The Original Remote Developer with Paul Lutus

One big thing that has changed since covid is remote work has become a lot more attainable. I've been working remotely from a smaller place, for a decade at least and I've learned some things I could share but I thought others might have better tips.

So I found someone amazing to talk to, Paul Lutus. He is the Original remote software developer. He left California and the city behind to build a cabin in the woods and from there he made himself rich writing software. He was so good at this, he was on the front page of the wall street journal and interviewed by late-night talk show hosts. Oh yeah, and he did this all in the late 1970s and early 80s.

His story is pretty amazing. He started programming with programmable calculators and selling the programs to magazines, then he moved to the Apple ii and he also worked on the space shuttle.

If you've ever thought about leaving the city behind, to do development surrounded by nature, you might like this story.

I wish I had a better title for this as Paul's story is pretty unique.

We did discuss what has changed with software development today and he thinks the biggest change is everyone wants to work for big (FANG) companies:

    > People are now being reduced to cogs in a machine. You’re either a part of an organization that does business at your expense, or you have enough of your own business sense to control the outcome of the projects you’re involved in. So you can’t just be a programmer. That’s a bad idea. You have to be a programmer as well as a business person.