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News outlets around the
world covered my hiring of
DVD Jon to
contribute to
our soon-to-be announced Oboe project. I actually started assembling
the necessary team of engineers long before Jon came to work for me.
Another key programmer on the team is Cody Brocious. His name may
sound like
the
lead character from an action novel, but it's his real name.
I first met Cody because of his work on PyMusique. Apple
has yet to release a Linux version
of
iTunes, so Linux users
have been locked out of the iPod/iTunes
world.
Since one of my goals is to bring Linux to the mainstream market with Linspire, it's critically
important that a Linspire desktop/laptop user
can do everything that a Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X user can (except
for virus propagation - I'm happy for that to remain a Microsoft
specialty). PyMusique lets Linux users listen to their iTunes songs and
burn them to a CD. It doesn't let them bypass purchasing the songs, but
it
does let them burn the music once they purchase them on a Linux
computer.
(Linspire is working on an comprehensive open source library that will
allow iPods to be used seamlessly on Linux. Watch for this to be
released shortly.)
After reading about PyMusique, I sent an email to Cody and we became
net
acquaintances. I was stunned to learn that Cody was just 17 years old.
He surely didn't talk or program like a teenager. We talked about some
of my ideas for the future of digital music and he had some good ones
of his own. He had never been on an airplane so I bought him a ticket
to San Diego for a few weeks in the summer to visit me and the rest of
the team at MP3tunes. After an hour or two in the San Diego
sunshine, he
made up his mind that this was where he wanted to be. On his return, he
got
the OK from Mom and Dad to move 3,000 miles away. He packed a single
duffel bag and left his family and friends in Pennsylvania to relocate
to
San Diego.
I've grown to know Cody well over the last few months. What I learned
was that Cody was one of those lucky humans who finds his calling early
in life. Most people need the generalities of high school and college
to expose them to the variety of the world in the hopes of stumbling
onto that task, subject or activity they are specially suited for. Cody
tells his life story starting with, "At four, I essentially lived in
front
of my parents' 386, which I fell in love with."
While other kids were out playing kickball and freeze tag, Cody was
inside coding. "In kindergarten, I first started coding in BASIC on an
Apple ][e." He did miss out on some of the stereotypical milestones
like
riding a bike. It was an unconventional childhood, but one Cody thanks
his parents for letting him have with no regrets. "My older brother was
the athletic one -
all I wanted to do was
code." Now more than a decade
later Cody possesses world-class skills at complex engineering tasks.
For specialists like Cody, high school can be a harsh and unforgiving
four years. The acceptance of the business world, which respects his
engineering prowess, is a refreshing change. He's definitely found a
home at MP3tunes and is playing a key role on Oboe. But we haven't
forgotten he's still a kid. And kids need to know how to ride a bike!
So we took a lunch break to teach Cody to ride a bike. After the near miss of the
forklift, unnerving questions about the
workers
compensation policy emerged and we realized that was enough for the
first lesson. Plus we can't risk losing a key engineer if we're going
to deliver Oboe
on time!
--
MichaelThe Michael's Minute Meter
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