Welcome to the Code Nivey podcast, where we talk to people on their coding journey

and helps of helping you on yours.

I'm your host to Ron, and today we're talking about computational design with John Mata,

chief experience officer at Publicus Sapient.

And he said this work will never amount to anything, and it was quite blistering.

So I like, about this office thinking, wow, if I really didn't have conviction around what I did, I'd probably listen to him.

John talks about his journey into combining art and technology, the traits of innovators, and going from working in academia to Silicon Valley.

After this.

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U.K. slash Prime. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. So tell me about how you got into coding.

Well, I was lucky to get access to a computer when I was in my early

teens. I grew up in a poor part of Seattle and I was bused across town because of the civil

rights movement and got to go to a school that had nice textbooks and nice things like that. And there was a computer

in the math class and I got to see my first computer there.

What was that computer like? What did you get to do on it?

Absolutely nothing. It didn't do anything. I think people forget that computers used to be

useless. They were like fancy light bulbs. There was no software to install. You had it right at yourself.

My first program was printing my name, the essence of vanity. Say my name. So I had to print my name

forever. And did you find that interesting? Is that intriguing to you? I thought it was strange

...