Introduction#
Since I was a kid, I always dreamt of working with computers. While my surroundings and my parents worked blue collar jobs, I dared to dream that I can make a career out of computers. I did not know how, where, with what or by whom. I was oblivious to the concepts of how computers work, are built and programmed and I was constantly met with resistance and ridicule from my parents, siblings and classmates whenever I brought up the subject. How did I end up creating a dog perfume?
tl;dr#
- My dream was to make a living with computers, I found out about programming and eventually I became a professional software engineer.
- I reached the perceived pinnacle of software engineering quite fast - I joined one of the top firms in the world as a software engineer, decently positioned.
- I always felt there is more to life, I want to create - not limited to software.
- Now I’m working on a luxury dog perfume brand, check it out!
I remember when I was 6, my father, a soviet electrician by profession, obtained some spare computer parts from some distant relatives. It was a dusty old beige plastic computer case, a power supply, a CPU chip, a motherboard, one RAM module, one VGA card, a floppy disk reader and a soundcard - a sound (master) blaster. My father did not read or speak english, neither did I at the age of 6, but we managed to assemble these weird looking lego pieces together.
Later on, an acquaintance that he met while working on a construction site, shared some floppy disks with MS-DOS installation on them. What was left to obtain, and was available at a local junk yard: a computer screen, a keyboard and a mouse. We connected everything together, followed the Russian/English instructions from the construction site friend, and lo and behold - we were welcomed by a screen with the weird character combination of “A:>”.
I indulged in all the possible, albeit limited, set of commands I could execute on this black screen, cd, dir and later on format as well. At that time, I did not know the meaning of these words or acronyms, at school we had just started learning the english alphabet.
The construction site friend mentioned that if we brought him used floppy disks, he could share more software with us. One day I received a new batch of floppy disks with games on them. These were no ordinary DOS games, these were RGB games. Suddenly we upgraded from grayscale to freaking colors! I will never forget that one motorcycle game that I sadly could not locate anymore. I knew right there and then, that I wanted to do this when I grow up - do what? I did not know, but that something has to do with computers.
Manual labor#
Since I was 12, my father insisted that I should start working for money, as he did at his age. See, he grew up on a farm with a dozen of siblings, they all had responsibilities and jobs. So his idea of work is physical, he would tell me how spoiled I am for not “hammering my own finger to make a dime” (translation from Russian).
I took that idea as gospel, and the first job I was introduced to by him (through his acquaintance) was delivering physical spam (flyers in PO boxes). I did not last long there, and I truly believed that there is another way: the pay and the effort did not make sense to me.
Every school vacation I would try a different type of job (the law limited underage employment to school vacations), I worked as a waiter in catering events, as a cleaner in a retirement home and as an assistant to an obnoxious persian kids toy merchant.
Later on, I met a new tech savvy friend in high school who introduced me to website building (HTML and later on Flash) and IT supporting some of his father’s friends. The money that we made building websites, supporting relatives with IT and installing pirated versions of a famous OS, was much more than I could imagine back then - but I still could not believe it’s sustainable, like my father always said - it’s not serious, it’s just playing games.
I remember the turning point, after which the self doubt subdued me for a long time, it was when I designed a website and creatives for a local pizza shop. I was my own manager and sole employee, I created a variety of versions for the pizza shop ad in the local newspaper, screwed it up many times due to a lack of knowledge in printing and dots per inch. But my biggest problem was that I could not say no, I could not negotiate a proper price for my work, so I ended up working for that pizza owner as his private designer for a while for a single initial symbolic payment.
I swore to myself I will stay out of the (design) business and I decided to follow the paved track that was offered to me by every person that I would meet - learn programming in high school, then join the military as a programmer. That was my goal for a long while.
Adventures in Information Technology#
I honestly remember this part of the journey vaguely now. It has been almost 20 years since I took the conscious decision to pursue software engineering as a profession - that’s insane when I think about it. You might ask, what took you so long? Well, I followed everything that was prescribed to me: study programming at school and join the military as a programmer, you are then set for life after that. Regardless of my big efforts and due in part to my lack of proper planning, the latter was out of my control. I ended up joining the military as an IT staff member, but not a programmer.
The next belief I held strongly was that I needed to gain experience in network engineering to “level up” into software engineering. Looking back, me, my friends and my surroundings put this profession on a pedestal. Nevertheless, I landed a work-from-home network engineering role, at the end of my military service and before the pandemic. That was the first time my parents backed up from me, since clearly it is possible to make money with computers and work from anywhere as a bonus. But why am I still not content?
I realized later on, after quitting network engineering, pursuing my degree in computer science and ultimately working in that field, that my real passion was to create. I joined a startup during my university studies and then worked for the biggest company in the world as a software engineer.
In the startup I had more room to create, and I truly enjoyed it, but I felt like I wanted a piece of the decision making and of course - a piece of the pie. Right when I was about to quit and venture into my own journey as a businessman, I was approached by big tech, and I decided to take the money in return for some of my time. I did not have as much freedom as in the startup, the process to release any piece of code was dreadfully slow, and I started to slowly hate the profession, even though the pay was better than I had ever imagined.
I started to realize that the concept of a work/career ladder is there for a reason, most people that I have met yearn for an identity. The smartest people that I have ever met, that are real smart both on paper and in practice, are strongly motivated by praise from strangers with a significant rank. Why do I have to follow a guideline, somebody else’s rule book? I proved myself every single time that I can set a goal and get there. What am I waiting for? a promotion? Somebody nice to pull me up to a higher position?
Contemplating leads nowhere#
Do you often get carried away daydreaming? What if I did not have to sit here in school/class/the office while it’s finally sunny outside? What if I did not have to work on this useless feature of this useless product? What if I was the manager/officer/owner? These contemplations usually lead to part two. Dreaming about the moves that you are going to make: Yeah I will start this company, I will get this amount of customers and revenue, easy. I will build this software, run these ads, post on this platform. The deeper you daydream, the more real it feels, you made progress, it’s not for nothing!
Months later you realize you have not started anything you dreamt about, moreover you forgot all these important steps and details that you imagined - all that mental work went to waste. I was prone to this, heck I still am, but I’m happy that I’m not the only one. Prakhar Gupta carved it properly in stone (or silicon): doing the thing is doing the thing!
Leaders that I met along the way#
In 20 years of pursuing one goal, my vision did actually widen. I mostly met examples of people that I do not want to be, but I also, on rare occasions, experienced people’s actions that I respect and will forever remember.
My interesting observation is: I spent longer with people that are unhappy in their position than with people that are. The reason for this can be attributed to velocity, escape velocity if I may say. The people that inspire me: move quickly, do not complain, fail fast and move on. The ones stuck in a dream, usually spread their misery to others - misery loves company.
I can share two good examples of behaviors that I truly respect. I met a person, that was unhappy with the verdict that the system has given both of us. While I unhappily accepted the fate, reciting all the limitations that affect our situation - that person never surrendered, it took that person months but they changed the course of their career, as well as their life. Another example is quite the opposite, I met a leader that taught me that silence, as painful as it seems can be the best answer to provocation.
Unfortunately, I cannot think of more that I learned, that can directly apply to my new endeavor. I believe you only get good at something by doing it.
What’s next?#
That was a really long story, but what am I doing now? After multiple software projects I decided to create something physical. I’m building a luxury dog perfume brand. I think the biggest thing that generative AI granted us, is the ability to translate our dreams and ideas into a medium that we can communicate better to others. It has given me the confidence to just do it, if I can dream it I can make it, and now I can also communicate it to my customers, suppliers and other partners.
My dream was to make a living with computers, now I use computers to materialize my dreams.
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