Welcome back to my channel.

This is an episode off Let you go live a show where I'm interviewing interesting people on a variety of topics.

And today my guest is Stepan.

Finished, Really Stab software engineer at Airbnb A Previously was a baseball.

And today's upon this going to tell us how you learned to code when he was 12.

Have launched a few businesses.

So if you're interested, stay tuned.

So, um, you're a staff senior staff software engineer right now, and, um, I'm just curious.

When how old were you when you started programming?

So the first thing I did right?

Well, because I when I was in Canada, I didn't speak English.

Uh, my friend was my computer.

So, uh, it depends.

Depends how you define programming.

But on the very lightest things, like, I would install Lennox over and over again, I would use Juarez so I would find illegal software, install it on my computer that started around Guys don't use illegal software anymore.

About those times fast.

Now it's not a good Yeah, You're gonna get malware.

Guys, don't do it.

That happened to me.

Oh, many, many times.

So that's how it all started.

I'd say, like I started using linens when I was maybe 12 or 13 and then I really liked forums.

So before the age of Facebook, it's funny, because when I would actually Facebook came around like, Why would anyone want to use it?

It's like forums.

But you know, everyone like who wants that?

So I I would go on that would create these little forums.

And, uh, you know, some of the forms were like homework for our class forums, other former, uh, hosting forums.

So, like, how do you make websites forms and looked at it all kind of began.

But to really be fair, I think a lot of people think that when people say I program when I was 12 it's like all a man, they're geniuses, right?

But I'll tell you that almost everyone I've met who actually said they programmed when they were 12 like myself, didn't actually program at all like I didn't know what an array waas until I was 17 or a hot.

So it took me quite a while to I understand.

Uh, you know, could you please elaborate on that?

You know, when people say that their programming at 12 they're not really programming.

So what did you exactly do you from that age of 12 to 17?

Because you still didn't program.

And I guess, in a different definition of what programming is, So here's what you do it right, you just get interested in things.

So for you, and then you try to solve it.

But you don't really care.

Uh, how do you Do you understand what your salt eso in the example.

You know, uh, I would want to make maps for, like, counter strike, So I now I don't even remember how I did this.

But like, I, like, puts put something together to make my own maps.

Then, uh, I wanted to customize my forums, so I wanted to make a really nice, uh, you know, used Photoshopped tights on the lens flare on something and put it in.

Uh, so then I figured out How do I use template languages, too, to mit customize my forums.

And then I wanted to make money.

So around 13 14 I like figured out the magic of dumela, which is the word press of a long time ago.

And, uh And based on that, what I would do is okay.

Like, Okay, imagine, like, you just have this thing and you're able to just follow a few tutorials and you can turn it into anything you want.

So I was able to do that.

But at the same time, I would ask myself these questions like, Wait, we like who?

Like who says And our a I raises.

It isn't already a part of Ruby, is it?

A part of rails, Is it?

Like, where does it come from?

Yeah, right.

How does it know?

Uh, you know where to put what.

So you basically, from what I hear from your story, you were really motivated by figuring things out bigger and problems out on building things.

Is that is that kind of fair to say?

Yeah, I'd say it's a combo that, like, an initial motivation of that, but I don't.

So I would say, like, I you also can't keep it a little fair.

I I did have.

I'm not quite like the scientist, like, there are some people that just want to learn, right, But for me, I have all these.

I would tell my friend like okay, We're gonna create, like, a secret layer of like we're gonna make become millionaires at 14 like Zack and Cody in the Disney TV show, right?

Or like, you know, like I would look at the, you know, I wanted Thio succeed in business too.

So a lot of the times, I would think about that.

I would think about enemy and like, Hey, like, I want I wanna make my own enemy website.

Like, how cool would that be?

Other people could see my, you know, Seattle me on my website.

Right, So there wasn't a component, but, uh, there's a lot of fun and adventure and explore that.

Yeah, and that, I think, is an amazing MIT motivation.

You know, you mentioned that you weren't motivated by just learning, but you were motivated.

Thio solve problems or, like, view cool in the community of your friends or whether it be a business motivation to make money.

I think finding that extra motivation to build something that your passionate about that you want to make happen for one reason or another is actually amazing and learning how to code and learning programming.

So I know that when you were 17 right?

You moved to Colombia from Canada.

Did you tell me about that?

Why?

Why did you move?

Yeah, great question.

So here's what happened.

Attn.

That point, actually, plug for this gentleman.

I read this author He was here.

The block called.

I will teach you to be rich.

Great.

Great book from you.

The fact that you Yeah, meet Stefan's a hero.

My one of my here is So what happened is he said how?

Hey, look.

Everyone, um, complains about the cost of tuition for universities, but no one applies to scholarships.

In fact, there are some scholarships where there's they can't even award anyone because no one applied.

Right?

So?

So?

