Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?
2016 - While working as an engineer at Google, I decided to start a free coding bootcamp on the side. I believed I could teach anyone how to become a software engineer so I made a public post asking if anyone is interested in learning how to code and about 30 people showed up at my house. While I was at work in Mountain View, 30 people strangers used my house as a coding bootcamp.2017 - 30 students were hard to manage and students started leaving. It bothered me, so I quit my job at Google to focus on this full time. I reached out to the students who left to see what happened and one of the reasons was money. So for the students who are struggling financially, I started giving them 2k / mo stipend.2018 - Paying 9 students 2k / month used up all of my savings so I had to look for a new job. Also started a non-profit to write off all my payments as donations. This helped alot because to keep paying the students I took out my 401k savings and the donations helped offset the tax penalty.2019 - Students got jobs. Realized that I want to train students to become good solid engineers that I want to work with instead of gamifying the interview process. Instead of padding resume and LeetCode, our curriculum focuses on building good products with good tests and maintainable code.2020 - Ran into financial trouble, had to let all the students go and gave them a 3 month notice.Now I'm primarily lurking on the chatroom of our final product, helping and teaching students who are following my curriculum.https://c0d3.comNext year I will get more RSUs and with that money I plan to kickoff a free code house, a safe environment for students to learn (much like 42) with free food and housing.