Language is for communication - or the guy who started coding at 5

Should you learn to code?  Why?

If you're not already a developer, should you bother to learn some programming?  I am an MBA-guy learning to code, because it's fun.  Still, I sometimes wonder "why am I doing this?"  And I found many non-developers share this question.  I initially thought about this in terms of career advancement.  Then, I got wiser.

In a prior entry, I observed a trend: coding is coming to the masses.  At least the demand for learning to programming appears to be accelerating.  (Have you noticed this trend?)


Just an old geezer talking

First, a brief history.  When I applied to business school, there were no channels or organizations like Coursera.org or App Academy.  Second, I am learning to code to expand my prototyping tool-set.  Third (this is an important motivation for me), I want to better appreciate technical co-founder and his talents.

And I have no illusions about become a serious developer overnight.

On that last point - illusions - I have often heard some say: "I don't code, but I know enough to be dangerous."

Really?  Dangerous, how and to whom?  The more I learn, the more I find how hopelessly harmless I am, and will continue to be for a long time.  Then again, they may be right.  I can see how bad code can harm the world.

Conventional wisdom focuses on career

When I google something like 'why everyone should learn to code,' I come across an article like this one from VentureBeat (9/17/12 article by Jolie O'Dell).  The outline of this and many similar articles might run something like:

• Programming literacy is important. (It's the same reason people around the world learn English - because it's the lingua franca of commerce.  It makes you a world-smart citizen.)
• It's a good way to improve problem solving skills, etc. (It will make you smarter, which is inherently good.)
• It's going to be good for your career, because [insert some bull-shit reasons].  (You'll make more money $$$.  Maybe.)

I was more intrigued by the well-known article by Marc Andreesen on Why Software Is Eating the World.  It is a good article, and you should read it.  Andreesen built Netscape.  I was in high school then, and I still remember the weird monochromatic browser-thing I saw on huge Unix stations at school, and nerdy kids at school staring at it into the night (I attended a public boarding school).

"I was coding since I was 5"

Incidentally, some of those nerdy kids I saw late night have been coding since they were young.  Really young.  And they didn't just code into late night.  They coded on weekends.  They coded during football games.  They "skipped" prom.  (Incidentally, I never went to the prom either.)

I recently talked to a developer who claimed he was coding since he was 5.  And I'm pretty sure, soon, I will meet someone who started coding while during the third trimester in his mama's womb.

What programming really is

The point is that if you're just catching onto the coding trend, and want to learn "just enough to be dangerous," good luck!  I'm not stopping you.  And I am not writing this to dissuade you from making yourself better.  It's not going to stop me from learning.  But, consider this.

Language is a tool for communication; it is a tool for expression.  At some level, programming language are used by those who know it best to express their individuality.  They express themselves:

• To explore personal interests
• To build tools for personal use
• If they so choose, to express or share those interests or tools with the rest of the world
• And if they are lucky, to make the world a better place and make lot of money doing it
• And it's okay if they don't make a hit ... they will keep coding and keep doing things for themselves anyway.

This is a fundamental insight that is seldom found among those advocating coding literacy.  This insight is also often missing from professionals picking up coding so that they can be "dangerous."  

By all means keep learning.  Literacy is a good thing whether or not you are the next Charles Dickens.  However, understand that a language is a medium of expression.  Just remember that your best means to express yourself to the world may be a musical instrument, or through sports, or just plain 'ole English.

Further reading

Incidentally, you may want to attend a hackathon to see first-hand what all of this coding and startup buzz is about.  Or if you are wondering about attending a full-time programming course, check out this guide I co-wrote: Guide to Full-Time Programming Course.

A rant. Do you, or don't you? Founder Institute. How to approach resources.

Okay, so this entry is a bit of a rant.  Topic: "Do you, or don't you?"  Or how do you know or decide what's next for you?  Or reflections on using resources.  Basically, you got in.  Now what?