And they said, Hey, look, I paid for Stanford by doing that, So I thought to myself, You know what?

I'm gonna do the same.

So I ended up applying to a bunch of scholarships on the one of these scholarships.

There was a grant from the government and the government gave me about Canadian government from the Canadian government.

All you had to do was write a business, let like a business plan, and they would give you effectively $5000 to build a company.

So I ended up applying for that, and I got it.

And, you know, there was kind of, like, a requirement that you had to go to university afterwards, but it wasn't necessarily clear.

So I I use that like you.

Just you The money?

Yeah.

So I use is going to build a business.

Ah, and, uh, at that time, right, I thought, Hey, like, $5000 like I'm pretty much set for life.

Like, what else do I need?

Right.

And you were 17 to write.

I was 17.

I had 5000 in the bank.

I just closed a deal to create, like this, uh, you know, website.

For someone.

It was like one more $3000 in my bank account coming soon.

So I thought, Hey, I could go.

I was, you know, to to be, you know, also fair.

Like I was, I visually saw the university that I was gonna go to.

I just never went inside.

But it was there.

I had it.

Yeah, I'm like, Okay, you know what, though?

Let me take a year off.

Right before I go all in.

Let me let me try to start a company.

Let me try to travel the world.

Right.

I I had at that time this little globe in my room and I put dots in all the cities that I wanted to go to AA.

And at the time, I had read a bunch of books like the Tim Ferriss like, four hour Work week and our, you know, I had this belief.

I'm like, Look, my daddy is a very hard working guys is a big business.

So I'm talking, talking to him, and I say that, you know?

And he tells me, Look, if you want to make money for want to be rich, you've gotta work hard.

And I told him that No, no, no, you don't understand.

What I'm gonna do is create passive income streams, and I'm just gonna I'm going to not work.

And then that's going to make me one.

What is this guy doing?

So?

So that so Crest, huh?

So that's what I said.

Okay, let me go to Columbia.

It's pretty cheap.

Uh, and, uh, I always wanted to visit South America.

What a what a scary place.

So that's how it started so fast.

forward.

You moved to Colombia and you started chill.

Who?

Cause And then you started a few other businesses, like some cuter and company, right?

And then you met.

You reached out to Ah, um founder, startup founder, right.

Who offered you to move to Asia to work for him?

Is that right?

Yeah.

So here's what happens.

So tutoring company actually happened before when I was in college?

It sorry.

In high school, I created Ah copyrighting ad That was like, You know I will.

I will do whatever you pay me.

You'll get back in scholarships based on the kind of math tutoring I'll give you.

So that was a fun side aside.

But in Colombia, what I did was I What I would do is I would just start building things and then any time I respect that someone.

So let's say I read somebody's blawg article.

I read a book.

I would just send them an e mail.

So initially began a little weird, like, You know, one time I email the person for an internship and they said I found out their wife's name.

I've found out when they were getting married and I wrote I wrote something like, Hey, you know, you have the start up.

You have your wife.

You know, you you gotta commit to both.

It's kind of hard.

I can help you with one of them policies.

Not your wife.

Winky face.

So But you know what?

The crazy thing about all that was that they responded, right?

Even that one.

You know what the person responded with?

He's like, Oh, yeah, the wedding's not on, you know, it's not in September.

It's in October, you know, that's the response.

So what I would do is I would do send these messages, and one of them was a person who's building a company in China.

And I said I wrote a very intriguing title.

Should just hit the fan in Colombia and, you know, he had 100.

Ah, request.

But there was one guy that wrote something really weird.

So he clicked into it on and at first thought I was like a Colombian guy that spoke unbelievably fluent English, Uh, and ah, and I told him, Hey, I made this, you know, I made all these stuff.

Let's work together.

And he said, You know what?

Come over If it doesn't work out, I'll pay for your flight back.

So that's how china started.

Cool.

So in China, you wore for about 2 to 3 years, and then you had a few companies there.

A dental website, Business of property management.

Really Real estate advertisement.

Think something like that.

So, you know, how was how was that building those companies?

What kind of lifestyle did you have living in China and being, you know, like a ah, cool startup founder?

So I'd say he was divided into two phases.

Beijing face in Taiwan face.

So Beijing phase was business to plant.

So I I had wear a suit every single day because there you gotta wear a suit if you want to be taken seriously.

I think it's changed a little bit, but there, uh, you know, I came in a super excited too.

Going to give you a context.

How excited, Right?

We would build essentially websites and service is for dentists, right?

Uh huh.

But I was so into it that I actually I would get books.

I I got the 1 800 dentist guys he had.

He had his own book.

I read his book on marketing so I could take him out.

All right.

I had I had visions.

I'm like, Look, everyone thinks that that websites are like, you know, over, but it's not true.

Like it's gonna be the next big thing.

First, I'll take over the dental market in the United States.