Programmers Are The Future

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Published April 27, 2017 by Bill Keck.

The future is rushing at us at incredible speed.  Industries are being disrupted.  The world is transforming itself at a pace never experienced before in history.

Entrepreneur Patrick Betdavid has said that entrepreneurs can solve 100% of the world’s problems.   If that’s true, and I think it may well be, then the vast majority of those entrepreneurs are going to be programmers.

The reason why I say this is pretty simple, which will hopefully be clear in a minute.

I watched Betdavid step through a simple list on how to become an entrepreneur:

1. Build a team with complementary talents.
2. Identify the industry you are interested in.
3. Identify problems within that industry that need solving.
4. Determine which companies are already trying to solve those problems.
5. Determine whether or not the companies trying to solve the problems are weak or strong.
6. If you determine that the company that is trying to solve the problem is weak, then you may have identified an opportunity.

The way to solve problems and beat the competition is through innovation.  Who better to lead that innovation than programmers?

So that’s really good news for programmers.  We have almost unlimited opportunities in front of us.

However, as I state in my book, 100 Patterns For Success, I don’t think finding opportunity is as simple as just running through Betdavid’s list.

I can easily identify opportunities.  I think Bitcoin, for example, is ripe for disruption.

For one thing, their technology is not being updated and it won’t be able to keep pace with the evolution of devices.  This is a weakness.

While there are more and more centralized cryptocurrencies coming on the market, which address part of that concern, none of them are particularly strong.

So does that mean I’m the right guy to come up with the solution?  No.  I don’t have a passion for it.  The idea of working with cryptocurrency doesn’t excite me as a programmer.

People who are not passionate about what they are doing, but are simply chasing an opportunity, are almost 100% guaranteed to fail.  Inevitably there will be difficulties that will chase most of them out of the industry, and sooner, rather than later.

On the other hand, if you are kept up at night by thinking about all the possibilities of a cryptocurrency and how cool it would be to code it, you would at least have a chance of making it.

As an entrepreneur, the odds are always stacked against you.  The failure rate is insane and deciding to be an entrepreneur is not a rational act because almost any objective analysis of whether or not you will be successful almost always points to the negative.

Those who go on in the face of hopelessness are born to be entrepreneurs.  But this is easy for them because they don’t think of it that way.

Entrepreneurism is an act of self-expression.  We do it not because we want to, but because we have to.  Often, we have no other employment options because we simply don’t fit in anywhere.

Most entrepreneurs fail due to lack of capital.  The interesting thing about programmers is that we trade in a different kind of currency, code.  And that code can be incredibly valuable, even though it doesn’t take a lot of capital to write it.

I got involved with writing educational books about 4 years ago, introducing programmers to PHP frameworks.  My most recent programming book is Laravel 5.4 For Beginners, which is rated 5 stars on GoodReads.com, so thanks to everyone who rated it.

I wrote the 100 Patterns For Success to help programmers understand how they can use the incredible talent that they have to drive towards greater success in life.

So to get back to Betdavid’s assertion that entrepreneurs will solve 100% of the world’s problems, and if you accept my proposition that those entrepreneurs will be programmers, then that’s both an awesome responsibility and a great privilege.   Part of my mission is to help you make the most of it.

Thanks again to everyone for supporting my work.  Ratings, reviews, shares, likes, and comments are greatly appreciated.

100 Patterns For Success Officially Released

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Published April 20, 2017 by Bill Keck.

100 Patterns For Success Officially Released

I’m proud to announce the release of my latest book, 100 Patterns For Success.

One day I was listening to the Laravel podcast, and they were talking about books on success, like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki, and how it didn’t leave the best impression with them.

I thought about the disconnect that many books on success have with the tech community, which is in large part because these books are not written by programmers.

The story of someone else’s success and their opinions is not really all that useful.  Why would we care about how someone built Block Buster Video out of a trash business, which is what Wayne Huizenga did?  Do we really care what Robert Kiyosai’s opinion on the psychology of success is?  Is it important that we know that Richard Branson’s dad threw him in a river when he was a boy to teach him how to swim?  Yes, that made him tough at an early age, it’s an interesting tidbit, but how does that help you?

Well, truth be told, there are valuable lessons in all those books.  I’ve read many of them and I don’t want to leave the impression that I don’t like them because I do.

But on the other hand, I can see why programmers might not like them.  For one thing, the average programmer is not an average person.  They are a little brighter to begin with, and in many cases are smarter than those older generations of people who made it big.

Programmers are more inspired by how things work, not how much money you stuffed in the bank.  We’re more interested in adopting useful workflow patterns and inventing things, than we are in psychological coaching.

So I stepped up to the plate to see if I could combine the two concepts.  I defined 110 patterns that you can adopt into your behavior that will point you toward success.  I know the title has 100 in it, but I added 10 more as a bonus.

I developed the patterns in a very open way, so that you can build your own system of thinking from it.  You can keep or discard the patterns as you like.  You can be inspired or disagree, but at any rate, you will be stimulated and exposed to new ideas and new ways of looking at things.

I recruited a lot of tech billionaires, rock star CEOs (and one actual rock star), and many others to lend their voice to the concepts.  The book contains many quotes from Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and many others.

We also look at brief case studies of Google, Yahoo, Youtube, Uber, Slack and many others.  We provide valuable insights into how some of these startups stack the odds of success in their favor before they even get started.

This book would be a benefit to any programmer who is even remotely considering starting their own venture.   As I point out the numerous times in the book, I believe that programmers are the ones who should be running companies.

Thank you for continuing to support my work.  If you do purchase the book, I have one small request, and that is that you rate and/or review the book at GoodReads.com.

Recommending this book to friends is a nice way to say thanks, I would really appreciate that as well.  Thanks again.