Developer on Fire
Developer on Fire
Episode 377 | Michael Dowden - Autonomy and People
Guest:
Michael Dowden talks with Dave Rael about business, people, writing, speaking, and lifestyle design
Michael is a Co Founder and Product Architect for startups Andromeda, FlexePark, and M2D2. For more than 20 years he has been writing code and geeking out over cool technology. He is passionate about keeping things simple and focusing on what provides real value to the end user. Michael enjoys helping other developers grow in their career, speaking at conferences, user groups, and coding academies. In 2015 he wrote Programming Languages ABC++ to share programming languages with children.
Chapters:
- - Dave introduces the show and Michael Dowden
- - A changing and changed focus from technology to people
- - How Michael got started in software
- - The value of degrees
- - Multiple foci and staying Michael on staying in programming
- - Michael, the conference speaker
- - Michael's experience with being an author
- - Michael's lifestyle and businesses
- - The joy of board games and prioritizing activities you enjoy
- - Michael's story of failure - a filed startup and the emotional explosion of not communicating a valuing of opinions
- - Michael's book recommendations
- - Prioritizing lifestyle over tasks and achievements
- - Michael's success story - finishing a book, autonomy of time, and shifting from things to people
- - Achieving autonomous liberty
- - Michael's top 3 tips for delivering more value
- - Keeping up with Michael
Resources:
- Programming Languanges ABC++ - Michael Dowden
- Andromeda
- FlexePark
- Doc Norton on Developer On Fire
- TRS-80
- TrackJS
- Michael's Blog Post on Installing TrackJS in Angular 5+
- Todd Gardner on Developer On Fire
- Eric Brandes on Developer On Fire
- Alex Papadimoulis on Developer On Fire
- Chad Green
- Code PaLOUsa
- Martine Dowden - Michael's Wife
- Shawn Wildermuth on Developer On Fire
- Ted Neward on Developer On Fire
- Isildur
Michael's book recommendation:
- The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
- Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less - Greg McKeown
- Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (3rd Edition) - Tom DeMarco
- The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master - Andrew Hunt
- The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich - Timothy Ferriss
- The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It - Michael E. Gerber
Michael's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
- Listen - check your ego at the door and be willing to accept that you may be wrong
- Practice compassion
- All other things being equal, simpler is always better
