Alex and I go way back. I met him at Ohio State while he was running two entrepreneurial/programming clubs on campus. He started coding in high school, and 8 years later he dropped out of school to work full time at Pillar Technologies, a Columbus tech company, making a nice salary and learning a ton through experience (something most college grads yearn for).
He’s a crazy guy with all sorts of unique perspectives. Alex keeps things interesting. We discuss a lot, listed below, but there was one thing we forgot to cover…
Hack City was an online IOS development course that he and I attempted to start together, but never got off the ground because we had too much focus on building the product and not enough on acquiring customers. We both learned a ton from it. I’ll probably write a post going deeper into this experience at some point.
Also, there is another audio interruption this episode, in addition to the slightly too quiet sound (still learning this whole audio engineering thing). See if you can find it.
Topics we discuss:
Reading a book/week
10 dark years
Building your skill and portfolio
Divergent thinking and how schools kill creativity
Ready, fire, aim approach to figuring out what you’re interested in
Cognitive biases, rewiring your brain
Value first mindset
Being T-shaped
Interview tips
Building habits over time
Links mentioned
Brilliant video by Ken Robinson on How Schools Kill Creativity
Ken Robinson’s book, The Element
Isaac Morehouse and Mitchell Earl, Don’t Do Stuff You Hate
You can reach out to Alex on his website.