Zed A. Shaw is a programmer and artist who loves teaching people how to code, and painting. Zed was said to be ‘ as famous as a programmer can get without being a billionaire.’ He is a critic of technology, technologists, and their impact on society, despite being an old-school hacker and avid technologist himself. His current obsessions include making music and painting. He loves painting classic whimsical subjects and frequently features flowers and old toys as an expression of the happiness and nostalgia he feels when painting.

Zed gave up coding for various startups, governments, universities, and mega-corporations to work on a small business helping people learn to code. His self-published books (Learn Code The Hard Way series) have been read by millions of people all over the world. His essays and articles are often quoted by members of numerous geek communities. He has an extraordinary ability to write about highly complex issues in an accessible, lively, and exciting way.

As a software engineer, Zed is best known for creating the Mongrel web server for the Ruby web application. Mongrel was the first web server used by Twitter and the inspiration for Node.js. Shaw is also behind an initiative titled “Programming, Motherfucker”. In the manifesto, he claims that his group of programmers are ‘tired of being told we’re socially awkward idiots who need to be manipulated to work in a Forced Pair Programming chain gang.’

Shaw has spoken about the vague and misleading information that is pervasive in start-up and entrepreneur culture, particularly concerning self-proclaimed start-up advisors or entrepreneurship “gurus”. He has demonstrated how some notable figures in the industry appear to speak and provide advice from a background of success that they never actually attained.

This APOGEE, we welcome Zed A. Shaw as Speaker #1 of the Think Again Conclave.