February 27, 2024 • 46 mins
When his father cracked open the case of a Vic-20 computer, little did he know he was setting the stage for a lifelong tech odyssey. Fast forward, and here he is, sharing laughs and wisdom, demystifying the tech world one byte-sized lesson at a time. This episode peels back the layers of computer operation, programming, and the inestimable value of an engineering mindset. With his blend of expertise and approachability, Erik doesn't just talk tech; he embodies the joy of embracing your inner nerd and the camaraderie that comes with being a techie.
Ever had a 'come to Jesus' moment that made you reevaluate your life's direction? That happened to Erik post-Thanksgiving, leaving his wife and him reflecting on his transformation from high school slacker to Navy Nuclear Power trainee. It's an episode of revelations as Erik and I dissect the challenges and triumphs of his military training days and how those experiences forged the resilience and work ethic that propelled his tech career forward. We're also pulling back the curtain on those unexpected, defining moments that nudge us toward paths less traveled but rich with opportunity.
Imagine being part of someone's journey from novice to tech maven. That's the heart-swelling reality Erik and I explore in our final musings, where mentoring and genuine investment in others' success take center stage. We recount the uplifting narrative of a student turned CTO of an AI startup and ponder the beauty of collaboration in the tech sphere. This isn't just a tech talk—it's a tribute to the shared successes and the profound impact of leaving things and people better than we found them. All while grappling with the nuances of what 'better' truly means from one person to the next. So, plug in, and let's get inspired together.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erik Gross (00:00):
The specifics of the technology that you're about to
learn are a lot less importantthan a couple of senior things.
And those senior things are whatare the fundamental principles
involved in the operation of acomputer and the fundamental
principles involved in a programand the fundamental principles
of working as a team?
What are those fundamentals?
And Above all of those isyou've got to learn to think
(00:24):
like an engineer.
There are different ways ofthinking based on the activity
you're involved in in life, andone of your chief goals as you
go through this is to learn howto think like an engineer.
And that way, when you walk offinto the sunset, when you know
what this program, as technology, changes at a breakneck clip,
(00:44):
you will be well set, becauseany new development you don't
have to think your way throughit.
You're not going to rely onmemorization.
You're not going to rely on thespecific technology learned in
the bootcamp.
You're going to be able tothink with tech, and that's what
I tell them.
Oh, yeah, yeah, and I tell themthat that nerds rule the world.
You should be proud to be partof the team.
Tim Bourguignon (01:08):
Hello and welcome to Devlogger's journey,
the podcast bringing you themaking of stories of successful
software developers to help youon your upcoming journey.
I'm a host, tim Bognio.
On this episode, I receive EricCross.
Eric is an engineer, author anda career coach.
In his three decades of techexperience he built and led
(01:31):
teams in tech, started multiplesuccessful businesses, co
founded a coding bootcamp, wrotenumerous technology books and
personally coach hundreds oftech pros to career success.
Wow, eric, a warm welcome tothat journey.
Thank you, man.
I'm really glad to be here.
That's a thrill to have you onand we've been laughing for 40
(01:51):
minutes.
Wow, that has to be a record.
So yeah, yeah.
Erik Gross (01:58):
I feel like the listeners are like fully missing
out on the lunacy that justwent on for a half an hour.
Tim Bourguignon (02:04):
They are, they are, but it's just between us.
That's it, yep.
Erik Gross (02:10):
There's no record?
Tim Bourguignon (02:11):
No, absolutely not, or is there?
Oh man, I'm so excited.
Erik Gross (02:15):
I'm so excited to be here.
Oh man, I confess things to youin confidence.
Yes, you did.
Tim Bourguignon (02:21):
Yes, you did.
We'll keep that just betweenthe two of us and my nas.
But before we come to yourstory, I want to thank the
terrific listeners who supportthe show.
Every month, you are keepingthe Dev Journey lights up.
If you would like to join thisfine crew and help me spend more
(02:45):
time on finding phenomenalguests than editing audio tracks
, please go to our website,devjourneyinfo and click on the
support me on Patreon button.
Even the smallest contributionsare giant steps toward a
sustainable Dev Journey journey.
Thank you, and now back totoday's guest, eric.
As you know, the show exists tohelp the listeners understand
(03:07):
what your story looked like andimagine how to shape their own
future.
So, as a discuss on the show,let's go back to your beginnings
.
Where would you place the startof your Dev Journey?
Erik Gross (03:17):
It's about 1981.
Actually we're going to go onthe way back machine here and
for the young listeners, I'msorry, old tech alert, it's just
required For background on this.
I grew up in the middle of theRedwoods in Northern California,
like, literally at many times,no running water, no electricity
, lived in a TP, lived in a bus,like living in a VW van, the
(03:40):
classic like, yeah, the hippieexperience and everything right.
I didn't know any different andfrankly, in you know, with my
now 54 years of life I look backon it.
It was wonderful.
It actually helped shape a lotof like whatever good qualities
I have.
A lot of them came out of thatright.
But if you flash forward tolike 1981, I'm, you know, 11, 12
years old and we move into thebig city of 5,000 people and my
(04:03):
parents are not living in thewoods anymore.
I'm not and I'd always beenlike an inquisitive, nerdy kind
of kid, loved logic, puzzle.
I'd read like two or 3,000books.
At that point I was a nerdright.
Dad walks in the door one dayand he has this box and it says
Commodore on the outside.
He had a Vic-20.
If you need to Google it, gofor it Vic-20.
(04:27):
It was the first trulysuccessful mass market personal
computer.
They sold millions of them,right, and you look at its
capabilities and obviously it'sa tiny, underpowered machine.
That wasn't the point.
The point was you had apersonal computer in your house.
My dad my dad had programmed IBMmainframes in the 60s and was
(04:47):
just thrilled that the dream heand his buddies had back in the
day, decades before, had come tofruition and you could have a
computer at home.
So he bought one with money.
I have no idea where he gotbecause we did not have money
grown up and you talk about likethe beginning of my dev journey
.
This is what happened that day.
I mean he first he hooked it upto the monitor, which was your
TV, right, and he showed me howto, like you know, connect up
(05:11):
the cassette drive this is wayback in the day and load a
program in.
And here's a text editor andhere's a game you could play and
like obviously I'm blown away,this is 1981.
This is amazing tech from 1981.
But at a certain point he said,eric, that's, that's not
actually the cool part.
And he unplugged it and turnedit over and pulled out a
screwdriver, took off the backpanel and said now, let me.
(05:32):
Let me show you some things.
And from CPU through to theperipherals, the buses that
connect to all of those, downinto the instruction set that's
built into that CPU.
What binary is everything aboutthat computer?
My dad taught me that afternoon.
(05:54):
I will never forget thatafternoon, I believe that it it
changed the entire trajectory ofmy life and I'll tell you one
of the biggest things it did isit utterly removed any mystery
about the actual machine infront of me.
It went from being this cool,like wow, I'm playing
tic-tac-toe on the screen or Ican type in stuff in a text
(06:16):
editor, and like, oh, it's justa machine.
It was no longer intimidatingat all from that moment.
So that's like the beginning ofthe dev journey.
And then I was, fortunateenough we weren't that far from
Silicon Valley.
You grew up in NorthernCalifornia, you know a few
hundred miles from San Franciscoand you know the South Bay, and
so that culture drifted up thecoast and our school had a
(06:38):
really good computer lab andthere were like computer user
groups and I got involved inthat.
But that was the beginning ofthe journey.
Is that afternoon?
I have thanked my dad manytimes for that afternoon.
Tim Bourguignon (06:51):
I believe you fully.
I'm a bit younger than you, notthat much, but a little bit and
I grew up breaking Windows 3.1and then 95 and really breaking
it over and over again and nothaving any fear of breaking it
(07:12):
Because I knew each time okay, Iknow how to build that backup,
I know how it's working, I knowthe components.
I broke the PC as a machine aswell.
You get together, go runninginto in Paris on the Mongolia
Street, which is street withjust IT stores right and left.
He used to go there and buyeverything you needed, and so I
(07:34):
remember this and I wonder howkids nowadays, when they look at
an iPad and I have no idea howthis thing is built If you break
it, if you did something out ofthe sandbox and you break it,
literally, you have no way ofsetting it back together.
I wonder what it does on theintimidation, as you said?
Erik Gross (07:56):
Well, yeah, I can tell you my own personal
thoughts on that.
Is it as technology has becomeso complex and pervasive in our
society?
I really feel like there is achasm there, from the average
person just to technology, todigital technology, and it's
(08:17):
weird because everybody's got itwalking around with these
smartphones, which areessentially like a 50 million
times power, more powerful thanmy VIC-20 computer in your hand,
and yet, like the very fewpeople understand the
fundamentals of what thismachine is Right, they go out
the reservation, somethingdoesn't operate the right way
(08:38):
and the frustration level, themystery is there for them and I
can't stand that.
I'm like genuinely not okaywith the fact that that I mean
our industry has been around 70,80 years and the fact that it
isn't just completely handled inrudimentary childhood education
to remove that mystery.
That's just debacle as far asI'm concerned.
Tim Bourguignon (09:03):
Shall we go this way?
No, let's go back to you, sir.
Yeah, I agree with that Longyou're totally right.
Erik Gross (09:14):
Don't worry, my story involves trying to do
something about it.
Tim Bourguignon (09:16):
So who, then let's go there.
Did you know right away thatthat would be your life?
Erik Gross (09:21):
No, I wanted to be an architect and then a little
bit later, I wanted to be a filmproducer.
Yeah, yeah, lots of things, oneof which, okay.
So this is the first true, trueconfessions time.
We were Thanksgiving, you know,I'm here in America, so we had
Thanksgiving, you know, justabout a week and a half ago, and
(09:43):
for some reason we had friendsover and the subject of my
Performance in high school youknow, gpa, you know, grade point
average came up.
