# FAQ

**Who is Paul Terry Walhus?** Paul Terry Walhus is a web builder in Austin, Texas. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in December 1944, he came to Austin from California in 1980. When Sematech, the consortium of American chipmakers and the Department of Defense that revived U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, set up in Austin in 1988, he was its Manager of PC Support from 1988 to 1991, working hand in hand with Robert Noyce, the Intel co-founder and co-inventor of the integrated circuit who was Sematech's first CEO, to build the hardware, software and network platform for 700-plus assignees from a dozen chipmakers. He founded The Spring, an Austin online community and ISP, in 1990, put it on the Web as spring.com in 1996, and rebuilt it in 2026 as austinspring.com. In 2007 BuzzFeed News profiled him as the original king of Twitter. Today he builds and runs the WholeTech network, about 198 registered domains and 534 public sites, with two engines behind it: AME, which markets a site, and AWE, which designs and builds one. The Whole in WholeTech is the Whole Earth Catalog: in the 1970s and 1980s he lived on The Farm in Tennessee and in Bolinas, California, and wrote reviews for the Whole Earth Catalog and the Whole Earth Software Review, and he named his network after that ethos, access to tools. Since its early days he has been a producer and question writer for Alex Lindsay's Office Hours Global, 1,420-plus episodes and counting.

**What is the WholeTech network?** A family of about 198 registered domains and 534 public websites that Paul builds and runs from Austin, Texas. The flagship is wholetech.com. The family hubs are wholereach, wholeseo, wholeaustin, wholeatx, wholetexas, wholevoyage, wholehomebuild, wholemagnetics and wholetx, with clusters across local Texas, media, realty, magnetics, coworking, travel, robotics, tributes and more. Every site is built Agents First, so it is as readable by an AI agent as by a person.

**What did he do at Sematech?** He was Sematech's Manager of PC Support from 1988 to 1991, working hand in hand with Robert Noyce, Sematech's first CEO, to devise the hardware, software and network platform for more than 700 assignees from a dozen chipmakers: over $10 million of equipment (IBM PS/2 Model 70s and 80s, Compaqs, HP and NEC printers, Sun workstations), the first Sun Microsystems dealership in Austin, and a seven-technician service team. It began with a cold call from Jay Cash, Sematech's purchaser, while Paul was selling for ComputerLand. His office was next door to Noyce's.

**Where did he work before the network?** City planning in Louisville and Minneapolis (1970s); BPI Systems (1977 to 1987); ComputerLand, Entre and MicroAge sales (1987 to 1990); Sematech (1988 to 1991); International Computer Systems and The Spring (1990 to 1996); Haystack Labs (1996 to 1997); TradeWave (1997 to 1998); IBM/Tivoli (1998 to 2000); Unix administration for clients (2000 to 2002); WholeTech.com (2002 to 2007); AustinSpring.com and TexasCoworking.com (2007 to now). The career page has the resume.

**Why is it called WholeTech?** After the Whole Earth Catalog. In the 1970s and 1980s Paul lived on The Farm in Tennessee and in Bolinas, California, and wrote reviews for Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog and the Whole Earth Software Review (1984 to 1985). Its ethos, access to tools and whole-systems thinking, is the ethos of the network; he registered wholetech.com in 1999 and named the network after it in 2026. The WELL grew out of the same community, and The Spring was his Austin answer to the WELL.

**What was the Hotel San José job?** For 2006 to 2007 he was the IT guy at the Hotel San José on South Congress in Austin, working for its owner, Liz Lambert: the hotel's wifi, its reservation system, the point-of-sale systems at both Jo's Coffee locations, and Liz Lambert's own Mac and iPhone. Rock bands stayed there, the Talking Heads among them, and he ended up at parties with the cast of The L Word. Pretty wild, in his words.

**Was he really the king of Twitter?** In 2007, the year Twitter launched at SXSW in Austin, Slate, The New York Times and Salon named him the most popular man on the service, and BuzzFeed News later profiled him as the original king of Twitter. He is @springnet.

**What was spring.com?** The Spring began in 1990 as a dial-in community and ISP he founded (5,175 members by 1996) and went onto the Web as spring.com in 1996, before Facebook or Reddit; it ran until 2014, later as spring.net and austinspring.com. In 2026 he rebuilt it at austinspring.com on ATXbbs, open-source BBS software written for the job, with the original archive alongside a live community.

**Does he build sites for other people?** Yes. Small businesses are the heart of it: this month's example is Leadville Offroad Adventures and its sister site Sledville. The Automated Web Engine (AWE) is how a site gets built to the house design bar, and its free Concierge runs in the browser with no cloud costs. Start on the contact page.

**Where is he?** Austin, Texas. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in December 1944, and came to Austin from California in 1980.

**Is this his official site?** Yes. walhus.com is Paul Terry Walhus's own site, in his own name, written by him with help. The tribute sites he builds (charlespetrie.com, firthfan.com, austen.com, ryanholidayfans.com, tednelsonfan.com, toscagruber.com) are separate and say so.

**What is Agents First?** A design principle and a scorer (agentsfirst.dev): a site should be as usable by an AI agent as by a person, with an AGENTS.md contract, llms.txt, a Markdown twin of every page, structured data and a robots.txt that welcomes agents. Every site on the WholeTech network is built to it, and this one publishes an MCP server card and an OpenAPI description of its read-only data.

**How does he build so many sites?** Real content first: the owner's pages, the public record, the subject's own writing. The Automated Web Engine (AWE) audits a site against the house design bar and builds to a preview; the Auto Marketing Engine (AME) proposes the marketing and waits for approval. Paul reviews, fixes and ships, from one desk in Austin, on a flat-rate subscription with no per-token billing.

**What is afterhours.party?** His own scrappy, unofficial 'outlaw' side project, run, in his words, by someone who has an awkward time keeping up with the media pros over on Office Hours. It is not affiliated with Office Hours Global and does not represent its community; it is one member's side door. Members sign in; nothing is sold.

**Can I use his material?** Text on this site may be quoted with attribution to walhus.com. The graphics are hand-drawn SVG and may be reused with credit. The tribute sites carry their own credits for photographs.

**What is not on this site?** His family history, photographs, diary and personal dates. Those are private and stay private. What is public: born St. Louis, Missouri, December 1944; Austin, Texas since 1980; the work.