Tell HN: How old were you when you realized you wanted to work with technology?
I want to steer clear of directly commenting on what PG may or may not have meant in his most recent interview. It did get me wondering though about when people had that "a ha" moment that they wanted to have a career in technology. How old were you? What triggered the realization? I always thought I would work in Finance or Banking etc. However, I landed in the Bay Area in 1995 and never looked back. Working with, in and around technology has been my thing ever since (I'm not a developer). Technology companies were (are) doing the most exciting things to change the world via their products and services. Secondly, they tend to also do the most progressive things to change workplace culture. That got me hooked.
11 comments
25.
Funny, that. Since I've been writing code on a daily basis since I was 7 years old.
But the thing is, before around 1996, "Computer Programmer" was a kinda lame job in quite low demand with no real career prospect that fat bald guys did in the basement of some Fortune 500 company making a sad corporate salary and basically not having anywhere near as much fun as, say, a Mechanical Engineer. So that's what my degree is in.
Of course, anybody who's Engineered his way out of a paper sack will know that even in the early 90s that took several thousand lines of code and (back then) quite a few hours queued up on the VAX waiting for your models to run.
Now imagine you're living large in your felt cube, several floors up from those poor programmers, then suddenly somebody shows up with a ten billion dollar sack of cash saying "Hey, anybody want to double your salary?" and that the only requirement to do so was to be able to cobble together a Hello World program that output a few angle brackets.
So yeah, hey, sign me up. I'll work with technology.
Pretty smart move, looking back on it nearly 20 years later.
Funny, that. Since I've been writing code on a daily basis since I was 7 years old.
But the thing is, before around 1996, "Computer Programmer" was a kinda lame job in quite low demand with no real career prospect that fat bald guys did in the basement of some Fortune 500 company making a sad corporate salary and basically not having anywhere near as much fun as, say, a Mechanical Engineer. So that's what my degree is in.
Of course, anybody who's Engineered his way out of a paper sack will know that even in the early 90s that took several thousand lines of code and (back then) quite a few hours queued up on the VAX waiting for your models to run.
Now imagine you're living large in your felt cube, several floors up from those poor programmers, then suddenly somebody shows up with a ten billion dollar sack of cash saying "Hey, anybody want to double your salary?" and that the only requirement to do so was to be able to cobble together a Hello World program that output a few angle brackets.
So yeah, hey, sign me up. I'll work with technology.
Pretty smart move, looking back on it nearly 20 years later.
October, 1997. I was 19. I'd just arrived at university to study Broadcast Engineering with dreams of directing films, and I used the internet for the first time. I was hooked instantly, changed all my ambitions practically overnight, and never looked back. I was very fortunate that I could tailor my degree towards internet and multimedia "broadcasting" instead of video really. Good times.
I think I was probably about 19, I had started my first company at 18, I wrote my first line of code at 12 and started to leverage my knowledge of it with my company about 6 months in but I'm from Louisiana so surrounded by lots of blue collar types and honestly had no idea I could make a living in software much less a good one!
Once the company started to become profitable I started to get excited about all the possibilities and then I realized that my love for spending more time solving hard problems once and then repeating my newfound solution over and over again with minor tweaks or improvements was perfect for having a career in software.
I sold that first company and I've spent very little time as an employee but I've started three companies now and have been fortunate enough to have sold my first company and been a part of two of the best accelerator networks with the other two.
Once the company started to become profitable I started to get excited about all the possibilities and then I realized that my love for spending more time solving hard problems once and then repeating my newfound solution over and over again with minor tweaks or improvements was perfect for having a career in software.
I sold that first company and I've spent very little time as an employee but I've started three companies now and have been fortunate enough to have sold my first company and been a part of two of the best accelerator networks with the other two.
30.
During my graduate program in Economics, I was obsessed with behavioral finance but couldn't do anything with it. I thought it was too late for me to learn programming. Finally I bit the bullet and learned to code my first trading algorithm in VBA(!).
It was so liberating, because I always thought I was destined to be a thinker and not a maker.
Fast forward 5 years, I am now building a tech company (big data on social graph) to implement my economic ideas.
It was so liberating, because I always thought I was destined to be a thinker and not a maker.
Fast forward 5 years, I am now building a tech company (big data on social graph) to implement my economic ideas.
97. I was 14 at the time. I was installing Linux on old workstations on bread racks in my father's basement (where I also lived) and running distributed.net's distributed computing client to break 3DES and RC5. I've never looked back (31 now, VP of Ops).
12 or so. This was 1996 and websites were getting to be a big thing, so I taught myself basic HTML and started making websites. I didn't get into any real programming until I was 24, staying with web design until then.
i think it was '97, I was 23 and I met internet for the first time. Never programmed before. But there and then, I fell in love with computers. Sarted making music on the computers. Started doing illustrations on the computer. Learned programming.
I was in 9th grade.
Almost 30.
A poll would have been a good idea. 5 or so?
About whenever we got our NES, so about 7 or 8. When we weren't playing games, my friends and I would spend time drawing (on paper) graphics and concepts...usually to Final Fantasy derivatives.