Note: Patrick actually wrote some commentary about this interview; check it out on his blog, Better with Pesto.

Name, age, location, when you moved here

I'm Patrick, 24 — tomorrow's my birthday, actually. (Jenny: This is the 2nd time I've done this.) I live in San Francisco now.

What to you do right now, and how did you get there?

I'm a software engineer at a company called Rocket Fuel. I started working there 4 months ago. I moved to San Francisco to find a job a while ago, and this happened to be one of the ones that worked out.

Why did you decide to move to SF?

I was in a pretty low point in my life last June. I was in Austin, not doing much of anything, and just decided to go out to SF to try to make it there. It's an urban city, and I had visited in the past and liked it. My list of places included New York, SF, Boston, Portland Seattle... it could've been any of them. SF was the easiest one to go to because I had friends and my brother there.

Did studying it in school help you master it?

I do think the degree helps. There's so much information to learn, and you need to just spend time in front of the computer. Even though a lot of programming is a "logical" process, I find making programs very inorganic and not natural.

What pressured you to study computer science?

Even though I wasn't great at programming in high school, I chose computer science as my major because it made the most sense to me. I didn't have an passion or talent in anything at the time, and I was pretty darn sure people would be using computers for the foreseeable future, so I thought it was a safe bet. I really dreaded the first 3 years of college. It was only towards the end, after I finished all my computer science classes, did I hit a point where I started liking it. I saw an app that one of my friends made and was impressed by how simple and handy it was. I started doing hackathons, and made little apps for fun. The largest app I've made involves Flickr and photography.

There was actually a point where I thought I wasn't going to graduate, but my old classmates and my parents encouraged me to keep going. Talking to them helped me think through things and finish my degree. I never took school or anything seriously. It was always my plan B to graduate with a CS degree and get a tech job somewhere.

What was your Plan A, if your current path is Plan B?

In reality, there was no plan A. I found myself leaving college just as confused and aimless as I was leaving high school so I tried to prolong it. I just wanted to have unique experiences and have fun. I think it's an experience a lot of millennials are going through right now. I think it's a valid way to go about life, and there's not anything wrong with it as long as they can function in society somehow.

The kinds of things that guide our parents are different from what guides us. They cared about stability, security.

All the things our parents did gave us very comfortable lives, and gave us many choices. Maybe too many choices. I didn't know what I want to do, because I had too many options. Work at an art gallery, work at a restaurant, start a business. With all these choices in front of you, you get paralyzed. I don't think stability is something millennials value; they just wanna ride the rollercoaster.

Have you thought about what you want to do 5, 10, 20 years out?

My dream job is to be a curator at a photo gallery, and open a gift shop with cool stuff.

Ah, like MoMA! So for now, how did you get involved with a job in the tech space?

I was exposed to the tech startup lifestyle when I was a member of a co-working space in Austin. It was one of those big warehouses, and I used it as a photography studio and place to work on projects. I surrounded myself with programmers and productive people. My experiences there, combined with the CS degree guided me towards finding a tech job in SF. Honestly I wasn't having the best luck with interviews at first, and even gave up and went back to Texas at one point. But I stuck to it and eventually landed this job.

When I first interviewed at my current company, the culture felt like a young bustling business, it was like a scene out of the HBO show. But little did I know I was in some sort of massive hiring spree. They've grown from 800 to 1300 people after I joined. So now, the company is working through this weird corporate transition phase that I'm not a fan of. The magic atmosphere than enamored me when I joined has really disappeared. I've worked in big companies before, and I didn't like the corporate hierarchies and all the meetings. Now I'm sort of in that again, but at least I get along with everyone on my team.

I still think the tech space is very cool, but there's not as much innovation and wacky stuff here as I'd like. I understand starting and making a business is really hard, but I hope to see people try some more risky and out of the box things with technology. It's boring to hear about another food delivery service or dating site. Even when designing a basic website, a lot of us have fallen into the track of making those one-page apps with Bootstrap, and it all looks the same.

What do you think about the attitudes of aspiring founders?

I find talking to startup founders very inspiring. I love that they believe their idea is going to work, no matter what.

You built a coding school yourself, right? How did that come about?

Last fall, my friends came to me and asked if I wanted to help build their coding school, Codervox. At first I was hesitant, but when I looked at it, I had connections to the coworking space I was working out of, tons of old CS and tech buddies, and a lot of friends who voiced that they wanted to learn how to code. With a classroom, teachers, and students I had all the components to start the class. It all sort of fell into place.

