Child programmer turned successful CTO

I thought I began programming at age 10. I was incorrect. I began at age 8. I only know this after watching old home videos, over this past Christmas, my mom found that shows the date. And that is where the future technologist within me kicked in, yet again. I wanted to see if my memories of my computer, programming books, my father's teachings, and my code were what I thought they were. If I had been two whole years off in my own recollection of what year I began programming, what else might I get wrong?

Sitting there in a trance state of my own making, it felt like a true inception of self. I began to see my old code in my head. I wrote a game called Missing Letters that would help you learn how to spell the words for a spelling test by showing you the words with one random letter missing. I wrote it in Apple BASIC. I started to see how I would do it within something like Meteorjs, a fast way, to do a reactive web app. I didn't want to shift the look of my game because in truth I came to a full circle realization. As a child I loved vaporwave aesthetic and I still do as an adult. I wanted to redo it, just cleaner. I felt like a DJ. Don't laugh too hard, I have heard some of my favorites, like Kaskade and Armin Van Buuren, talk about how when they remix their original stuff, they can hear it in their heads almost instantly.

When I was reading programming books to gain privileges to be able to play video games, I never thought it would lead to being the co-founder of the fastest growing company in the United States. I just didn't. How could I? I didn't even know Inc Magazine or Deloitte existed and learned about business from my mother and father's hustle and insight of running a craft-show business. I just wanted to save Zelda. But all of this is kind of the point right?

Adversity and quirks are what has made me who I am today. Without being poor, I am not sure I would have ever learned how to strive for more. Without my father's odd need to have me program at such an early age, I wouldn't have made a better life for myself. Without being able to look back on what I have learned from the past, I wouldn't be able to be grateful for what I have now.