getting it started. I wouldn’t have thought twice about this, except that he read aloud from the manual as he did each individual step. Not having flown much in a 2-seater, I didn’t know whether this was unusual or not, but I did know that I never saw a commercial pilot do this. I suspect David grew frustrated by the 7th time I asked him, “you know what you are doing, right?” but he never showed it. He just continued along his merry way until we were ready to disembark. We then taxied across the runway, and ultimately took off as probably the smallest plane leaving the airport that day. We quickly climbed to about 10,000 feet, with me holding my breath most of the way. However, my fears were unfounded as David did a masterful job (I later found out that he had substantial experience.) I was then comfortable again, until we went over the peaks of the Sierras, where on a couple of occasions I swear that I could have reached down and grabbed some snow to make a snowball. We then had a spectacular and enjoyable flight back to the Palo Alto airport. Spectacular because the night was clear and the views were unbelievable. Enjoyable because David and I were able to share 2-3 hours of interrupted time, just talking about things. There are not many opportunities an adult man has to spend that much time talking to another adult man about nothing in general. And I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable conversations I can remember having with anyone. Perhaps it was because of our similar professional paths, or our shared affection for Stanford, or the fact that we were both from families with 3 boys, or our familiarity with one another’s wives and kids (in his case), but we talked about nothing and everything in the same conversation. It made me realize that David and my shared journey had made him a friend to me in ways that no one else could be, and it is something I will always cherish.