Episode 58 – Carlos is as Carlos does

From the TI 84 calculator to music and back to tech, Carlos has done it all. Although music still tugs at his heartstrings, the overwhelming desire to code has been seeded there for years as well. But, Carlos never before considered tech as a potential for a career, until recently when he took a chance and enrolled in a code school. Now, he’s here to tell us his experiences that his path has created for him. Listen in to episode 58 while Arsalan chats with Carlos, a musical entrepreneur who turned to software development.

Carlos’s Bio:
Carlos Muñoz Kampff grew up in an entrepreneurial and musical family in Brazil, Mexico, and Germany. In 1999 Carlos moved to Boston to study audio production for video sync (aka film scoring). Since graduating, Carlos has been a rock and roll musician and circus music composer. He’s been on veggie oil bus national tours with the band Incus, reality TV shows with the ClownSnotBombs, and most recently started his own business and became an entrepreneur. He began Star Power Music School in 2011, developed Notabtion™ (his trademarked music notation and leveling system), and recently received a scholarship to participate in the Advanced Certificate for Entrepreneurial Leadership, of which he is now a graduate. He is currently in Portland and learning to code at Epicodus so that he can turn his innovative methodology and Notabtion™ into fun and engaging music apps.
Episode Highlights and Show Notes:
Arsalan: Hi, Everyone! Today my guest is Carlos Munoz Kampff. How are you, Carlos?
Carlos: I’m doing great. How are you, Arsalan?
Arsalan: I am awesome and it’s so good to have you here. We have discovered while we were talking that we have a lot in common, including the fact that you did something with your programmable calculator back in high school. You were cheating on an exam and you got away with it. Tell us a little about that.
Carlos: It’s kind of funny. Back then it seemed like a guilty pleasure, but now it’s becoming what my life is all about, which is kind of interesting. So, when I was in high school. They wanted us to use these TI 84 calculators and the thing about them was that they could do all kinds of mathematical computations, but they were also programmable. I hope my teachers aren’t listening right now, but they assume that if they didn’t teach us how to program that we wouldn’t just figure it out. As soon as I found out that you can program these I went through all the manuals and just created sheet programs for all my tests. So a lot of times I would have to twiddle my thumbs at the end of a test to pretend that I’m doing something because I’d be done already.
Carlos: So that got me curious about it. Then I went into different avenues. After that, and I started playing music. I joined the band and moved to the United States to study music and through that, I started to learn more about entrepreneurship. Years later I came back around to my interest in technology and coding.
Arsalan: So you’re currently in a coding boot camp in Portland, Oregon, right?
Carlos: Yes.
Arsalan: I was going to ask you to describe yourself because that’s one of the questions that we always start with. How do you describe yourself? Who is Carlos Kampff? But, I think it’s going to be hard because you have your legs in three or four different boats. But let’s see if you can. Who is Carlos? We want to see who you are.
Carlos: I’m trying to understand who I am as well. One thing I can really say is that I’m really a curious person. I like to learn about many different things. For example, I played music for a circus troupe that was on a reality TV show on truTV. That was an experience. I’ve toured with bands. I’ve started my own business. I’m always very curious and learning about different things. I’m an idea person. I think of ideas all the time, which has been hard in my life.

Episode source