Running the school was amazingly hard. We weren't sure if we wanted to make the curriculum upfront before starting the semester or to wing it for each class. We ended up winging it, working our asses off between each class to come up with lesson plans and gauge where our students were. There was just so much material to teach. In the end, we didn't have a great stopping point, especially the first time we did the class. I really think there's so much groundwork you need to do in order to be comfortable with programming, which is why I still think taking CS classes at a university is still a good option.

What do you think about programming boot camps?

I haven't seen the results, but I think the people teaching at the bootcamps are really talented, like my friend Gilbert who teaches at Makers Square. I understand why they're so popular though. There are tons of high paying programming jobs out there now, and who wants to go through the whole college experience again now that you're older?

Do you think anyone can learn it?

No, there were some people that don't have basic computing skills. We had a couple very enthusiastic students, but they just didn't have a basic understanding of mathematics or how to use a computer. One at least needs to be able to keep track of variables and the state of their program.

Overall, Codervox was a really good experience, but It's really hard to make something sustainable. We weren't charging enough, we weren't branding it, and we didn't have anyone who was doing our finances... I didn't know what the founder was doing. I do give him credit for assembling a decent team and pushing the idea on us, but in a start-up, everyone needs to play a variety of roles and no one can be dead-weight. I ended up leaving eventually, but going through that was a great experience for me.

What was it like building your own program, as opposed to joining another company?

You really have to start from the ground up. You start doing roles that you normally wouldn't do in a regular job. I was in charge of getting students, so I had to interview all the students and keep track of their progress. I had to keep track of the mentors' interaction with students, come up with course materials, tutor a bit myself. We even served dinner! I got Jack, one of the coolest guys in the coworking space to convince his wife to make food for us twice a week. We didn't have money for desks, so we made our own.

At any point, were you unsure of what you were doing?

All the time. The first class, we didn't have a projector screen, so we used this white seamless paper that I was using for photography and it kept falling down the duration of the class. Thinking back on it, it was all a blur, it felt like I was running around the whole time. Even though I do consider the class to be one of my "failures" my friends still tell me it was the only time they can remember me being truly passionate about anything.

The institutional schooling system doesn't seem to prepare you for this.

Yeah, it doesn't prepare you to start a business at all. I had some great mentoring, but ultimately it wasn't enough. It's really fucking hard to start a company.

It's so interesting to hear you talk about building this school — this departs from what I've seen from kids with "Harvard Syndrome" or other very elite backgrounds where they're very smart and capable, but tend to go wherever they can get approval. Part of it is their upbringing, but once they graduate, they are walking around looking for people to tell them they're doing the right thing.

I don't really have that sense. When your business reaches a certain point, you kind of just go off instinct. It's really depends on your own taste, and it's up to you to make sure it's up to the quality you think it should be.

When did you start getting into photography?

This story actually largely involves my older brother. I was a huge slacker in high school, always got Bs and Cs, skipped school numerous times for no good reason. My brother is 10 years older than me, and at the time, he was transitioning from a tech job to getting his MBA at Sloan. He noticed something was wrong with our family and how bad my situation was, and ended up putting off his MBA for a year to come home, tutor me, and take care of other family business. I ended up getting straight A's my senior year of high school, and even got a 780 on the math part of the SAT.

My brother was a huge influence on me growing up, but we didn't have a lot of interaction. He was already out of the house as I was entering high school. Growing up, my brother always did really well, got straight As, went to Rice, got his masters in CS, got a job... he followed that straight path. Now he works at Palantir.

Those are big shoes to fill. Did you feel pressured to live up to his legacy when you were young?

My parents saw how my brother did, and always assumed that I would follow suit. But I was never performing as well as he did. I didn't even getting into my choice middle school because I didn't score high enough on the math exam. My parents were going through a divorce, so I slipped through the cracks and played video games all the time. I really didn't want to do anything with my life. It all changed when my brother took me on a trip to Seattle and New York to inspire me. We went to the MoMA in New York, and I stumbled upon a photo exhibit by Jo-Ann Verburg called Present Tense. She took a photo of an olive tree, and I found it so ethereal and magical that I left the museum wanting to learn all I could about photography.

What was inspiring about it?

It was printed at least 6 feet tall, and I had never seen anything like it. It was a very shallowly focused photo, where the branches of the tree coming towards and away from you seemed to disappear into nothing. I must have looked at that one photo for over 30 minutes. And yeah, after that I was hooked. I got the crappiest Nikon DSLR at the time and started from square one. And man, I was really a noob. I remember one time where you had a camera and asked me why your photos were turning out white, and I didn't know the answer at the time. Now that I think about it, it was just over-exposed, that was pretty embarrassing. (Jenny: Oops, we both missed the boat on that one. I'm also impressed you remember.) By the end of high school, I always had a camera on me. I'm pretty sure no one has seen me without one since.

