We’re trying out something different today on The Startup Chat as we talk about a mutual friend of ours who is somebody we think we can all learn a lot from. Patrick McKenzie, an engineer known as patio11 on Hacker News, became an important contributor of that community and from there his career and life went in an interesting direction.

Today we take a look at Patrick’s career and share some stories about him. Patrick went from an online community member to blogger to a software owner to having two small software products to doing consulting work to becoming an very in-demand and well-paid speaker.  Patrick is also the CEO of Starfighter, a business involved in tech hiring.

There are many things we love about Patrick, not the least of which is the fact that he is really a nice guy and openly shares what he knows. Patrick is true to who he is and we can all learn some important things from him.

Tips:

Hiten:  Patrick shares what he knows and he’s very helpful in the process and in a way, that’s an art form.  When you are feeling like you have to do something big, think about Patrick and how he shared what he did and what he knew.

Steli:  Be yourself.  It’s sometimes hard to accept who we are and embrace it. Being who you are is such a powerful thing.  Patrick is himself and we can all learn from him.

Resources:

Hacker News  

Kalzumeus

Patrick’s Leveling-Up presentation at Micro Conf

Starfighter

 

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