Timothée Bourguignon

Jackie Luo is interested in the impact of tech on society... and other things I learned recording her DevJourney (#129)

Tim Bourguignon -

This week, I published Jackie Luo's #DevJourney story on my eponym Podcast: Software developer's Journey. Among many other things, here are my main personal takeaways:

  • Jackie's relationship with tech started with the site Tumblr. She found people she had a lot in common with, outside of her local community. She produced ACHE an online magazine with > 1 Million readers. This is how she discovered the possibilities that tech could bring.
  • In college, Jackie got involved with student groups interested in startups. She met a lot of "non-technical-founders" who all told her about their problems finding contractors and developers. She thus decided to double major in philosophy and computer-sciences. Besides becoming a career, this also helped her feel empowered about the tech surrounding us.
  • In order to learn how to code, she decided to code every day... and did it for a year and a half. She wrote in length about it on her blog.
  • In college, Jackie saw a lot of parallels between her philosophy and CS curriculums. For instance, symbolic logic and discrete maths felt very similar in their concepts.
  • Jackie mentioned how a group of mentors, most of whom became friends, played a crucial role in her early development career. We discussed the relationship chemistry between mentor and mentee and agreed on the fact that mentoring relationships where the two people don't click are rare.
  • After 4 years in the Bay Area, Jackie was glad to move back to New York. With her life goals changing, she felt like focusing away from tech for its own sake, and more toward the societal impact of tech. That's how and why she started interviewing people in tech, talking about the ethical side of tech and the societal impacts in her side-project The Framework Project.
  • Back in SanFrancisco, Jackie organized the IRL-Society, a monthly event to experiment with social interactions.

Advice:

  • "A lot of the socially-anxious thoughts we have, are often not accurate at all."

Thanks, Jackie for sharing your story with us!

You can find the full episode and the show notes on devjourney.info.

Did you listen to her story?

  • What did you learn?
  • What are your personal takeaways?
  • What did you find particularly interesting?