September 06, 2006, 7:23 PM — This interview is part of an ongoing series that profiles leading IT professionals, their companies, their careers, and what inspires them about the work they do.
David Geer spoke with Steve Bjorg, Cofounder, President and CTO of MindTouch. Steve has over 10 years of experience in software development and product design. He previously founded a company in Europe and has also worked at Microsoft for the CTO's advanced development team tackling concurrency, distributed systems, and the evolution of web-standards. Following is an edited transcript of that conversation.
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David Geer: How has your multi-cultural background influenced you as a programmer and an IT professional?
Steve Bjorg: I was brought up in Europe and so from the very beginning, [I was exposed] to software being localized. There are also different perceptions of technology, and I think that has really given me a broader perspective.
Geer: What's a specific example of an experience or your cultural influences and how they relate to your approach to programming or IT?
Bjorg: There are some really benign little things that nobody would think about and, for example, many words in the English language are considerably shorter than the French or the German language. Similarly, they also require different kinds of letters, and if you do not anticipate that ahead when creating software, you might really run into a problem later on. And being prepared for these kind of situations is really an advantage.
Geer: I understand you started programming at eight years of age. How did you get into it so young?
Bjorg: One day my older brother dragged in a box that had some weird little keys on it and started spending enormous amounts of time with it. Of course, as the younger brother, I became curious about it and he taught me the first commands in Basic and I got hooked. Interestingly enough, my brother decided to pursue a career in business with an MBA, while I remained stuck with computers and it was really love at first sight, and I have made it my career. I am, in that regard, in the most positive sense, the black sheep in the family because all [of] my relatives are small business owners. So working with them I also really learned a lot about where technology falls short. What are the kinds of headaches that people encounter every day. It was the perfect environment to be aware of how we can do a better job at what we do. It's a fascinating challenge to wake up to every day, and I'm really glad that I chose this track for my career.
Geer: I understand you had an initial startup company. With reference to that, what did you learn about the IT profession from that experience?
Bjorg: I actually suspended -- like so many other younger people -- my academic education to pursue a first startup. It was a moderate success, but the big lesson I learned was "time to market". The time it takes you from the initial idea to the time that you can put your product into the hands of customers is extremely important, for many reasons. Every day that you do not make your product known to the world, somebody else can come in and basically steal your thunder for what you thought was the next big innovation.
The other one is -- and I learned that lesson later in my career, has to do with validation. You might think that your idea is great and people will love it, but at the end of the day, that is not your call. You have to go out to other people, you have to show them what you're doing and how that would help them, and they are the ones that tell you, yes, you're on track, this is great, or I don't get it. Why is this good?