Here's something I often don't hear ... "Congratulations!"  An acceptance letter from Founder Institute inviting me to join its Fall 2012 SV semester class.  And they are asking me to make up my mind by tomorrow - 9/18/12 [1].

Usually, it's the "I'm sorry" letter.  Like the one after our Y Combinator interview Summer '12.  'You're good, but no dice!'  (So it goes - learning to take rejections gracefully is part of the journey - enjoy it!)

This feels a lot like B-school apps a few years ago. Got into the Darden School, rejected by others.  Now what?  And I imagine this is a common dilemma shared by other (inexperienced) entrepreneurs.  You got something (a resource), but how do you know if it's worth your investment?  And we generally suck at answering these kinds of questions about how something will pan out based on today's decision.


From Nassim's Taleb's Black Swan, Part 2 - "You would expect our record of prediction to be horrible: the world is far, far more complicated than we think, which is not a problem, except when most of us don't know it."  So we suffer from the '(wo)man who knew too little' problem.  And I know this to be true of my life.  Now and then, I catch myself wondering if my life could be better optimized.  How come I can't seem to go in one direction - up and up?


Since no one knows the future, I'm going to frame this as using resources in life.  What is a resource?  In my case, it is that which will help (our company) grow, answer questions, get users, connect to mentors, etc.  So, the useful evaluation is to determine whether FI will be useful or not for (our company).  I'm going to think about it and discuss it with my co-founder.  As a starting point, I have a few hunches about major pluses and minuses.  But, the problem with hunches is that they are almost always wrong.  And what's really needed is a more empirical data to predict the outcome.  More to come.

Some concluding thoughts to a random rant:

1. Find/create resources.  FI is a resource.  If you don't apply or don't know about it, you don't have it.  Having a resource is the first step.  This mentality is key to creating your own luck in life.
2. Consider the goal.  Does the resource help you achieve your goal - whether it's power, knowledge, growth, peace, whatever.
3. Learn to reason with data.  Heuristics are easy, but unreliable.  What you want is data.  For example, I will look to FI alums to see how successful they have been ... an imperfect data point, but better than a hunch.
4. Action trumps reasoning.  Attend info events or talk to alums to get more data points.  And will FI help me be more active or simply be an academic exercise?  For startups, key is talk less, do more.

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[1] By the way, if you don't know this yet, you can always change dates or rules like this one.  If you want things to work for you in life, you need to learn to change the rules to benefit you.  One useful insight to keep in mind is that whoever comes up with a rule is just another human being.  Just like you.  You can talk to them, reason with them, ask them.

4 Kinds of people (the hacker matrix)

To win in a game, in a tournament, in life, what kind of person must you be?

I saw four kinds of people this weekend at a hackathon, this one organized by the groovy AT&T Developer Program, and sponsored by the good folks at Stackmob, Tiggzi (cloud-based mobile app builder), and Amazon AWS.  I know, I just couldn't resist the free food and the vibrant energy of the crowd that gathers at these events.

And while most of us dug into our screens to play with APIs, slap together mock-ups, and code away, I saw many other kinds of people at the event.  Let me summarize in picture:

Four Kinds of People at a Hackathon

The two axes by which I categorize people are Skill and Drive.  Note that you could use other axes, but I choose these two.

• Lo-skill, lo-effort - You are a bystander. You came to enjoy the scene and be inspired. This is okay.  But, you walk away with an empty handed. 

• Lo-skill, hi-effort - You are a hustler.  It is an uphill battle.  Don't give up.  (I fall into this category.)  Dreamers have to recruit additional talent (recruit = beg for help from developers).

• Hi-skill, lo-effort - You are qualified.  Yet, without blood & sweat, you will not be in a winning team.  Have you been part of a team of smart people that never quite achieved something of significance?

• Hi-skill, hi-effort - Winners!  As in, these people won the day and made out like bandits with real prizes!  They had the talent; they put in the hours.