It's on a zero to four scale,right, 4.0 is really really good
.
3.0 is just about average.
2.0 is oh my word, yourknuckles drag on the ground.
My graduating GPA in highschool was 2.43.
(10:09):
So not that great, not thatgreat at all.
Now I've been married my wifefor 16, almost 17 years, and
that came out in a conversationwith some friends.
We're sitting around thecampfire and she just turns and
looks at me.
I mean, you've been around, wasyou've been with?
Someone said 16 years.
There aren't a lot ofsurprising pieces of data to
find out and I swear I told herthat I really did right.
(10:33):
But um, yeah, that's the firsttrue confession.
Thing is like I Didn't reallysell in high school at all.
Now, computers were a constantall the way through it.
You know, I was in that.
I worked in the computer laball the time.
I was like the, the teacher'sassistant or whatever they're
gonna call it in the high schoolrealm.
I was programming from age 11onward.
(10:54):
But no, I was gonna go like,either into architecture or into
the creative arts in film waswhat I thought, and we don't
have near enough time to talkabout it.
But we made a lot of films andthey were a lot of fun.
So but yeah, no, I didn't endup going that route and of
course you graduate with thatkind of a great point average.
You're not going to any kind ofa decent college.
(11:16):
So I'm gonna hold differentroute, especially for being a
hippie and I went into thenuclear power section of the
Navy.
Tim Bourguignon (11:25):
Okay, yeah, that's quite the opposite.
Erik Gross (11:27):
Yeah, that's a pivot .
Tim Bourguignon (11:29):
That's a pivot.
Did you?
Did you decide on going thisroute?
I mean the army, but going intotech in the army.
Erik Gross (11:37):
Navy.
It was a very consciousdecision.
My dad had been in the Navyback in Vietnam, my grandfather
had been in the Navy.
I'd never once considered it.
Like I said, I grew up the sonof hippies in the middle of the
Redwood Forest, like themilitary was, like it was never
bad mouth, but it was not partof that culture.
And the recruiters came to tothe school once at the beginning
(12:00):
, like some beginning of oursenior year, and it's when I
found out about the Nuclearpower program and specifically
the electronics technicianprogram within it that my eyes
sort of lit up.
Because here's Science andengineering and nerdiness and
(12:21):
problem-solving and electronicsand all this stuff combined in
one area and it was very elite.
And they were telling me thatthe training you go through is
Incredibly comprehensive andvery hard.
And I, even at that age I knewthat I Thrive when I'm put into
a situation where I have toperform.
Hmm, like I'll respond to thatif you can, at that age at least
(12:43):
.
If you leave me to my owndevices, I'll just go off and
play a D&D all day, yeah.
Tim Bourguignon (12:53):
But you chose to go a different route and and
put yourself on the spot andreally be in in a position to
really learn and be forced tolearn.
Erik Gross (13:02):
Yeah, I did and it's a really, really good thing I
did.
I mean, I can talk about all ofthe benefits the training has,
you know, in the Navy gave me,but there's like a specific
moment that Turned into like ahallmark of my life Every day
afterwards what you go through,boot camp, which is kind of
(13:24):
rough, you know people yellingat you for not making your bed
well enough, which is prettyinteresting.
Then I went through electronicsSchool, which was just a blast.
I mean all the way down to thebare silicon of how digital
circuits work.
Every.
I mean that.
Here's the thing.
The training in the military hasone focus, and one fake focus
only, which is Applying theinformation you learn in the
(13:47):
real world.
There's no fluff in militarytraining, especially when
they're gonna make people,they're gonna be responsible for
operating a nuclear reactor.
You need to understand thisstuff at your core and
especially what to do for everygiven situation.
And since you can't predictevery given situation, you have
to know how to think with thedata and the military.
(14:09):
The Navy schools were very goodat that.
So I went through electronicschool.
Everything's going fine.
I did really really well.
Right again, it's a regimentedhigh pressure situation, but I
didn't know what pressure wasuntil I got done with electronic
school and went to the actualnuclear power school.
Now, if you look this thing uponline now, it's actually called
the Naval Nuclear PropulsionSchool.
(14:29):
It is still ranked as the mostrigorous academic institution in
the American military.
It is Unbelievably highpressure.
At the time I went there theyhad a 14% failure rate and a 1%
suicide rate.
Yeah, not to bring theconversation down, but it was
very high pressure.
And here's the thing I got.
It was a six month program andI was about a month and a half
(14:51):
in and I was Absolutely hittinga wall.
And was hitting a wall on onesubject, which is mathematics.
I'm a bright person.
You wouldn't know it to look atmy GPA in high school.
I'm a bright person.
But all the way through highschool math was a problem and it
was really Biting me in thebehind in this program and it
(15:13):
was.
It got to the point where I forthe first moment thought Am I
going to actually make it?
And it forced me to look atwhat are the consequences.
I got myself into the situationwhat happens if I quit or I'm
kicked out?
And here's the thing you had tojoin for not the normal four
years when you enlisted in themilitary, but for six years,
(15:36):
because they're going to investall this time and effort and
training into you and if youfail out of the school you don't
suddenly drop down to thefour-year level.
They've still got you for sixand you're probably going to go
out to the fleet and chip painton the side of the ship.
That kind of a job.
I can't tell you how much Ididn't want to do that.
No offense against people thatare like that role and
(16:00):
maintenance is super importantTo this day.
I love fixing broken things.
I totally get it, but I didn'twant to do that.
And so I remember a weekendwhere I really just had to like
there's nobody can get youthrough this, but you and I
decided that I was going to makeit and I just pushed through.
(16:20):
I learned math.
I learned it really really well.
I just went back to basics andone of my missing, one of my
misunderstanding right and I gotthrough it and did really
really well.
I graduated in top 10% of myclass and then went on to be an
instructor in nuclear powertraining facilities.
But that moment it served me ingood stead whenever you least
(16:45):
expect it later in life.
At the end of the day, you areresponsible for your condition
in life and I knew that if Iquit or if I quote unquote got
kicked out, both of them wouldhave been my responsibility and
I finally kind of rose to theoccasion.
Tim Bourguignon (17:02):
That's a great learning, and especially to get
it quite early in your career.
Really, this, this moment ofrecognition.
Erik Gross (17:09):
Yeah, that is really great.
I did the right thing joiningthe service.
I did the right thing.
I'll tell you that.
Tim Bourguignon (17:16):
So you stayed six years with yummy, or do you
pursue your career in the armyfor a while?
Erik Gross (17:22):
I was again.
It was a Navy.
Sorry yeah, sorry Right.
The American military memberswho are listening to this will
totally understand why I'mmaking that distinction.
There's nothing wrong with thearmy.
I'm not going to even get intothat game.
But no yeah, I did six fullyears.
I went two years of schoolingand then two years as an
instructor at a nuclear powerprototype out in the middle of
(17:45):
the desert in Idaho.
There's a submarine in thedesert in Idaho that I operated
that's a whole different story,right and then two years out in
the fleet stationed out of thewest coast of America, went over
to Australia and Saudi Arabiaand all kinds of stuff.
It was very, very cool.
Tim Bourguignon (18:02):
I can imagine that.
And so what did you do afterthat?
Erik Gross (18:07):
You know it's interesting to talk about the
developer's journey.
I stayed away from technologywhen I first got out.
I had spent all that timeimmersed in machines and science
and staring at a reactor plantcontrol panel and as I was
getting close to the end, I juststarted looking what do I want
(18:28):
to do when I get out?
And I wanted to deal withpeople more than I wanted to
deal with machines.
And so I started in the yearbefore I was going to be done,
looking at like what do I moveinto?
And I settled on insurance,financial services, sales, like
things where I could work withpeople.
(18:49):
And so when I initially got out, I moved into that sales realm.
We could do a whole podcast onmy seven years selling
sunglasses all around the world,and if any of my friends listen
to this podcast, I can't tellyou how far they're going to
roll their eyes into the back oftheir head because they've
heard all the sunglass stories.
(19:11):
But here's the thing is in everysingle role I took for the next
decade or so, I ended up beingthe technology guy, like in that
sunglass sales company.
Early days in the internet andthe web and e-commerce, they
said hey, eric, you know aboutthese computers and stuff.
Can you make us our firstwebsite so we can have a catalog
online?
So I'm like, all right, htmland CSS.
(19:32):
I'm like, okay, how do I dothis?
And upload the catalog and allthat kind of stuff.
Right.
And later on, when I was sellingof all things flooring, carpet,
vinyl, tile, hardwood, all thatkind of stuff we had really
complex software that was neededto be able to manage $60
million a year in sales.
And when they did a hugeupgrade to that software package
, the internal resources fortechnologists were zero.
(19:55):
This is a carpet sales company.
And I had already raised myhand and said well, I kind of
know this stuff.
They're like come here, you'reon a special project.
So I just kept working in techat every company, even though I
wasn't really working in tech.
So the developer journey took aweird detour for a while and
did so honestly, until about2011.
Tim Bourguignon (20:18):
Wow, before we continue there, were you
actively working against it orjust not pursuing it?
Erik Gross (20:24):
Well, I'll tell you the truth, and this is I know
I'm going to feel like an idiotsaying this I legitimately
didn't know how much moneypeople made in the industry all
the way through that period.
Like, look I was, I got out ofthe Navy in 94, right, and that
was like the beginning of theramp up of software developers
(20:44):
and engineers being this reallysolid career path.
And I got out of the Navy andI'd missed all that occurring.
Then I went off sellingsunglasses all around the world
and missed all of that occurring, and I only ended in 2000 when
the dot com bubble burst andnobody wanted to go near tech.
So I just sort of ignored it.
(21:04):
Even though I love computers tomy core and I would use them
for everything I was doingpersonally, I honestly wasn't
aware of the softwaredevelopment industry very much,
and so I wasn't actively goingaway from it, which is all the
more embarrassing thing becauseI just didn't know it was there.
