I worked with such concentration and focus and I had hundreds of obscure engineering or programming things in my head. I was just real exceptional in that way.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I have been able to do a lot of great things during my career!
My dad was an engineer and so I had this picture of science and technology and pursuits of the mind as being more impressive than artistic pursuits, which I saw a as kind of frivolous.
So I went for engineering, specifically product design, which I enjoyed.
I worked in information technology and academia for a long time and met many people who were better with things and ideas than with people.
I was born with an ability to concentrate very hard on a job for a long time.
I realised I had to work in something creative, but with a business and global element. And that I had to do it while I was still young and had an appetite for risk.
I got a degree in math, from not a good school in Texas, and then I went to work as a software engineer. Just not glamorous at all.
Even as a college professor at Carnegie Mellon and Stanford, I saw myself as an entrepreneur, and I went out, took risks, and tried to invent new things, such as participating in the DARPA Grand Challenge and working on self-driving cars.
Even though I had the talent, programming just didn't feel right. I never considered it very seriously. Some people get gratification from bending a machine to their will. I didn't.
I've been a software engineer, a novelist, a journalist, and a manager - and managing developers is easily the trickiest thing I've ever done.
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