Tech Entrepreneur (currently running an iOS/Android dev shop)

In 1981 when I was 12, my folks took me to my cousin Herb's house. He just bought a brand new BMW and took me for a drive. Coming from a middle income family, I never had been in a car like this. The handling on the road, the bucket seats, the dashboard were all amazing to me.

I asked cousin Herb, "What do you do to have a car like this?". Herb said "I'm a systems analyst". "What's that?" I asked. He replied "I work with computers".

Click...computers = BMW.

Next Monday, I stormed into my 7th grade math class and said "I want to learn about computers". Got started on TRS-80 and the rest is history.

I remember how amazed I was to press an "a" on a keyboard, and an "a" showed up on the screen. I wanted to know how that happened...and once I started coding, I realized that I could be in control of what happened. I went from an end-user to a maker and loved it. The possibilities were limitless.

Greed may have started me on my career path, but it turns out that computers and me were a match made in heaven. I loved the pace of innovation, and I was doing stuff of my own creation that amazed people. It felt good to be a geek.

Finally got my BMW while the VP Engineering at a SF startup in 2009, but that small accomplishment pales in comparison to the lifetime of creating and exploring that I have had....and still enjoy.

On a side note:
I feel so fortunate that I found my career at the age of 12 (though I didn't know it at the time). That drive gave me a focus that helped shape many decisions that people struggle with. Summer jobs, hobbies, college major, first job, where to live. They all fell in place easily for me cause I knew what I wanted in life.

- TRS-80 in 7th grade JHS

- Winning JHS science fair with my personality prediction algorithm

- Atari Computer camp when I was 13

- Reading Byte magazine like it was Shakespeare

- Changing my home address so I would be zoned for my local HS a year earlier (they had actual programming classes)

- Placing out of BASIC, and going directly to PASCAL in 9th grade.

- AP Computers in 10th grade (and tutoring the 12th graders)

- Working summer jobs as data entry and tech support through HS

- Winning an award for my HS in a regional programming competition

- Summer Advanced Sciences and Technology program. Got to work on medical imaging software for a research hospital at 15.

- Convinced my HS principal to let me co-teach a course in Applied computers (DBase, Lotus 123, Wordstar) cause they no longer had any classes for me to take.

- Went to Stony Brook University (inexpensive, and great CS dept) and able to declare a double major in Computer Science and Applied Math

- Started the Stony Brook Computer Science Society and was president for the next 4 years

- Used my financial aide work/study grant to get a university job at the Micro-Computer Demonstration Lab selling Apple/IBM/Xerox computers to faculty, students and staff. $3.15 an hour.

- 2 years later, the guy that ran the lab retired and IBM offered me a part-time job to run the lab. Same job, but now making $10.50 an hour.

- Represented Stony Brook in regional collegiate programming competitions

- Got a research job at IBM TJ Watson Research my Junior summer. Met a brilliant researcher who was moving to the private sector to do a startup in NY. Gave me a job offer that would be waiting for me when I graduated in a year.

- 1991: Moved to NYC to work at the startup (Ovid Technologies) where we built Medline using OOP.

- Rode the OOP wave through 3 more jobs, and promotions from Developer -> Sr. Developer -> Project Leader -> Director at various startups in NY.

- 1996: Joined a NYC startup (InterWorld) where we built app servers for our e-commerce products.

- Rode the "internet" wave through 2 more jobs, and promotions from Director -> CTO -> VP Product

- 1998: Joined an SF startup (Topica) as CTO to build a free email groups product. Got a BMW.

- 2001: .bomb and moved back to NYC, doing tech consulting for a few years on scalable server infrastructure

- 2003: Joined a CT startup (Netkey) where we built systems management software for Retail. Moved to Boston to build up a dev team. Got acquired by NCR.

- 2008: Moved to Brazil to be with my partner. Thought I would pickup another CTO type job at a startup, but I was too ahead of the curve. Played a lot of Xbox trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life.

- 2009: Out of boredom, started to play with the iOS SDK. Last time I wrote code was in 1996, 13 year gap.

- 2010: Published my first app. Thought I was going to be rich...instead learned that it was tough to make money publishing apps. Just then, a friend said he needed an app for his startup in NY. I banged it out for him and realized I could make a living doing consulting as an app developer.

- 2010: Started my own company, Cliq Consulting. So far: 17 clients, 35 apps, 89 million installs.

- Currently riding the app wave...and having lots of fun doing it.