And when I found out it wasthere one I was super happy.
(21:29):
Two I was kicking myself.
Tim Bourguignon (21:31):
To tell you the truth, I'm sure what you
learned before that reallyhelped you transition and have
the life you didn't, so youshouldn't.
Yeah, it does, it did Badmouthed, but ouch, yeah, ouch.
So take us to 2011.
What happened?
(21:55):
What took you to finallyrealizing okay, there is this
industry I've been willingly orunwillingly ignoring and that
has been shouting in my facethat I should come back to it
and finally say, okay, screw it,let's get in there.
Erik Gross (22:14):
Am I allowed to swear on this podcast?
Tim Bourguignon (22:16):
Absolutely.
Erik Gross (22:22):
Very few people know this story and I'm going to put
it on a podcast.
Great, you hit 2011 and I wasreally not doing well.
I was making very little money,you know, for listeners in
America.
I was making about $38,000 ayear.
I had lost several jobs,couldn't keep one, I had a
(22:42):
couple of failed businessesunder my belt, I was letting
people down left and right, andI had a conversation one day
with a friend the kind of friendwho and I hope, every single
person has a friend like this inyour life, where they can tell
(23:03):
you the things that you need tohear but don't want to hear.
He pulled me into a room, shutthe door and sat down and said
Eric, it's bullshit that youdon't make a lot of money.
He said you're probably thesmartest person I know.
(23:27):
There's areas that you knowabout that are unbelievably
valuable.
The way your mind works isincredible.
But he wasn't saying any ofthose things as praise.
They were damning Because hewas right I was letting people
down and I'd been here my wholelife.
(23:50):
The not living up to yourpotential kind of you know
speech that we've probably allheard in certain ways, but to
hear it when you are 42 yearsold.
It was a very, very difficultfive or 10 minutes.
But the point where it reallyhit and this is the part that
(24:16):
nobody knows is that he said tome your wife is an incredibly
amazing person and veryforgiving, but how long do you
think she's going to put up withthis?
And it was just like someonewalked up and punched me right
(24:39):
in the thorax and when you getthe breath knocked out of you,
it hit really, really hard.
So that was like the moment,man, that was like the moment.
And so for about a week I'm ina fog like what the hell do I do
(24:59):
about this?
Because he's right.
And so I was on a long driveabout an hour and a half long
drive with a good friend and Ijust started to download all
this stuff.
And so he just startedbrainstorming with me like well,
what can you do?
Like, what do you have?
What skills do you have thatpeople pay a lot of money for
(25:19):
and it's a free formconversation.
The whole subject of softwareprogramming, development came up
and went oh, I was in themilitary.
There's this.
You know, they pay for youreducation when you get out of
the service.
I could go back to school andbecome a computer programmer.
And then it hit me thosebenefits expire 10 years after
(25:40):
you get out of the service.
I don't even have thatavailable to me.
And then he said something thatlike ended up again changing
the trajectory of my life.
He said you know, I've got agood friend who's really
activist and engineer, asoftware programmer.
I don't know a lot about thatarea, but I know some.
She just talked to him.
So we called him up right therein the phone in the car and I
(26:01):
started talking to the guy aboutwhat my dilemma was and what my
background is.
And he kept asking questions.
And I'm just trying to figureout, like I don't care if it
takes a year or two or three,how do I break into this?
Because the more he told meabout what the industry looked
like, my mind is going wait, youmake how much an hour?
Wait, there's like like this isthe many jobs, right, but he
(26:22):
got we got about 20, 30 minutesin his conversation and he said
Eric, you know, I don't knowthat you need to go back to
school.
Everything you're telling meabout, like early age and Navy
and all the stuff you know, youknow the fundamentals really,
really well.
I think you just need to knowhow software is being made now,
what the principal languages areand how to do the job Really.
(26:46):
And he extended an offer of helpto me, which was incredible.
He said I'll tell you what tostudy, I'll give you the
blueprint for it.
You're going to have to burnthe midnight oil and if you can
get to a certain stage I've gotsome contracts with the state I
can help get you into one ofthese things working under me
and at least get you your firstjob.
You're going to have to drivean hour to work every day and
(27:06):
then back, and you have to getup super like.
I told him I'm willing to dowhatever.
So I went home to my wife andsaid listen, here's this
opportunity.
It probably means a lot of risk.
It's a complete change.
I'm probably going to bestaying up late for weeks,
months figuring this out, but Iwant to do it, and so I bought a
(27:31):
hundred dollar computer off ofCraigslist.
I went down to this charityplace here in America called
Goodwill.
I bought 37 technology booksfor $8 because that's how this
place is and for about 11, maybe12 days it was less than two
weeks I was up till about threeo'clock every morning, shari
(27:54):
would go to sleep and I wouldjust stay up for hours.
How is software made now?
What is this object-orientedprogramming thing that was just
coming into the forefront as Iwas moving away from things?
How do you do version control?
What is full stack development?
All these things?
I know the fundamentals he wasright but I didn't know nothing
(28:15):
about how computers and programswere made.
Nowadays.
We get into that and we'reabout at day 11 or 12, and I
just start poking around on jobboards and I put together a
little resume and I sent it outSorry, I haven't told this in a
while and a week later I get ajob $42 an hour, it's $84,000 a
(28:39):
year and it's just changed mylife and that's you know.
I was talking earlier aboutlike the idea that I was kicking
myself, like that was thekicking myself moment.
Are you telling me?
I've been limping along like anidiot in all these other areas,
(29:00):
flopping, and I was failing atleft and right, and this has
been here the whole time.
It was, it was a moment, man.
It was a lot more good than bad, don't get me wrong, so that
when you talk about like thedeveloper journey.
That's when, for the first time, I'm actually getting paid to
(29:20):
develop, even though I've beenin technology since I was 11,
basically.
Tim Bourguignon (29:26):
Man, this is great.
I mean, it's as painful to hearall this, this roller coaster
part, but it is fantastic to seeit embodied.
This, this when you don't knowwhat you don't know, you just
stuck, you have no idea, and andit's really hard to get out of
(29:49):
that.
And thankfully, sometimes youhave people around you that
nudge you in one direction oranother and at some point there
is light and there you see, ohwow, there was a thing I didn't,
didn't see.
Yeah was there.
Erik Gross (30:01):
But if you don't, that's what you're spot on and
this is one of the hallmarksthat we like.
What I now do a lot of careercoaching with people, and this
is one of the biggest things.
You're so right, and I knowthis to be true for myself and
others you don't know what youdon't know, and the best
technologists I work with allyou need to do is uncover
something and let them see it,answer any questions.
(30:23):
They have to fully understandit and then they're off in a
million miles an hour.
It's one of the things I loveabout it and love about our
industry.
We are bright, inquisitive,inquisitive problem solvers and
the only time we hit a wall iswhen we just don't know the path
forward and that they just showthem the path and they're like
thank you, man, boom, and theyare gone.
(30:44):
It's awesome to see and that'show.
That's how it was for me.
I saw the path to it.
I'm like, oh, and then I doveinto it like with a vengeance,
what I learned in those firsttwo, three years, two or three
years about modern softwaredevelopment, engineering.
I would look back every sixmonths or so and go I can't
believe I know all this stuffnow, but it was like I was
(31:08):
driven.
You know what I mean?
Oh yeah, I do.
And was it rainbows and?
Tim Bourguignon (31:11):
unicorns the last 12 years.
Yes, yes, yeah.
Erik Gross (31:19):
If HP Lovecraft design a rainbow and a unicorn.
No, it's been ups and downs,you know, okay.
So here's the highlights andthen the low lights, like.
The highlights are that in thattime I've gotten experience as
just a pure contractor the purecontractor play, where you're
responsible for getting yourgigs.
You've got to manage everythingas a one man business, right.
(31:39):
That?
And that of course, comes withas highs and as lows.
But being exposed to atremendous number of different
business scenarios andindustries and programming, you
know difficulties and challenges, super valuable.
The downside man virtuallyevery side project ever I ever
took on ended up being workingfor peanuts because of scope
(31:59):
creep, right.
So there's highs and lows,right.
Yeah, a tremendous high is andwe literally could do an entire
podcast about it the the genesisfor the idea of the tech
Academy, which is the softwaredeveloper bootcamp I co founded,
and that whole 10 year journeybecause it's still around and
doing well.
Right, those have highs andlows.
The highs man we've helped overa thousand people break into
(32:22):
technology as like well rounded,entry level software developers
.
That's amazing.
Yeah, right, it is the lows.
The first time we had to have areduction in force.
Now, we were 21 people in theteam at that point, but these
were my friends and loved ones.
(32:42):
This is a purely bootstrappedorganization.
I knew every single one ofthese people, my co founder,
jack, and I they these are.
This is our core team.
And to have to have thatconversation with someone, whoo,
oh, yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, it hasn't beenrainbows and unicorns, but it
(33:04):
has been a journey ofprogressively greater
understanding of the technologylandscape, building my muscles
as both an engineer, as anentrepreneur, and the hallmark,
like the thread that runs allthe way through it.
I love helping people, like Ilove everyone's in a while I
(33:26):
don't know what's happened foryou, but you bump into someone
that they just don't enjoy beinghelpful to others in life.
And I'm like you have any ideawhat you're missing out on?
Man, man, watching that ahamoment.
And, more importantly, when yousee them walking unaided into
the future, like I did that,like there's nothing like it,
(33:50):
right?
So, whether I'm like, whetherI'm writing a book or designing
a curriculum or counseling anentrepreneur, like, yeah, I'm
going to make sure that I, whatI do, make sense economically
and that you know it's, you know, financially viable.
But it only works if my heartis devoted to help and I don't
(34:12):
know.
You can't fake that kind ofthing.
You know what I mean.
It's got to be there at yourheart and so that's that's.
