Today is three years since Pete Ferne passed away. I didn’t know Pete for that long but in the time I did he had a considerable impact on the way I thought about my career and the wider web community. He really was a lovely bloke and stands out as the cleverest guy I’ve ever worked with.

Recently I have been thinking about Pete quite a bit. The technical challenges with my new job would have been exactly the sort of things he would have enjoyed puzzling through – and I have to figure he’d have had all sorts of questions about the inner working of the place maths geek that he was.

Also I realise with Theo moving on to new challenges that the team Pete built at Jiva has all but disappeared now. Jon is still holding the fort on a day to day basis and Kevin is clearly still involved but myself, Stef, Jamie and Ed have all long since moved on. I am a little sad about that as I remember the early excitement and enthusiasm – and the grand plans Pete had for the future of the product.

I learned more in that year at Jiva than at any other point in my long and storied career and I’ll always be grateful for that.

Anyway this is just my bloggy way of raising a glass to an absent friend. Gone but never forgotten.