No mind-blowing insight here.  But, perhaps a sobering reminder to those not in the top-right quadrant, and want to be.  So, ask yourselves these questions today:

1. Do I have the right skills?  Enough skills?  If not, what can I do to gain those skills? 
2. Do I have sufficient drive or am I putting in enough effort?  If not, why not?  Am I in the wrong profession?  What can I do to figure out my passion?  

Note that I used the term "Hacker," rather than winner.  I read a great article about what is a hacker?  I aspire to be more like a hacker, in my case as an example to push myself and to gain new skills that I find exhilarating and fun.

We must all find our own paths to happiness and success.  In that walk, are you a bystander?  A dreamer?  Or will you take risks and put in the effort to realize your dreams? 


Whatever the case maybe, smile and enjoy the journey!

Smiling faces of friends remind me not to take myself too seriously

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News from the event - a team of two dashing fellows presented Voicegram, a service that allows users to send voice greetings to friends and family. It's a very nice idea to keep in touch with friends.  Check them out on Twitter to stay tuned.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on twitter @findinbay.

How did Zuckerberg value Instagram?

I wondered how Facebook came up with $1B figure for Instagram.  For example, do you value Instagram based on its revenues? Or how do you get $1B from number of users Instagram had?

A few weeks before Facebook announced its acquisition of Instagram, I wrote a blog about what problem instagram solves, and concluded that there is huge value in delivering abstract stuff like beauty. Specifically, I wrote:

"Increasingly, products with the highest value offering will be those that allow people to experience beauty, meaning, transformation, values which are not forefront when more mundane problems persist. But, as people increasingly cover the 'basic needs', demand for such abstract items will rise."

This made me wonder about the valuation logic in Silicon Valley. How does a brilliant entrepreneur and hacker like Mark Zuckerberg (or Twitter's Jack Dorsey) think about valuing assets that they acquire?

I thought back to some common methods for valuing stuff in the business world.

1. Discounted cash flows (DCF) - discounts future cash streams
2. Comparables - uses similar deals as benchmark
3. Options - applies some fancy math to financial instruments ... and assumes normal distribution
4. Customer lifetime value (CLV) - tries to value the customers
5. Gut

1. DCF - From what I understand, the Wall Street-types love using something called discounted cash flows method to value an asset. Asset is anything that will make you money today or later. In short, discounted cash flows values an asset by all the money that asset might bring you today and in the future, and then "discounts" the value of all that money to adjust for inflation. (Inflation - you know, a 12 oz Coke used to be 50 cents, but is now a $1 at a vending machine.)

So, if you use discounted cash flows, Instagram value is $0. Why? Because they weren't really generating cash flows.

2. Comparables - this isn't a bad way to get a baseline. But, what other deal was like Instagram? Has Instagram been sold and traded before? Nope.

3. Options - this usually applies to trade of commodities and financial assets (remember the movie Trading Places?). No help here.

4. CLV - okay, this one is a bit more promising. (This model works well when subscription is involved - like Netflix or newspapers.) I tried to imagine Zuckerberg doing the math in his head. Let's say Instagram had about 40M users at the time of acquisition. $1,000M / 40M users = $25 / user. (For comparison, here's a Quora answer on the lifetime value of a Netflix customer.)

But, then think about the fact that once acquired, Instagram has access to Facebook's user base (let's round up and say it's 1 billion).  Let's do the math again. $1B / 1B users = $1 per user. A $1 per person! Do you think you could squeeze out $1 over the lifetime of a Facebook-Instagram user if you were Zuck? Do cats meow?  

Image from techi.com - 4/10/12 post

5. Gut - okay, there's not much science here.  Clearly, none of the above methods are going to give you a true answer.  I'm beginning to learn that there is a healthy amount of going by the gut in Silicon Valley.  Give it a try.  Next time you have to make a decision, try the back of the napkin, but also listen to your gut!


If you enjoyed this post, tag along for future posts on twitter @findinbay.