An interview with John Williams

To give you some more background information regarding John Williams, I've posted the following interview, which originally appeared on the Ken Sent Me website. Click on the link for the complete interview. The entire interview has two interesting questions for readers:

Who are you, and what do you do, at Sierra?
I'm John Williams and I run Sierra's Magazine which is called InterAction. InterAction is published 4 times each year and has a circulation of just a little less than one million per issue. If you buy and register your Sierra games, you should get InterAction. I've worked at Sierra for 17 years now. (I'm employee number 001.) Sierra founder Ken Williams is my brother.

How is a typical day of working at Sierra?
Sierra is hectic. The company moves fast. If you show up here on Saturday you'll find the office is full of people just like any other day, and even on Sunday there are lots of people here when I come in after church.

Sierra is an interesting place to work because everyone here is highly creative - even the traditionally boring people like the accountants have a unique style to them. When you travel around to the various Sierra offices (and they are all over the United States and Europe now) it's not uncommon to see Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, etc. displayed in peoples offices. Other places, people have decorated their offices with the tires from Indy racecars or built highly intricate art studios for themselves. Interestingly enough, it seems like the MOST creative people are actually the ones with the least elaborate offices. Roberta, for instance, works in a little 8x8" office when she works at the office, and at home she has a simple desk next to her bed.

At Sierra, we constantly argue and fight with each other but I mean that in a good way. We argue about what's fun, what makes for the best box and what customers want. No one around here doesn't have a strong opinion - we don't have those kind of people here. It's a battle of wits and we all appreciate it. Our goal is to make sure that the best ideas get built into the product, and sometimes that means there's a bruised ego around the place, but it doesn't last long. Ultimately, it's exciting to be part of the process even when you're working on someone else's good idea.