We can talk technology and allthat kind of nerdy stuff all day
long and, believe me, I love itand I will.
Right, but I really believewe're our best when we're
helping other people.
Tim Bourguignon (34:28):
Oh, yeah, this is a.
This is something I've been.
I've been seeing again, again.
I've been nodding my headheavily the listeners cannot see
this but what I've been doingfor the past 10 minutes.
Erik Gross (34:39):
I've just been seeing a Tim Bobblehead doll.
That's all Exactly.
Tim Bourguignon (34:43):
But the thing I love the most is when people
have been leaving me or leavingthe company I was in, and and
you, just, you just see themwalking into the sunset and and
leaving you in their tracks andyou know they are off for
fantastic stories somewhere else.
But you understand, okay, they,they, they reach the end of the
(35:04):
story with you and now theyneed way, way more.
You're limiting them by keepingthem here and you see them
skyrocketing somewhere and thisis such a great feeling of
saying, hey, I was part of that.
I had maybe a little tinyeffect on that person that made
them who they are today, andthis is such a great feeling.
Erik Gross (35:24):
It is absolutely egoistical, but it's such a
great feeling and sometimes youdon't find out for a long time
the difference you made.
Right, we had a.
We had a student at the schoolthat this way back in 2015.
We had this huge initial win.
When he went through theprogram, he wasn't even done
with the program yet and he gothired at Disney and we helped a
(35:48):
lot in that right.
But I just remember, becauseit's been years, hey, we helped
the guy get hired at Disney,right.
Well, I was talking to him aboutfive or six months ago and he's
now like the CTO of anincredibly successful artificial
intelligence startup.
He's doing really, really welland I attributed a lot of it to
(36:09):
like the fact that he's just areally driven, caring, competent
person.
But he in this conversation hetold me about a, a talk we'd had
that I'd fully forgotten whenhe first realized that in his
network was someone who wasconnected directly to hiring
personnel at Disney and who hadreached out to him and said hey,
(36:33):
dude, I heard you're learningto code.
I know you from our prior workrelationship at another company
and I really just think youought to throw your hat in the
ring.
And I remember him coming to meand saying like man, erica, I'm
not even done with this program.
Like, what do I do with this?
I could either like go for thisand, yeah, pull off some
amazing win, like I'm gonna workat Disney, or I could just look
(36:55):
like a complete idiot and burna bridge.
What do I do?
And the funny thing is I don'teven remember what I told him in
that moment.
And that's why, you know, a fewmonths ago, when we were
talking, he remembered what Itold him and I didn't know it at
the time, but it helped himtremendously.
You know, you're just beingyourself, being interested in
(37:19):
the other person, caring aboutthem and helping in the moment,
and you don't know what thatmeans to them eight, 10 years
down the line.
You never know.
So just be helpful all the time.
It's my advice, not that I'vealways done that.
I can be a jerk and an idiot,don't get me wrong, you know.
(37:39):
But I think if you have that asyour hallmark, as deep interest
in other people and beingwilling to see their point of
view and always trying to leavethe person better than when they
met you, you'll probably do allright.
Tim Bourguignon (37:50):
I love what you just said Leave the person
better than when they met youWell you know that is.
Even if you don't know it.
Erik Gross (37:58):
That's the Boy Scout in me, like my way.
There's just certain thingsgetting grained right.
When you go camping in the BoyScouts, the last thing you do
before you leave is you walkaround and you police the
grounds.
And this means looking over theentire situation, remembering
what it looked like when youarrived and making sure that, no
matter what you do, it looksbetter than when you arrived.
(38:20):
And we did that over and overand over again, to the point
where this is ingrained.
When we enter any space, I amand I only realize this when I'm
doing it I'm subconsciouslyscanning the ground and the
surroundings and as we leave,before I even know I'm reaching
down, I'm picking the garbage upoff the ground and walk, you
(38:40):
know, and put it in the garbage.
I it's not even like, ooh, I'mawesome, I don't even think
about it.
It's just kind of ingrained bythe Boy Scouts, right, but that
philosophy, no like.
Why wouldn't that be thehallmark you have of like?
What's your rationale forhaving lived?
How do you make that difference?
Well, I can think of worse onesthan hey, everyone I come in
(39:00):
contact with do they leave alittle bit better just for
having interacted with me.
I mean, it's a pretty goodmoral barometer or compass.
Tim Bourguignon (39:13):
But here's a curve ball coming.
How do you evaluate what isbetter for people?
Erik Gross (39:20):
It goes back to those two things I said before.
You have to be deeplyinterested in them, genuinely.
I trained people in sales for along time and all sales people
talk too much, they don't listenenough and many of them have an
inability to adopt theviewpoint of the person they're
talking to.
And if you can put yourself intheir shoes and have it be
(39:42):
genuine, more than just like aplatitude, you start to really
see where they're coming from.
It starts from that point ofview, and you only get that by
finding something you aregenuinely interested in them
about.
You cannot fake that right Now.
You can build that muscle up,but you have to actively, when
you meet someone, find out foryourself what really interests
(40:03):
me about this person, what do Iactually admire about them,
right?
So that's where I would startwith that, because at that point
you're not going into thesituation considering that the
win of the interaction onlyrelates to you.
You're forcing yourself toconsider a two-valued
proposition.
The other person's point of viewmatters too.
(40:24):
So beyond that, we can havehours-long philosophical
discussion about it, but at theend of the day, if you're gonna
try to do the greatest good forthe greatest number of areas of
life and you include that otherperson as being part of your
life.
Well, now it kind of changesyour mental equation a little
bit.
So that's how I approach like,look, because we all of us have
(40:46):
to make decisions about what wethink is right for the other
person.
Like, you do this as a manager,right, you do this as an
instructor, as a coach, you'regonna recommend things, or even
sometimes, depending upon theorganizational structure, you're
gonna dictate or order things,and if you're not doing so with
a willingness and exercisedability to consider them in the
(41:08):
equation, you're not gonna do areally good job.
Tim Bourguignon (41:14):
And if you are, this is an injurgency.
I'm not sure that's the rightword, Basically forcing your own
will on somebody else orforcing your view of the world
on somebody else.
Erik Gross (41:26):
Yeah, and it's revolting.
Look, we all have things whenthey get done, we have goals and
purposes.
But life is a collaborativeexercise, man, it really is.
It is like you know the wholeno man as an island.
Look, you can get through lifeand in certain emergency
situations with that kind of anattitude, but as a long-term
operating basis, those peopledon't win long-term.
Tim Bourguignon (41:52):
I love that.
Life is a collaborativeexercise.
Yeah, it never hurts.
It put it this way, man, itmakes so much sense.
Eric, when you picture thegreen students of that bootcamp,
is there something you alwaystell them, an advice that you
(42:12):
put in front of all the studentswhen they first come in and
when they face this program?
I don't know how long threemonths, four months with your
bootcamp.
Erik Gross (42:21):
Yeah, yeah.
Typical bootcamps are aboutfour to six months, depending
upon how much time they can putinto them.
I love this question.
The thing that I would sit downand tell them is that the
specifics of the technology thatyou're about to learn are a lot
less important than a couple ofsenior things.
And those senior things arewhat are the fundamental
(42:43):
principles involved in theoperation of a computer and the
fundamental principles involvedin a program and the fundamental
principles of working as a team?
What are those fundamentals?
And above all of those isyou've got to learn to think
like an engineer.
There are different ways ofthinking based on the activity
(43:03):
you're involved in in life, andone of your chief goals as you
go through this is to learn howto think like an engineer.
And that way, when you walk offinto the sunset, when you know
what this program as technologychanges at a breakneck clip, you
will be well set, because anynew development you don't know
how to think your way through it.
You're not going to rely onmemorization, You're not going
(43:25):
to rely on the specifictechnology learned in the
bootcamp.
You're going to be able tothink with tech, and that's what
I tell them.
Tim Bourguignon (43:33):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Erik Gross (43:35):
And I tell them that nerds rule the world.
You should be proud to be partof the team.
Tim Bourguignon (43:42):
Amen to that.
This has been a fantastic andliteral roller coaster with you.
Erik Gross (43:50):
It has been, and I'm sure that afterwards I'm
probably just going to have aglass of whiskey to get over the
fact that I shared some of thatstuff with you.
But no, in all honesty, if itends up helping someone out
there, then I'm happy to haveshared it.
The truth is that the publicpersona that people kind of put
out to the world is never thefull picture.
(44:11):
There's lots of things I've putout there about successes.
The truth is I'm just likeanybody else.
I've had the ups and downs,I've made the mistakes, and I
just want people to know thatand this is the last thing I'll
say is that one thing that Ihave developed over time is the
certainty that I will never staydown.
(44:33):
I'll get knocked down.
Life will kick me behind.
The one thing I have learned toknow about myself is I will
never refuse to get back upagain, and if you just adopt
that and just keep practicing it, man, your life changes.
The sky is limit, yeah.
Tim Bourguignon (44:51):
Thank you so much, Absolutely.
Erik Gross (44:53):
Thank you, man.
I love this.
This is a really really goodconversation.
Tim Bourguignon (44:57):
It was indeed.
Where would be the best placeto continue that discussion with
you?
Erik Gross (45:02):
OK, so the online the best place to go is
yourcareerarchitectcom.
This is where I have a lot ofinformation about what I do
online Yourcareerarchitectcom.
But the bestest bestest placeis to go to
yourcareerarchitectcom Slashmost valuable knowledge.
One of the things I lovehelping people with is
(45:22):
identifying, out of all thevaluable skills and knowledge
they have, where's theintersection of true passion,
deep skill and actual value inthe marketplace.
And if they go to that locationthey'll find a free book that
will help them through thatprocess.
Yourcareerarchitectcom slashmost valuable knowledge.
Tim Bourguignon (45:46):
And we'll put that in the show notes as well.
Just scroll down and clickAwesome, and it'll be there.
Awesome.
