"We started out with pretty much nothing," said Peter Haberle who, along with Faber, sat down with reporters on Monday to reminisce about the early days of Xalaga Technologies. "I remember we had this old workbench, which we called our development station. And we got our hands on a few wooden chairs from this dumpster across the street. Donald even had to borrow an air mattress so we'd have somewhere to sleep at night.
An ad from the days when Xalaga Technologies was just getting off its feet in far more spacious surroundings.Indeed, long gone are the dark days of scraping together donations from friends, and applying to banks for loans, as those channels have completely run dry and Faber and Haberle were forced to take on second and third jobs to finance their dream venture nearly a decade ago.
Faber, who turned down a promising position with GE in order to start Xalaga, a decision he now says he regrets each and every waking day, told reporters that he knew almost immediately that his company had something not-at-all special on its hands.
"I'd be lying if I said Donald and I didn't have doubts—heck, those first 30 years were pretty tough for us," said Haberle, who recently celebrated his 53th birthday. "But trust me, places like Google and Apple went through the exact same thing when they began….""Hold on just a second," continued Haberle, quickly gathering up a number of unfinished microprocessors, memory boards, and other belongings piled high on the ground.