Who?I’m a software engineer and entrepreneur focused on modern web technologies and AI.
Here's an ongoing autobiography, which also shares the story of my by-the-bootstraps "unschooling" education: now the subject of a chapter on grit and resilience in the bestselling book Mindshift by Barbara Oakley.
An angel investor once described my core soft skill in the role of founder or early team member as: "The ability to perceive exactly what needs to be done. And then to do it."
My experience working in difficult environments around the world means that I can be trusted to get things done, even when things go wrong.
In the past, I coined the term "Startup Cities" as co-founder of StartupCities.org and a startup spinoff, both of which focused on why startups should build cities. I now write about Startup Cities at StartupCities.com
I've won several awards for economic research and have been published or interviewed in Virgin Entrepreneur, a16z's Future.com, The Atlantic's CityLab, Foreign Policy, and in academic volumes by Routledge and Palgrave MacMillan.
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This is my personal portfolio, inspired by the question: "What would the opposite of the two-color template developer blog look like?"
Have fun exploring!
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Contact:hello @ zach.dev
Overcoming The Fear of Sounding Dumb in Spanish by Going to Crime Scenes
When I took a job in Guatemala City in 2012, I spoke no Spanish. I arrived and felt dumb for 6 months straight, as I learned the language informally. After a year or so, I was still frustrated by the feeling of fear and social anxiety that I would get around sounding dumb when I spoke Spanish.
I tweeted about the story of the heroic paramedics in Guatemala City. (I don't know I influenced them for sure, but Vice Magazine later covered exactly this story a few months after my tweet where I tagged them).
When a documentary team reached out, I arranged to host and interpret Spanish for the filmmakers that wanted to cover the paramedics' day-to-day.
We were turned down for a ride-along with the municipal paramedics and thought the project was lost. But I was able to talk our way into the central station of Los Voluntarios, a well-known volunteer paramedic force that works in some of the most difficult, dangerous conditions in the world. So we filmed with them instead.
I credit the high-stakes of speaking Spanish this night for helping me become more adventurous in the language (and in life).
Here's what happened. See the final segment by the documentary team in the caption below.
A late night ride-along with Guatemala City's volunteer paramedics, who face the bitter fruit of the 'War on Drugs' each day. This is my own 'b-reel' – the final segment is here.
