I read Electrical and Computer Engineering at UT Austin, then lost two jobs inside a year, the second the morning after I was made to lead a team of twenty-three. So I went and learned to do things with my hands instead: welding, plumbing, landscaping in the Texas sun, a season of honest work and a stretch sleeping in my car. From that ground I built a software firm, and I am building a company still.But the writing was never a second act. It ran underneath all of it.