That reminds me of something I read recently, about the ultimate goal for technologists and UX designers: when our devices achieve "embodiment", where they become a part of us. Cell phones have achieved embodiment, for connecting us to the world at any given time. We can't go anywhere without them, and without them we feel lost.

That's like my camera. If I were out and realized I forgot it, I'd turn back to get it. It's a part of me; it's how I see the world.

How do you think about a shot?

There are two reasons why I take a photo — to capture a photographically nice scene or just to remember a specific moment. What I take photos of has changed a bit over time. I tend to do a lot of photo research; I can spend hours in a library going through photo books learning how photographers approach things. After, I go out and try to replicate them or to at least take photos of similar things. It goes back to the thought, can you make anything that's original anymore? I think most of what we do as photographers is copying, but that's fine. If you piece all of your work together, that's you, and no one else. It's not that you're directly copying, you're assembling the pieces of your own body of work.

Do you plan out your shots?

Most of my shots just happen. My favorite type of photography is street photography. It's so spontaneous, and it's like you're walking outside and the world is throwing information at you. It's up to you to distill it to this one scene. It's also a challenge to set your settings right for it. I tend to take a lot of posed shots as well, where I ask a friend to stand in a particular way in a particular place, but they usually turn out shitty.

Do you think photography is art?

I definitely think it's art. It's an extension of your eye. It's a way to express yourself.

I like that — you're expressing yourself, but you're behind the lens. The viewer has to walk in your shoes; see things through your eyes.

Yeah, it's up to the photographer to convey the emotions to the viewer.

What is your goal with your photos?

Photography is a passive thing that follows me in my every day life. Only when I die will it be a complete work.

What's your process? How do you talk to subjects, and how deliberate are the photos you take?

It depends. Sometimes, you approach them and tell them you're going to take a shot. Sometimes, you let them exist in their own world and don't even tell them. It depends on the scenario.

Sometimes people freeze or break into this very frozen "photo" pose, how do you get them out of their stiffness?

You just need to have a conversation. Get them used to you, and make them relaxed. When I go out and take street photos, I'm normally more discreet and don't tell them. When I see something that catches my eye, I just take a photo. I have to be really fast with the camera.

Out of your cameras, what do you like to use?

I like the Ricoh GR the best since I can have it on me at all times, and takes really great snapshots. I do have Leica M9, but I think digital Leicas are just too outdated. A film Leica is timeless though.

What are your influences?

Ansel Adams is one of them. He's a master of printing and tone. I don't take a lot of landscapes, but I appreciate how he approaches tone. Henry Cartier Bresson is another one. Daido Moriyama, J.H. Engstrom as well.

Beyond your photographic influences and your brother, what or who had the biggest influence on you growing up?

I was always kind of a loner. I was brought up by video games, anime, and the internet. I played a game called Ragnarok Online from the end of middle school to college. So I feel like I'm mostly navigating myself through life, without many major influences. By the way, I actually made one of my best friends in real life through the game. He went to Rice, majored in CS, and runs a startup called Group Raise in Houston.

At what point did you feel like you started making your own choices?

I feel there was always pressure to find a stable job, which was good. Now that I'm independent I feel like I'm finally in control and it's up to me to do what I want to do. I need to think about what my Plan A is, and move towards it. Perhaps I should go for that gallery idea. That's the hardest thing — how do you know the choice is right? I can't even see a month ahead.

What do you feel like will be the defining moment of this decade of life? Have you had it already?

I believe twenties are the prime of your life, and the choices that I'm making now will have the greatest impact on what defines me in the end.

Do you think where you live impacts how you live your twenties?

Yes. Since my photography is based off stuff I see every day, my environment is everything to me right now. The area where I live isn't very photogenic, which is probably why I'm not liking San Francisco that much. I am glad I moved away from Texas though. I do see myself going back there, but not for a while.

Do you have any major moments you regret or would like to have a do-over for?

Right now, no. I like where I am.

Our generation is redefining a lot of what it means to be successful now - what do you think is "success"? A lot of people say "happiness", but what does that mean to you?

If you can wake up in the morning and do something you like to do, that's great. As long as you're living a sustainable life and not impacting other people's decisions negatively, that's it. You don't need to be ballin' out right now. Money isn't a factor in happiness at all. Live what you think is a meaningful life.

Have you thought about what your place means in society?

I think I'm this small little cog in the system. Hopefully, I'll be able to create something that impacts society a little more in the future. ■