Anything else you want to plugin?
Erik Gross (45:55):
I really appreciate what you're doing.
I sincerely appreciate whatyou're doing for the technology
world.
It's fantastic.
Tim Bourguignon (46:00):
Thank you, eric , it's been a blast.
Erik Gross (46:04):
Awesome.
Thanks, man.
Tim Bourguignon (46:05):
And this has been another episode of Day of
the Post Journey.
I will see you there next week.
Bye-bye.
Thanks a lot for tuning in.
I hope you have enjoyed thisweek's episode.
If you like the show, pleaseshare, rate and review.
It helps more listenersdiscover those stories.
You can find the links to allthe platforms the show appears
(46:27):
on on our website devjourneyinfoslash subscribe.
Talk to you soon.
The specifics of the technology that you're about to
learn are a lot less importantthan a couple of senior things.
And those senior things are whatare the fundamental principles
involved in the operation of acomputer and the fundamental
principles involved in a programand the fundamental principles
of working as a team?
What are those fundamentals?
And Above all of those isyou've got to learn to think
(00:24):
like an engineer.
There are different ways ofthinking based on the activity
you're involved in in life, andone of your chief goals as you
go through this is to learn howto think like an engineer.
And that way, when you walk offinto the sunset, when you know
what this program, as technology, changes at a breakneck clip,
(00:44):
you will be well set, becauseany new development you don't
have to think your way throughit.
You're not going to rely onmemorization.
You're not going to rely on thespecific technology learned in
the bootcamp.
You're going to be able tothink with tech, and that's what
I tell them.
Oh, yeah, yeah, and I tell themthat that nerds rule the world.
You should be proud to be partof the team.
Tim Bourguignon (01:08):
Hello and welcome to Devlogger's journey,
the podcast bringing you themaking of stories of successful
software developers to help youon your upcoming journey.
I'm a host, tim Bognio.
On this episode, I receive EricCross.
Eric is an engineer, author anda career coach.
In his three decades of techexperience he built and led
(01:31):
teams in tech, started multiplesuccessful businesses, co
founded a coding bootcamp, wrotenumerous technology books and
personally coach hundreds oftech pros to career success.
Wow, eric, a warm welcome tothat journey.
Thank you, man.
I'm really glad to be here.
That's a thrill to have you onand we've been laughing for 40
(01:51):
minutes.
Wow, that has to be a record.
So yeah, yeah.
Erik Gross (01:58):
I feel like the listeners are like fully missing
out on the lunacy that justwent on for a half an hour.
Tim Bourguignon (02:04):
They are, they are, but it's just between us.
That's it, yep.
Erik Gross (02:10):
There's no record?
Tim Bourguignon (02:11):
No, absolutely not, or is there?
Oh man, I'm so excited.
Erik Gross (02:15):
I'm so excited to be here.
Oh man, I confess things to youin confidence.
Yes, you did.
Tim Bourguignon (02:21):
Yes, you did.
We'll keep that just betweenthe two of us and my nas.
But before we come to yourstory, I want to thank the
terrific listeners who supportthe show.
Every month, you are keepingthe Dev Journey lights up.
If you would like to join thisfine crew and help me spend more
(02:45):
time on finding phenomenalguests than editing audio tracks
, please go to our website,devjourneyinfo and click on the
support me on Patreon button.
Even the smallest contributionsare giant steps toward a
sustainable Dev Journey journey.
Thank you, and now back totoday's guest, eric.
As you know, the show exists tohelp the listeners understand
(03:07):
what your story looked like andimagine how to shape their own
future.
So, as a discuss on the show,let's go back to your beginnings
.
Where would you place the startof your Dev Journey?
Erik Gross (03:17):
It's about 1981.
Actually we're going to go onthe way back machine here and
for the young listeners, I'msorry, old tech alert, it's just
required For background on this.
I grew up in the middle of theRedwoods in Northern California,
like, literally at many times,no running water, no electricity
, lived in a TP, lived in a bus,like living in a VW van, the
(03:40):
classic like, yeah, the hippieexperience and everything right.
I didn't know any different andfrankly, in you know, with my
now 54 years of life I look backon it.
It was wonderful.
It actually helped shape a lotof like whatever good qualities
I have.
A lot of them came out of thatright.
But if you flash forward tolike 1981, I'm, you know, 11, 12
years old and we move into thebig city of 5,000 people and my
(04:03):
parents are not living in thewoods anymore.
I'm not and I'd always beenlike an inquisitive, nerdy kind
of kid, loved logic, puzzle.
I'd read like two or 3,000books.
At that point I was a nerdright.
Dad walks in the door one dayand he has this box and it says
Commodore on the outside.
He had a Vic-20.
If you need to Google it, gofor it Vic-20.
(04:27):
It was the first trulysuccessful mass market personal
computer.
They sold millions of them,right, and you look at its
capabilities and obviously it'sa tiny, underpowered machine.
That wasn't the point.
The point was you had apersonal computer in your house.
My dad my dad had programmed IBMmainframes in the 60s and was
(04:47):
just thrilled that the dream heand his buddies had back in the
day, decades before, had come tofruition and you could have a
computer at home.
So he bought one with money.
I have no idea where he gotbecause we did not have money
grown up and you talk about likethe beginning of my dev journey
.
This is what happened that day.
I mean he first he hooked it upto the monitor, which was your
TV, right, and he showed me howto, like you know, connect up
(05:11):
the cassette drive this is wayback in the day and load a
program in.
And here's a text editor andhere's a game you could play and
like obviously I'm blown away,this is 1981.
This is amazing tech from 1981.
But at a certain point he said,eric, that's, that's not
actually the cool part.
And he unplugged it and turnedit over and pulled out a
screwdriver, took off the backpanel and said now, let me.
(05:32):
Let me show you some things.
And from CPU through to theperipherals, the buses that
connect to all of those, downinto the instruction set that's
built into that CPU.
What binary is everything aboutthat computer?
My dad taught me that afternoon.
(05:54):
I will never forget thatafternoon, I believe that it it
changed the entire trajectory ofmy life and I'll tell you one
of the biggest things it did isit utterly removed any mystery
about the actual machine infront of me.
It went from being this cool,like wow, I'm playing
tic-tac-toe on the screen or Ican type in stuff in a text
(06:16):
editor, and like, oh, it's justa machine.
It was no longer intimidatingat all from that moment.
So that's like the beginning ofthe dev journey.
And then I was, fortunateenough we weren't that far from
Silicon Valley.
You grew up in NorthernCalifornia, you know a few
hundred miles from San Franciscoand you know the South Bay, and
so that culture drifted up thecoast and our school had a
(06:38):
really good computer lab andthere were like computer user
groups and I got involved inthat.
But that was the beginning ofthe journey.
Is that afternoon?
I have thanked my dad manytimes for that afternoon.
Tim Bourguignon (06:51):
I believe you fully.
I'm a bit younger than you, notthat much, but a little bit and
I grew up breaking Windows 3.1and then 95 and really breaking
it over and over again and nothaving any fear of breaking it
(07:12):
Because I knew each time okay, Iknow how to build that backup,
I know how it's working, I knowthe components.
I broke the PC as a machine aswell.
You get together, go runninginto in Paris on the Mongolia
Street, which is street withjust IT stores right and left.
He used to go there and buyeverything you needed, and so I
(07:34):
remember this and I wonder howkids nowadays, when they look at
an iPad and I have no idea howthis thing is built If you break
it, if you did something out ofthe sandbox and you break it,
literally, you have no way ofsetting it back together.
I wonder what it does on theintimidation, as you said?
Erik Gross (07:56):
Well, yeah, I can tell you my own personal
thoughts on that.
Is it as technology has becomeso complex and pervasive in our
society?
I really feel like there is achasm there, from the average
person just to technology, todigital technology, and it's
(08:17):
weird because everybody's got itwalking around with these
smartphones, which areessentially like a 50 million
times power, more powerful thanmy VIC-20 computer in your hand,
and yet, like the very fewpeople understand the
fundamentals of what thismachine is Right, they go out
the reservation, somethingdoesn't operate the right way
(08:38):
and the frustration level, themystery is there for them and I
can't stand that.
I'm like genuinely not okaywith the fact that that I mean
our industry has been around 70,80 years and the fact that it
isn't just completely handled inrudimentary childhood education
to remove that mystery.
That's just debacle as far asI'm concerned.
Tim Bourguignon (09:03):
Shall we go this way?
No, let's go back to you, sir.
Yeah, I agree with that Longyou're totally right.
Erik Gross (09:14):
Don't worry, my story involves trying to do
something about it.
Tim Bourguignon (09:16):
So who, then let's go there.
Did you know right away thatthat would be your life?
Erik Gross (09:21):
No, I wanted to be an architect and then a little
bit later, I wanted to be a filmproducer.
Yeah, yeah, lots of things, oneof which, okay.
So this is the first true, trueconfessions time.
We were Thanksgiving, you know,I'm here in America, so we had
Thanksgiving, you know, justabout a week and a half ago, and
(09:43):
for some reason we had friendsover and the subject of my
Performance in high school youknow, gpa, you know, grade point
average came up.
It's on a zero to four scale,right, 4.0 is really really good
.
3.0 is just about average.
2.0 is oh my word, yourknuckles drag on the ground.
My graduating GPA in highschool was 2.43.
(10:09):
So not that great, not thatgreat at all.
Now I've been married my wifefor 16, almost 17 years, and
that came out in a conversationwith some friends.
We're sitting around thecampfire and she just turns and
looks at me.
I mean, you've been around, wasyou've been with?
Someone said 16 years.
There aren't a lot ofsurprising pieces of data to
find out and I swear I told herthat I really did right.
(10:33):
But um, yeah, that's the firsttrue confession.
Thing is like I Didn't reallysell in high school at all.
Now, computers were a constantall the way through it.
You know, I was in that.
