To Making Progress
Picture this Rachel, I work in Emeryville. As I bike down the main row there, I pass a cafe, and each time, it catches my eye. It's an ordinary place, situated between a warehouse and a laundromat, with a simple, cheery sign that promises: Coffee, Tea, Wifi! One day I finally decide to check this place out. Inside, the place is well-appointed but unassuming—really, the opposite of most Bay Area coffee shops these days. No beans are roasted on-site here. Not really a student hot-spot. No startups are founded. Nothing needs to be proven. There are two other customers working quietly on laptops. I walk toward the counter, and from behind the espresso maker, a little voice calls: “Hey! I know you.” Now back when I lived in Saratoga, I had a neighborhood cafe I would drive down to study at. I went there just about every day in late 2008 and early 2009, it’s there that I studied SATs, read my WIRED, and started writing my first programs. Like this place, it was well-appointed but u...