#117 Learning How to Learn with 100Devs Founder Leon Noel
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
Quincy Larson
5.0 • 549 Ratings
🗓️ 28 March 2024
⏱️ 117 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp Founder Quincy Larson interviews Leon Noel, founder of 100Devs and head of engineering at Resilient Coders.
Growing up, Leon had it drilled into him that he had to become a doctor, lawyer, or dentist. But his ambitions grew and he went on to have an exciting career in tech.
After a successful exit from a startup, Leon wanted to help folks who were struggling during the pandemic. He started 100Devs, a charity which has helped 10,000s of people learn to code.
We talk about:
- dropping out of Yale
- getting into the selective Tech Stars startup accelerator
- Getting involved with Resilient Coders, a charity that helps court-involved youth learn coding
- Starting 100Devs and building a Discord server with 60,000 people learning to code together
Quincy recorded this podcast live and hasn't edited it at all. We want to capture the feel of a real live conversation, with all the human quirks that entails.
Can you guess what song he's playing on my bass during the intro? It's his arrangement of the intro to a 1990s cartoon.
Be sure to follow The freeCodeCamp podcast in your favorite podcast app. And share this podcast with a friend. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech.
Also, we want to thank the 8,427 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate
Links we talk about during the interview:
The video that changed Leon's life on Spaced Repetition, by Ali Abdaal: https://youtu.be/Z-zNHHpXoMM
The official Anki app, which is free on web / desktop and doesn't lock you into a subscription. Leon's advice: "Only create cards on one device, but review on any to save you from weird syncing issues." https://apps.ankiweb.net
Dr. Barbara Oakley's Learn How to Learn course, which Leon calls "a masterpiece":
https://coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
The 100Devs website (new cohort starting in early May): https://100devs.org/about
Trailer for X-men '97: https://youtu.be/pv3Ss8o9gGQ
Thelonious Monk [pianist Quincy mentions] "Straight No Chaser" documentary trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx0E9-ThvKc
Leon on YouTube: http://leonnoel.com/youtube
Leon on Discord: http://leonnoel.com/discord
Leon's Twitch for his live streams: http://leonnoel.com/twitch
Leon's website: https://leonnoel.com/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm |
| 0:02.0 | . |
| 0:03.0 | I'm |
| 0:04.0 | . |
| 0:05.0 | . Welcome back to the Free Code Camp podcast. I'm Quincy Larson, teacher and founder of FreeCoteCamp.org. |
| 0:41.8 | Each week we're bringing you insight from developers, founders, and ambitious people that are getting into tech. |
| 0:48.0 | Today, we're talking with Leon Noelle, who I don't know if you've heard of 100 devs, but it's amazing and it's a huge source of inspiration for me personally. |
| 0:57.9 | He is the founder of 100 devs, |
| 0:59.6 | and he is head of engineering at Resilient Coders. |
| 1:03.9 | Leon, joining us from sunny Los Angeles. |
| 1:08.7 | How's everything wrong with you? |
| 1:09.7 | It's a little early. |
| 1:10.7 | We'll see if the sun comes out. |
| 1:11.9 | Things are going well. |
| 1:13.9 | This is a surreal experience. |
| 1:16.4 | Thank you so much for having me. |
| 1:18.0 | And we'll get weird with it real quick. |
| 1:21.0 | I always joke that my wife knows how serious I am. |
| 1:26.2 | If your face is like the background of my like screens or |
| 1:30.1 | I've had a picture of you on my desk for a little while so she knows if it's go time or not |
| 1:35.6 | based off of like she's seeing you so uh wow it's honor it's a huge privilege like this is a dream |
| 1:41.8 | come true for me uh you're a huge hero of mine and I've done so to help so many folks and you're who I want to be when I grow up. So I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. Oh, I just want to say that it's like very kind. And I want to say that that goes both ways. Like often when I'm feeling like a little bit low energy and I'm just like, oh, you know, |
... |
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