I worked in the computer laball the time.
I was like the, the teacher'sassistant or whatever they're
gonna call it in the high schoolrealm.
I was programming from age 11onward.
(10:54):
But no, I was gonna go like,either into architecture or into
the creative arts in film waswhat I thought, and we don't
have near enough time to talkabout it.
But we made a lot of films andthey were a lot of fun.
So but yeah, no, I didn't endup going that route and of
course you graduate with thatkind of a great point average.
You're not going to any kind ofa decent college.
(11:16):
So I'm gonna hold differentroute, especially for being a
hippie and I went into thenuclear power section of the
Navy.
Tim Bourguignon (11:25):
Okay, yeah, that's quite the opposite.
Erik Gross (11:27):
Yeah, that's a pivot .
Tim Bourguignon (11:29):
That's a pivot.
Did you?
Did you decide on going thisroute?
I mean the army, but going intotech in the army.
Erik Gross (11:37):
Navy.
It was a very consciousdecision.
My dad had been in the Navyback in Vietnam, my grandfather
had been in the Navy.
I'd never once considered it.
Like I said, I grew up the sonof hippies in the middle of the
Redwood Forest, like themilitary was, like it was never
bad mouth, but it was not partof that culture.
And the recruiters came to tothe school once at the beginning
(12:00):
, like some beginning of oursenior year, and it's when I
found out about the Nuclearpower program and specifically
the electronics technicianprogram within it that my eyes
sort of lit up.
Because here's Science andengineering and nerdiness and
(12:21):
problem-solving and electronicsand all this stuff combined in
one area and it was very elite.
And they were telling me thatthe training you go through is
Incredibly comprehensive andvery hard.
And I, even at that age I knewthat I Thrive when I'm put into
a situation where I have toperform.
Hmm, like I'll respond to thatif you can, at that age at least
(12:43):
.
If you leave me to my owndevices, I'll just go off and
play a D&D all day, yeah.
Tim Bourguignon (12:53):
But you chose to go a different route and and
put yourself on the spot andreally be in in a position to
really learn and be forced tolearn.
Erik Gross (13:02):
Yeah, I did and it's a really, really good thing I
did.
I mean, I can talk about all ofthe benefits the training has,
you know, in the Navy gave me,but there's like a specific
moment that Turned into like ahallmark of my life Every day
afterwards what you go through,boot camp, which is kind of
(13:24):
rough, you know people yellingat you for not making your bed
well enough, which is prettyinteresting.
Then I went through electronicsSchool, which was just a blast.
I mean all the way down to thebare silicon of how digital
circuits work.
Every.
I mean that.
Here's the thing.
The training in the military hasone focus, and one fake focus
only, which is Applying theinformation you learn in the
(13:47):
real world.
There's no fluff in militarytraining, especially when
they're gonna make people,they're gonna be responsible for
operating a nuclear reactor.
You need to understand thisstuff at your core and
especially what to do for everygiven situation.
And since you can't predictevery given situation, you have
to know how to think with thedata and the military.
(14:09):
The Navy schools were very goodat that.
So I went through electronicschool.
Everything's going fine.
I did really really well.
Right again, it's a regimentedhigh pressure situation, but I
didn't know what pressure wasuntil I got done with electronic
school and went to the actualnuclear power school.
Now, if you look this thing uponline now, it's actually called
the Naval Nuclear PropulsionSchool.
(14:29):
It is still ranked as the mostrigorous academic institution in
the American military.
It is Unbelievably highpressure.
At the time I went there theyhad a 14% failure rate and a 1%
suicide rate.
Yeah, not to bring theconversation down, but it was
very high pressure.
And here's the thing I got.
It was a six month program andI was about a month and a half
(14:51):
in and I was Absolutely hittinga wall.
And was hitting a wall on onesubject, which is mathematics.
I'm a bright person.
You wouldn't know it to look atmy GPA in high school.
I'm a bright person.
But all the way through highschool math was a problem and it
was really Biting me in thebehind in this program and it
(15:13):
was.
It got to the point where I forthe first moment thought Am I
going to actually make it?
And it forced me to look atwhat are the consequences.
I got myself into the situationwhat happens if I quit or I'm
kicked out?
And here's the thing you had tojoin for not the normal four
years when you enlisted in themilitary, but for six years,
(15:36):
because they're going to investall this time and effort and
training into you and if youfail out of the school you don't
suddenly drop down to thefour-year level.
They've still got you for sixand you're probably going to go
out to the fleet and chip painton the side of the ship.
That kind of a job.
I can't tell you how much Ididn't want to do that.
No offense against people thatare like that role and
(16:00):
maintenance is super importantTo this day.
I love fixing broken things.
I totally get it, but I didn'twant to do that.
And so I remember a weekendwhere I really just had to like
there's nobody can get youthrough this, but you and I
decided that I was going to makeit and I just pushed through.
(16:20):
I learned math.
I learned it really really well.
I just went back to basics andone of my missing, one of my
misunderstanding right and I gotthrough it and did really
really well.
I graduated in top 10% of myclass and then went on to be an
instructor in nuclear powertraining facilities.
But that moment it served me ingood stead whenever you least
(16:45):
expect it later in life.
At the end of the day, you areresponsible for your condition
in life and I knew that if Iquit or if I quote unquote got
kicked out, both of them wouldhave been my responsibility and
I finally kind of rose to theoccasion.
Tim Bourguignon (17:02):
That's a great learning, and especially to get
it quite early in your career.
Really, this, this moment ofrecognition.
Erik Gross (17:09):
Yeah, that is really great.
I did the right thing joiningthe service.
I did the right thing.
I'll tell you that.
Tim Bourguignon (17:16):
So you stayed six years with yummy, or do you
pursue your career in the armyfor a while?
Erik Gross (17:22):
I was again.
It was a Navy.
Sorry yeah, sorry Right.
The American military memberswho are listening to this will
totally understand why I'mmaking that distinction.
There's nothing wrong with thearmy.
I'm not going to even get intothat game.
But no yeah, I did six fullyears.
I went two years of schoolingand then two years as an
instructor at a nuclear powerprototype out in the middle of
(17:45):
the desert in Idaho.
There's a submarine in thedesert in Idaho that I operated
that's a whole different story,right and then two years out in
the fleet stationed out of thewest coast of America, went over
to Australia and Saudi Arabiaand all kinds of stuff.
It was very, very cool.
Tim Bourguignon (18:02):
I can imagine that.
And so what did you do afterthat?
Erik Gross (18:07):
You know it's interesting to talk about the
developer's journey.
I stayed away from technologywhen I first got out.
I had spent all that timeimmersed in machines and science
and staring at a reactor plantcontrol panel and as I was
getting close to the end, I juststarted looking what do I want
(18:28):
to do when I get out?
And I wanted to deal withpeople more than I wanted to
deal with machines.
And so I started in the yearbefore I was going to be done,
looking at like what do I moveinto?
And I settled on insurance,financial services, sales, like
things where I could work withpeople.
(18:49):
And so when I initially got out, I moved into that sales realm.
We could do a whole podcast onmy seven years selling
sunglasses all around the world,and if any of my friends listen
to this podcast, I can't tellyou how far they're going to
roll their eyes into the back oftheir head because they've
heard all the sunglass stories.
(19:11):
But here's the thing is in everysingle role I took for the next
decade or so, I ended up beingthe technology guy, like in that
sunglass sales company.
Early days in the internet andthe web and e-commerce, they
said hey, eric, you know aboutthese computers and stuff.
Can you make us our firstwebsite so we can have a catalog
online?
So I'm like, all right, htmland CSS.
(19:32):
I'm like, okay, how do I dothis?
And upload the catalog and allthat kind of stuff.
Right.
And later on, when I was sellingof all things flooring, carpet,
vinyl, tile, hardwood, all thatkind of stuff we had really
complex software that was neededto be able to manage $60
million a year in sales.
And when they did a hugeupgrade to that software package
, the internal resources fortechnologists were zero.
(19:55):
This is a carpet sales company.
And I had already raised myhand and said well, I kind of
know this stuff.
They're like come here, you'reon a special project.
So I just kept working in techat every company, even though I
wasn't really working in tech.
So the developer journey took aweird detour for a while and
did so honestly, until about2011.
Tim Bourguignon (20:18):
Wow, before we continue there, were you
actively working against it orjust not pursuing it?
Erik Gross (20:24):
Well, I'll tell you the truth, and this is I know
I'm going to feel like an idiotsaying this I legitimately
didn't know how much moneypeople made in the industry all
the way through that period.
Like, look I was, I got out ofthe Navy in 94, right, and that
was like the beginning of theramp up of software developers
(20:44):
and engineers being this reallysolid career path.
And I got out of the Navy andI'd missed all that occurring.
Then I went off sellingsunglasses all around the world
and missed all of that occurring, and I only ended in 2000 when
the dot com bubble burst andnobody wanted to go near tech.
So I just sort of ignored it.
(21:04):
Even though I love computers tomy core and I would use them
for everything I was doingpersonally, I honestly wasn't
aware of the softwaredevelopment industry very much,
and so I wasn't actively goingaway from it, which is all the
more embarrassing thing becauseI just didn't know it was there.
And when I found out it wasthere one I was super happy.
(21:29):
Two I was kicking myself.
Tim Bourguignon (21:31):
To tell you the truth, I'm sure what you
learned before that reallyhelped you transition and have
the life you didn't, so youshouldn't.
Yeah, it does, it did Badmouthed, but ouch, yeah, ouch.
So take us to 2011.
What happened?
(21:55):
What took you to finallyrealizing okay, there is this
industry I've been willingly orunwillingly ignoring and that
has been shouting in my facethat I should come back to it
and finally say, okay, screw it,let's get in there.
Erik Gross (22:14):
Am I allowed to swear on this podcast?
Tim Bourguignon (22:16):
Absolutely.
