https://lab.elwd.us/ en Sat, 15 Aug 2026 06:29:09 -0400 https://lab.elwd.us/2026/08/15/hobbyist-before-hacker.html Sat, 15 Aug 2026 06:29:09 -0400 http://elwoodicious.micro.blog/2026/08/15/hobbyist-before-hacker.html <p>I don't think of myself as a technologist, which is often odd for people to hear me say given that I've been a CTO for nearly 20 years and have built my life on building and scaling engineering teams and software platforms. It comes down to how I see technology and how and why I work with it.</p> <p>All technology is a tool.</p> <p>All tools are a means to an end.</p> <p>Creativity and delight are the point.</p> <p>Realizing ideas and solving problems in creative ways is what delights me: that's my end game. I didn't grow up absorbed with tinkering on early home computing systems. Sure, I grew up with an IBM 8088 that at the time cost as much as a new car, but did I love using it? Did I relish writing code? </p> <p>No. </p> <p>It was a tool that could help me do what I wanted to do: </p> <ul> <li>Word processor for writing stories</li> <li>D&D campaigns managed in dBase III</li> <li>Cakewalk for writing the most overwrought MIDI scores for a vampire game my best friend at the time never got past the notebook stage</li> </ul> <p>At some point, around the time I discovered the bass guitar and the thrill of 4-track recording for my personal brand of post-punk/jazz, I stopped using computers altogether. Computers and software weren't the tools I reached for when I wanted to create something, and I spent more than a decade completely away from computers and technology, so much so that I was actually surprised by the internet in the mid-90s. </p> <p>Coming back to computers wasn’t some great technological awakening. Mostly, I was bored at work. My CTO origin story is so pedestrian: I learned Visual Basic to literally not do my job (why do it if you can automate it). From there I discovered online communities of like-minded people who wanted to discuss art, books, and music. Soon I was deep in a hole of hacking on the Franklin eBookMan, writing tools to convert text files to SGML, running a private server for trading MP3s, using and building tools to manipulate the photos I had been taking with my first DSLR, and blogging about every aspect of it.</p> <p>Yet I don't see myself as a technologist. I bristle at the term hacker. None of them fit me well when I look in the mirror.</p> <p>I am a hobbyist with restless curiosity.</p> <p>I don't think of myself as a technologist, which is often odd for people to hear me say given that I've been a CTO for nearly 20 years and have built my life on building and scaling engineering teams and software platforms. It comes down to how I see technology and how and why I work with it.</p> <p>All technology is a tool.</p> <p>All tools are a means to an end.</p> <p>Creativity and delight are the point.</p> <p>Realizing ideas and solving problems in creative ways is what delights me: that's my end game. I didn't grow up absorbed with tinkering on early home computing systems. Sure, I grew up with an IBM 8088 that at the time cost as much as a new car, but did I love using it? Did I relish writing code? </p> <p>No. </p> <p>It was a tool that could help me do what I wanted to do: </p> <ul> <li>Word processor for writing stories</li> <li>D&D campaigns managed in dBase III</li> <li>Cakewalk for writing the most overwrought MIDI scores for a vampire game my best friend at the time never got past the notebook stage</li> </ul> <p>At some point, around the time I discovered the bass guitar and the thrill of 4-track recording for my personal brand of post-punk/jazz, I stopped using computers altogether. Computers and software weren't the tools I reached for when I wanted to create something, and I spent more than a decade completely away from computers and technology, so much so that I was actually surprised by the internet in the mid-90s. </p> <p>Coming back to computers wasn’t some great technological awakening. Mostly, I was bored at work. My CTO origin story is so pedestrian: I learned Visual Basic to literally not do my job (why do it if you can automate it). From there I discovered online communities of like-minded people who wanted to discuss art, books, and music. Soon I was deep in a hole of hacking on the Franklin eBookMan, writing tools to convert text files to SGML, running a private server for trading MP3s, using and building tools to manipulate the photos I had been taking with my first DSLR, and blogging about every aspect of it.</p> <p>Yet I don't see myself as a technologist. I bristle at the term hacker. None of them fit me well when I look in the mirror.</p> <p>I am a hobbyist with restless curiosity.</p>