Welcome to the Code to be podcast.

We talk to people on their coding journey

in hopes of helping you on yours.

I'm your host, Aron, and today we're talking about

how to think like a CTO with Joel Beasley,

author of Modern CTO and host of the Modern CTO podcast.

This software feature I'm building, how does that actually connect to revenue for the company?

You start asking questions like that and you'll learn a lot really fast.

Joel talks about getting hit by a car when he was younger and using that rehabilitation period to learn how to code,

selling his first technology at the age of 18 for $1 million and what he's learned from interviewing so many CTOs after this.

Thanks so much for being here.

Oh, I'm so excited.

Thanks for having me.

So, Joel, you are a very accomplished individual, fellow podcaster, also accomplished business person.

You started writing code at the age of 13 and sold your first technology just five years

later at 18 for $1 million. So you became a millionaire before the rest of us, you know,

graduated college, which is very impressive. Take us all the way back. Take us back to 13 years old.

What got you into coding in the first place? My dad is an engineer in the Air Force. They put

the GPS system into the B32 stealth bombers. And so that's where he learned hardware and software

development. And then when he came out of the Air Force, he would do a lot of freelancing

nights and weekends type stuff. People were getting their first computer systems installed in their

businesses. So he would take me with him after work because I had some siblings and my mom was like,

...