Erik Gross (22:22):
Very few people know this story and I'm going to put
it on a podcast.
Great, you hit 2011 and I wasreally not doing well.
I was making very little money,you know, for listeners in
America.
I was making about $38,000 ayear.
I had lost several jobs,couldn't keep one, I had a
(22:42):
couple of failed businessesunder my belt, I was letting
people down left and right, andI had a conversation one day
with a friend the kind of friendwho and I hope, every single
person has a friend like this inyour life, where they can tell
(23:03):
you the things that you need tohear but don't want to hear.
He pulled me into a room, shutthe door and sat down and said
Eric, it's bullshit that youdon't make a lot of money.
He said you're probably thesmartest person I know.
(23:27):
There's areas that you knowabout that are unbelievably
valuable.
The way your mind works isincredible.
But he wasn't saying any ofthose things as praise.
They were damning Because hewas right I was letting people
down and I'd been here my wholelife.
(23:50):
The not living up to yourpotential kind of you know
speech that we've probably allheard in certain ways, but to
hear it when you are 42 yearsold.
It was a very, very difficultfive or 10 minutes.
But the point where it reallyhit and this is the part that
(24:16):
nobody knows is that he said tome your wife is an incredibly
amazing person and veryforgiving, but how long do you
think she's going to put up withthis?
And it was just like someonewalked up and punched me right
(24:39):
in the thorax and when you getthe breath knocked out of you,
it hit really, really hard.
So that was like the moment,man, that was like the moment.
And so for about a week I'm ina fog like what the hell do I do
(24:59):
about this?
Because he's right.
And so I was on a long driveabout an hour and a half long
drive with a good friend and Ijust started to download all
this stuff.
And so he just startedbrainstorming with me like well,
what can you do?
Like, what do you have?
What skills do you have thatpeople pay a lot of money for
(25:19):
and it's a free formconversation.
The whole subject of softwareprogramming, development came up
and went oh, I was in themilitary.
There's this.
You know, they pay for youreducation when you get out of
the service.
I could go back to school andbecome a computer programmer.
And then it hit me thosebenefits expire 10 years after
(25:40):
you get out of the service.
I don't even have thatavailable to me.
And then he said something thatlike ended up again changing
the trajectory of my life.
He said you know, I've got agood friend who's really
activist and engineer, asoftware programmer.
I don't know a lot about thatarea, but I know some.
She just talked to him.
So we called him up right therein the phone in the car and I
(26:01):
started talking to the guy aboutwhat my dilemma was and what my
background is.
And he kept asking questions.
And I'm just trying to figureout, like I don't care if it
takes a year or two or three,how do I break into this?
Because the more he told meabout what the industry looked
like, my mind is going wait, youmake how much an hour?
Wait, there's like like this isthe many jobs, right, but he
(26:22):
got we got about 20, 30 minutesin his conversation and he said
Eric, you know, I don't knowthat you need to go back to
school.
Everything you're telling meabout, like early age and Navy
and all the stuff you know, youknow the fundamentals really,
really well.
I think you just need to knowhow software is being made now,
what the principal languages areand how to do the job Really.
(26:46):
And he extended an offer of helpto me, which was incredible.
He said I'll tell you what tostudy, I'll give you the
blueprint for it.
You're going to have to burnthe midnight oil and if you can
get to a certain stage I've gotsome contracts with the state I
can help get you into one ofthese things working under me
and at least get you your firstjob.
You're going to have to drivean hour to work every day and
(27:06):
then back, and you have to getup super like.
I told him I'm willing to dowhatever.
So I went home to my wife andsaid listen, here's this
opportunity.
It probably means a lot of risk.
It's a complete change.
I'm probably going to bestaying up late for weeks,
months figuring this out, but Iwant to do it, and so I bought a
(27:31):
hundred dollar computer off ofCraigslist.
I went down to this charityplace here in America called
Goodwill.
I bought 37 technology booksfor $8 because that's how this
place is and for about 11, maybe12 days it was less than two
weeks I was up till about threeo'clock every morning, shari
(27:54):
would go to sleep and I wouldjust stay up for hours.
How is software made now?
What is this object-orientedprogramming thing that was just
coming into the forefront as Iwas moving away from things?
How do you do version control?
What is full stack development?
All these things?
I know the fundamentals he wasright but I didn't know nothing
(28:15):
about how computers and programswere made.
Nowadays.
We get into that and we'reabout at day 11 or 12, and I
just start poking around on jobboards and I put together a
little resume and I sent it outSorry, I haven't told this in a
while and a week later I get ajob $42 an hour, it's $84,000 a
(28:39):
year and it's just changed mylife and that's you know.
I was talking earlier aboutlike the idea that I was kicking
myself, like that was thekicking myself moment.
Are you telling me?
I've been limping along like anidiot in all these other areas,
(29:00):
flopping, and I was failing atleft and right, and this has
been here the whole time.
It was, it was a moment, man.
It was a lot more good than bad, don't get me wrong, so that
when you talk about like thedeveloper journey.
That's when, for the first time, I'm actually getting paid to
(29:20):
develop, even though I've beenin technology since I was 11,
basically.
Tim Bourguignon (29:26):
Man, this is great.
I mean, it's as painful to hearall this, this roller coaster
part, but it is fantastic to seeit embodied.
This, this when you don't knowwhat you don't know, you just
stuck, you have no idea, and andit's really hard to get out of
(29:49):
that.
And thankfully, sometimes youhave people around you that
nudge you in one direction oranother and at some point there
is light and there you see, ohwow, there was a thing I didn't,
didn't see.
Yeah was there.
Erik Gross (30:01):
But if you don't, that's what you're spot on and
this is one of the hallmarksthat we like.
What I now do a lot of careercoaching with people, and this
is one of the biggest things.
You're so right, and I knowthis to be true for myself and
others you don't know what youdon't know, and the best
technologists I work with allyou need to do is uncover
something and let them see it,answer any questions.
(30:23):
They have to fully understandit and then they're off in a
million miles an hour.
It's one of the things I loveabout it and love about our
industry.
We are bright, inquisitive,inquisitive problem solvers and
the only time we hit a wall iswhen we just don't know the path
forward and that they just showthem the path and they're like
thank you, man, boom, and theyare gone.
(30:44):
It's awesome to see and that'show.
That's how it was for me.
I saw the path to it.
I'm like, oh, and then I doveinto it like with a vengeance,
what I learned in those firsttwo, three years, two or three
years about modern softwaredevelopment, engineering.
I would look back every sixmonths or so and go I can't
believe I know all this stuffnow, but it was like I was
(31:08):
driven.
You know what I mean?
Oh yeah, I do.
And was it rainbows and?
Tim Bourguignon (31:11):
unicorns the last 12 years.
Yes, yes, yeah.
Erik Gross (31:19):
If HP Lovecraft design a rainbow and a unicorn.
No, it's been ups and downs,you know, okay.
So here's the highlights andthen the low lights, like.
The highlights are that in thattime I've gotten experience as
just a pure contractor the purecontractor play, where you're
responsible for getting yourgigs.
You've got to manage everythingas a one man business, right.
(31:39):
That?
And that of course, comes withas highs and as lows.
But being exposed to atremendous number of different
business scenarios andindustries and programming, you
know difficulties and challenges, super valuable.
The downside man virtuallyevery side project ever I ever
took on ended up being workingfor peanuts because of scope
(31:59):
creep, right.
So there's highs and lows,right.
Yeah, a tremendous high is andwe literally could do an entire
podcast about it the the genesisfor the idea of the tech
Academy, which is the softwaredeveloper bootcamp I co founded,
and that whole 10 year journeybecause it's still around and
doing well.
Right, those have highs andlows.
The highs man we've helped overa thousand people break into
(32:22):
technology as like well rounded,entry level software developers
.
That's amazing.
Yeah, right, it is the lows.
The first time we had to have areduction in force.
Now, we were 21 people in theteam at that point, but these
were my friends and loved ones.
(32:42):
This is a purely bootstrappedorganization.
I knew every single one ofthese people, my co founder,
jack, and I they these are.
This is our core team.
And to have to have thatconversation with someone, whoo,
oh, yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, it hasn't beenrainbows and unicorns, but it
(33:04):
has been a journey ofprogressively greater
understanding of the technologylandscape, building my muscles
as both an engineer, as anentrepreneur, and the hallmark,
like the thread that runs allthe way through it.
I love helping people, like Ilove everyone's in a while I
(33:26):
don't know what's happened foryou, but you bump into someone
that they just don't enjoy beinghelpful to others in life.
And I'm like you have any ideawhat you're missing out on?
Man, man, watching that ahamoment.
And, more importantly, when yousee them walking unaided into
the future, like I did that,like there's nothing like it,
(33:50):
right?
So, whether I'm like, whetherI'm writing a book or designing
a curriculum or counseling anentrepreneur, like, yeah, I'm
going to make sure that I, whatI do, make sense economically
and that you know it's, you know, financially viable.
But it only works if my heartis devoted to help and I don't
(34:12):
know.
You can't fake that kind ofthing.
You know what I mean.
It's got to be there at yourheart and so that's that's.
We can talk technology and allthat kind of nerdy stuff all day
long and, believe me, I love itand I will.
Right, but I really believewe're our best when we're
helping other people.
Tim Bourguignon (34:28):
Oh, yeah, this is a.
This is something I've been.
I've been seeing again, again.
I've been nodding my headheavily the listeners cannot see
this but what I've been doingfor the past 10 minutes.
Erik Gross (34:39):
I've just been seeing a Tim Bobblehead doll.
That's all Exactly.
Tim Bourguignon (34:43):
But the thing I love the most is when people
have been leaving me or leavingthe company I was in, and and
you, just, you just see themwalking into the sunset and and
leaving you in their tracks andyou know they are off for
fantastic stories somewhere else.
But you understand, okay, they,they, they reach the end of the
(35:04):
story with you and now theyneed way, way more.
