A Peak of how I became a Nerd.
1979
Opening my eye's
At 15, after a failed attempt to leave home at 14, I found myself back home for a few months, uncertain about my place as a young adult. Then, a TI-99/4A home computer arrived, courtesy of my dad, an engineer. He handed me a book filled with code and told me to learn it to avoid ever going hungry. I spent countless hours meticulously entering code from that book, eventually making a dot move across my parents' Zenith TV. I was instantly captivated, and when I turned off the TI, my dad showed me how to transfer the data to our portable cassette player. This sparked not just my passion for coding but also my intrigue about technology's potential to positively impact our lives.
1982
Building my own PC
My interest grew further when a professor at university introduced me to Lotus 1-2-3, the first innovative spreadsheet for PCs. I immediately recognized its potential to save time and enhance accuracy. After moving back to Canada, I lived in a basement apartment beneath a grocery store in Aurora, Ontario. Above and to the left was a computer store called Aurora Computer Technology, owned by Rick and Doug, who helped me build my first computer. Despite my limited budget, Rick generously offered me a friends-and-family discount. It was 1985, and Intel had just released their 32-bit CPU, greatly outperforming the 16-bit TI-99A.
1985
First Peak into the future
While constructing my computer, I frequently visited Rick to discuss new developments. One day, I saw a technician assembling in the back room. When I inquired about the operating system he was installing, he politely asked me to step out, sparking my curiosity. Rick informed me he was loading an early version of MINIX, a Unix-like operating system. At the time, I was focused on Windows 1.0, familiar with commands like DIR, CD, and my favorite, COPY.
1986
Army of Darkness
Before joining Daisytek, I experienced my first significant failure. While reading a Time article about the “information highway”—the Internet, was published and I discovered that only two internet service providers existed in Ontario, Canada. With a fellow colleague from a computer store in Newmarket, we experimented with out own BBS (Bulletin Board System) called Army of Darkness, where we shared software for free, that we copied from the computer store we worked at, I became a master of shrink wrapping. We decided we needed servers, a T1 trunk line, and switches to become the first IP service provider in the (905) area code, which was just being introduced.
1987
My first App
With all this technology, I had to figure out how to use it. I learned CNC networking simply by reading course books, never attending class. I then began working with Visual Basic, and at just 22, I created what I believed would revolutionize the purchasing of computer consumables for Mark Layton, the CEO of Daisytek. I delivered a demo on a 3.5 floppy disk, and a few weeks later, I received a call from Daisytek’s Plano, Texas headquarters, inquiring about who had created the demo. That was my first experience working collaboratively on design and development, realizing the importance of anticipating where technology was headed, aligning with Moore’s Law.
1993
"Failure - another excuse to try harder"
Even though AOL was pioneering the path, they restricted users to their platform, and I believed a more open system was essential for widespread information access. I sought investors while helping the owner of an accounting firm’s wife with Windows and Word, essentially providing tech support before it became a formal role. I developed a business plan and presented it to Bob Woan, a friendly and approachable man. I explained the future of technology and why being the first 905 area code IP provider would be successful. I predicted a rapid return on investment, based on reaching just 5% of the area's 1.2 million customers at $29.00 per month, leading to over 1.8 million monthly. However, Bob couldn’t grasp how something intangible could generate such returns, and he politely declined, leaving me devastated
Years later, during my time at HP, I unexpectedly ran into Bob at a pub in Aurora. He called out to me and introduced me to his friends, saying, “This is the guy I was talking about; if I’d listened to him, I would have been a multi-millionaire.” He then asked what technology I’d recommend next. I smiled and simply replied, “Crypto.”.