How useful is your background in being a software engineer, engineering manager, and startup founder to your work currently? Which of those roles helped you more to prepare you for what you’re currently doing?
I think being an engineer helps me dig into the technical details of the history I’m researching, and to write explanations that go deeper into that detail. Many histories of technology are very light on technical detail and don’t really explain how the inventions worked. One thing that makes me unique is actually explaining how stuff works. This is probably the most important thing.
I think being a founder is helpful in understanding some business fundamentals like marketing or finance. And I am constantly drawing parallels and making comparisons between today’s tech startup world and how business and invention were done in the past, or how science and research are done today.
I also think my experiences as a founder have helped me in launching The Roots of Progress. I have a sense of what kind of opportunities I’m personally interested in and have aptitude for, how to launch things and iterate on them, when something is taking off, what opportunities to pursue, how to build a social media presence, etc.
How useful is your background in being a software engineer, engineering manager, and startup founder to your work currently? Which of those roles helped you more to prepare you for what you’re currently doing?
I think being an engineer helps me dig into the technical details of the history I’m researching, and to write explanations that go deeper into that detail. Many histories of technology are very light on technical detail and don’t really explain how the inventions worked. One thing that makes me unique is actually explaining how stuff works. This is probably the most important thing.
I think being a founder is helpful in understanding some business fundamentals like marketing or finance. And I am constantly drawing parallels and making comparisons between today’s tech startup world and how business and invention were done in the past, or how science and research are done today.
I also think my experiences as a founder have helped me in launching The Roots of Progress. I have a sense of what kind of opportunities I’m personally interested in and have aptitude for, how to launch things and iterate on them, when something is taking off, what opportunities to pursue, how to build a social media presence, etc.