You're limiting them by keepingthem here and you see them
skyrocketing somewhere and thisis such a great feeling of
saying, hey, I was part of that.
I had maybe a little tinyeffect on that person that made
them who they are today, andthis is such a great feeling.
Erik Gross (35:24):
It is absolutely egoistical, but it's such a
great feeling and sometimes youdon't find out for a long time
the difference you made.
Right, we had a.
We had a student at the schoolthat this way back in 2015.
We had this huge initial win.
When he went through theprogram, he wasn't even done
with the program yet and he gothired at Disney and we helped a
(35:48):
lot in that right.
But I just remember, becauseit's been years, hey, we helped
the guy get hired at Disney,right.
Well, I was talking to him aboutfive or six months ago and he's
now like the CTO of anincredibly successful artificial
intelligence startup.
He's doing really, really welland I attributed a lot of it to
(36:09):
like the fact that he's just areally driven, caring, competent
person.
But he in this conversation hetold me about a, a talk we'd had
that I'd fully forgotten whenhe first realized that in his
network was someone who wasconnected directly to hiring
personnel at Disney and who hadreached out to him and said hey,
(36:33):
dude, I heard you're learningto code.
I know you from our prior workrelationship at another company
and I really just think youought to throw your hat in the
ring.
And I remember him coming to meand saying like man, erica, I'm
not even done with this program.
Like, what do I do with this?
I could either like go for thisand, yeah, pull off some
amazing win, like I'm gonna workat Disney, or I could just look
(36:55):
like a complete idiot and burna bridge.
What do I do?
And the funny thing is I don'teven remember what I told him in
that moment.
And that's why, you know, a fewmonths ago, when we were
talking, he remembered what Itold him and I didn't know it at
the time, but it helped himtremendously.
You know, you're just beingyourself, being interested in
(37:19):
the other person, caring aboutthem and helping in the moment,
and you don't know what thatmeans to them eight, 10 years
down the line.
You never know.
So just be helpful all the time.
It's my advice, not that I'vealways done that.
I can be a jerk and an idiot,don't get me wrong, you know.
(37:39):
But I think if you have that asyour hallmark, as deep interest
in other people and beingwilling to see their point of
view and always trying to leavethe person better than when they
met you, you'll probably do allright.
Tim Bourguignon (37:50):
I love what you just said Leave the person
better than when they met youWell you know that is.
Even if you don't know it.
Erik Gross (37:58):
That's the Boy Scout in me, like my way.
There's just certain thingsgetting grained right.
When you go camping in the BoyScouts, the last thing you do
before you leave is you walkaround and you police the
grounds.
And this means looking over theentire situation, remembering
what it looked like when youarrived and making sure that, no
matter what you do, it looksbetter than when you arrived.
(38:20):
And we did that over and overand over again, to the point
where this is ingrained.
When we enter any space, I amand I only realize this when I'm
doing it I'm subconsciouslyscanning the ground and the
surroundings and as we leave,before I even know I'm reaching
down, I'm picking the garbage upoff the ground and walk, you
(38:40):
know, and put it in the garbage.
I it's not even like, ooh, I'mawesome, I don't even think
about it.
It's just kind of ingrained bythe Boy Scouts, right, but that
philosophy, no like.
Why wouldn't that be thehallmark you have of like?
What's your rationale forhaving lived?
How do you make that difference?
Well, I can think of worse onesthan hey, everyone I come in
(39:00):
contact with do they leave alittle bit better just for
having interacted with me.
I mean, it's a pretty goodmoral barometer or compass.
Tim Bourguignon (39:13):
But here's a curve ball coming.
How do you evaluate what isbetter for people?
Erik Gross (39:20):
It goes back to those two things I said before.
You have to be deeplyinterested in them, genuinely.
I trained people in sales for along time and all sales people
talk too much, they don't listenenough and many of them have an
inability to adopt theviewpoint of the person they're
talking to.
And if you can put yourself intheir shoes and have it be
(39:42):
genuine, more than just like aplatitude, you start to really
see where they're coming from.
It starts from that point ofview, and you only get that by
finding something you aregenuinely interested in them
about.
You cannot fake that right Now.
You can build that muscle up,but you have to actively, when
you meet someone, find out foryourself what really interests
(40:03):
me about this person, what do Iactually admire about them,
right?
So that's where I would startwith that, because at that point
you're not going into thesituation considering that the
win of the interaction onlyrelates to you.
You're forcing yourself toconsider a two-valued
proposition.
The other person's point of viewmatters too.
(40:24):
So beyond that, we can havehours-long philosophical
discussion about it, but at theend of the day, if you're gonna
try to do the greatest good forthe greatest number of areas of
life and you include that otherperson as being part of your
life.
Well, now it kind of changesyour mental equation a little
bit.
So that's how I approach like,look, because we all of us have
(40:46):
to make decisions about what wethink is right for the other
person.
Like, you do this as a manager,right, you do this as an
instructor, as a coach, you'regonna recommend things, or even
sometimes, depending upon theorganizational structure, you're
gonna dictate or order things,and if you're not doing so with
a willingness and exercisedability to consider them in the
(41:08):
equation, you're not gonna do areally good job.
Tim Bourguignon (41:14):
And if you are, this is an injurgency.
I'm not sure that's the rightword, Basically forcing your own
will on somebody else orforcing your view of the world
on somebody else.
Erik Gross (41:26):
Yeah, and it's revolting.
Look, we all have things whenthey get done, we have goals and
purposes.
But life is a collaborativeexercise, man, it really is.
It is like you know the wholeno man as an island.
Look, you can get through lifeand in certain emergency
situations with that kind of anattitude, but as a long-term
operating basis, those peopledon't win long-term.
Tim Bourguignon (41:52):
I love that.
Life is a collaborativeexercise.
Yeah, it never hurts.
It put it this way, man, itmakes so much sense.
Eric, when you picture thegreen students of that bootcamp,
is there something you alwaystell them, an advice that you
(42:12):
put in front of all the studentswhen they first come in and
when they face this program?
I don't know how long threemonths, four months with your
bootcamp.
Erik Gross (42:21):
Yeah, yeah.
Typical bootcamps are aboutfour to six months, depending
upon how much time they can putinto them.
I love this question.
The thing that I would sit downand tell them is that the
specifics of the technology thatyou're about to learn are a lot
less important than a couple ofsenior things.
And those senior things arewhat are the fundamental
(42:43):
principles involved in theoperation of a computer and the
fundamental principles involvedin a program and the fundamental
principles of working as a team?
What are those fundamentals?
And above all of those isyou've got to learn to think
like an engineer.
There are different ways ofthinking based on the activity
(43:03):
you're involved in in life, andone of your chief goals as you
go through this is to learn howto think like an engineer.
And that way, when you walk offinto the sunset, when you know
what this program as technologychanges at a breakneck clip, you
will be well set, because anynew development you don't know
how to think your way through it.
You're not going to rely onmemorization, You're not going
(43:25):
to rely on the specifictechnology learned in the
bootcamp.
You're going to be able tothink with tech, and that's what
I tell them.
Tim Bourguignon (43:33):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Erik Gross (43:35):
And I tell them that nerds rule the world.
You should be proud to be partof the team.
Tim Bourguignon (43:42):
Amen to that.
This has been a fantastic andliteral roller coaster with you.
Erik Gross (43:50):
It has been, and I'm sure that afterwards I'm
probably just going to have aglass of whiskey to get over the
fact that I shared some of thatstuff with you.
But no, in all honesty, if itends up helping someone out
there, then I'm happy to haveshared it.
The truth is that the publicpersona that people kind of put
out to the world is never thefull picture.
(44:11):
There's lots of things I've putout there about successes.
The truth is I'm just likeanybody else.
I've had the ups and downs,I've made the mistakes, and I
just want people to know thatand this is the last thing I'll
say is that one thing that Ihave developed over time is the
certainty that I will never staydown.
(44:33):
I'll get knocked down.
Life will kick me behind.
The one thing I have learned toknow about myself is I will
never refuse to get back upagain, and if you just adopt
that and just keep practicing it, man, your life changes.
The sky is limit, yeah.
Tim Bourguignon (44:51):
Thank you so much, Absolutely.
Erik Gross (44:53):
Thank you, man.
I love this.
This is a really really goodconversation.
Tim Bourguignon (44:57):
It was indeed.
Where would be the best placeto continue that discussion with
you?
Erik Gross (45:02):
OK, so the online the best place to go is
yourcareerarchitectcom.
This is where I have a lot ofinformation about what I do
online Yourcareerarchitectcom.
But the bestest bestest placeis to go to
yourcareerarchitectcom Slashmost valuable knowledge.
One of the things I lovehelping people with is
(45:22):
identifying, out of all thevaluable skills and knowledge
they have, where's theintersection of true passion,
deep skill and actual value inthe marketplace.
And if they go to that locationthey'll find a free book that
will help them through thatprocess.
Yourcareerarchitectcom slashmost valuable knowledge.
Tim Bourguignon (45:46):
And we'll put that in the show notes as well.
Just scroll down and clickAwesome, and it'll be there.
Awesome.
Anything else you want to plugin?
Erik Gross (45:55):
I really appreciate what you're doing.
I sincerely appreciate whatyou're doing for the technology
world.
It's fantastic.
Tim Bourguignon (46:00):
Thank you, eric , it's been a blast.
Erik Gross (46:04):
Awesome.
Thanks, man.
Tim Bourguignon (46:05):
And this has been another episode of Day of
the Post Journey.
I will see you there next week.
Bye-bye.
Thanks a lot for tuning in.
I hope you have enjoyed thisweek's episode.
If you like the show, pleaseshare, rate and review.
It helps more listenersdiscover those stories.
You can find the links to allthe platforms the show appears
(46:27):
on on our website devjourneyinfoslash subscribe.
Talk to you soon.
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