Two words that dont mean much to most people. But today, they meant the world to me.

When I was about eight years old, my dad brought home a TRS-80 (If you wanna get super geeky, it did have a 5.25″ floppy drive, which was a 40-track double density drive so it was a Model II. My dad did not splurge for the special TRS-80 desk Radio Shack was selling at the time).

I remember watching the command prompt sit there while the cursor blinked, and then my dad, like most of the hackers of his time, write what seemed like random lines of text.

“Whatcha doin’?” I would ask.

“Working,” he would reply.

It was around that time that my dad started working at Stanford University as a buyer in the procurement department. To this day, we have more computers in the house than people, and it wasnt strange to find my dad pulling a motherboard out of an Osborne suitcase portable and replacing it with an upgraded part. I think he often mentioned it was “research,” but being an old shortwave radio operator, I think it was really “a hobby.”

After about the 37th or so time asking my dad what he was up-to, he turned to me and said, “would you like to learn about computers?”

Excitedly, I replied, “of course!!” And he handed me a book with the word BASIC written on the front. It was a big book full of words and text I didnt understand, but I sat down and started to read it.

“Sit here,” smiled my dad as he pointed to the desk chair. “You will have to type some of that stuff in.”

Over the next few days, I read and typed, and read and typed, and finally I wrote this:

10 PRINT “HELLO WORLD”

20 GOTO 10

RUN

And as the words “HELLO WORLD” ran nonstop across the screen, I turned to my dad, and said “see?”

“I see. Now keep going.”

After a month or so, I decided that I wanted to write games. At my dad’s office was a mainframe with Zork and Roguelike on it. I played the text based adventures and loved them. When I asked my dad about writing games, he handed me another book. Across the front was the word LOGO.

“Can’t you just tell me how?” I complained.

“No.”

After a few weeks, I typed in:

print [Hello World]

I turned to my dad, and said “see?”

“I see. Now keep going.”

Over the next months, I became adept at Wordstar and played around with BASIC and LOGO. I quickly ran out of steam, and as I got into sports and the summer, I forgot about coding.

Until this past week.

I have been working in technology startups for most of my life. I always assumed three things: 1) developers tend to overstate how long it will take to get anything done; and 2) they also overstate the difficulty; 3) complicated answers are always more fun than easy solutions.

This past week, our technical lead expressed frustration that I seemed to have little respect for how hard our developers were working. That I clearly didnt understand how hard developing software is, and that it was making it hard to keep everyone motivated.

“You dont get it.”

I thought about it for the rest of the day. I consider myself to be a business development guy, and its clear thats its a job that is often hard to define. Software development was easy to define. You got to actually build something. You knew if you were doing the right thing, because it was self-evident. It existed.

But, perhaps I had a lack of compassion. Perhaps I was not empathizing enough with our developers.

“Charley, whats the best n00b tutorial for Rails?”

“What are you talking about?” Charley responded.

“You know we have been looking for developers. Perhaps I will just teach myself to code, and save money on hiring one,” I chuckled. (yes, I chuckle. I like chuckling. You should try it, Chuckles.)

Laughing, he pointed me towards a Rails Tutorial. I proceeded to buy all the screencasts, and late Thursday, I sat down and started on page 1.

Here I am, four days later, and I am up to chapter 3. I have set up my environment, learned about gems, I even downloaded Textmate, and uploaded a very basic app to Heroku.

And at about mid-day on Sunday, I wrote an app that returned “Hello, World”

I called my dad and told him, “see?”

“Great, now keep at it.”

As a CEO, its really important to understand each job function within your organization. I will never be a coder. In fact, I think I barely understand what it takes to be a developer. But, at the bare minimum, I was reminded of the thrill of getting an application to work. I was reminded of the pure joy of building something. I felt the freedom of creation.

Monday is a scant 9 hours away. Between now and then I plan to continue to work my way through this book, and perhaps graduate beyond “Hello, World.” I also plan on spending some time with our developers asking the questions on how we can create an environment that will allow them to both be efficient and give them the opportunity to be creative in their solutions.

Related articles

• Rails tutorial screencasts (railstutorial.org)
• Hello, Android (oreilly.com)
• Kindle users get Zorked out (go.theregister.com)
• The Lost Tribes of RadioShack (wired.com)

For the rest of the year, I tend to not dwell on that fact that I have a biological father and an adoptive father, but today, I always take a bit of time to dwell.

When I was about a year-and-a-half old, my parents got divorced, and my mom moved from Fort Collins, CO to East Palo Alto, CA. I never knew much about the circumstances of the divorce itself, but what I do know wasnt pleasant. My mom was 21 when I was born, my father 23. He was in veterinarian school, and the two of them were really hippie poor. He delivered goats milk and cheese for a living, my mom (I think) did odd jobs, secretarial work and the like.

My father was also a heavy drug user. He would disappear days on end, and generally not treat my mother extremely well. I would assume that the same went for me. (Having dealt with drug addiction, regardless of what I do or do not know, I do know that had to true.)

After the divorce, my mom, who had friends in California and Oregon, decided to move west. (well, west-er, I guess) She took our belongings, jumped in a car, and drove out to Oregon, stopping in California on the way. Except, she never made it to Oregon. She stopped in California to visit friends, and just stayed.

She moved into a small apartment in East Palo Alto, and got a job at a local company. My earliest memories are of that apartment, but most of it is dark and hazy. It wasnt a great time for us; my mom tells the story of my sitting on her lap, wiping away her tears, telling her everything would be ok. It seems that the time between the move to California, and her meeting my adoptive father (ok, he is my step-father, but that has such negative connotations. Adoptive–he did legally adopt me–paints such a better picture of him) was kinda dark and a blur. There are few pictures and stories of that time.

When I was two or three, my mom met a guy that lived in the same apartment complex. The story goes that she was dating his roommate, and being the vixen my mom was (I guess), quickly realized she had picked the wrong roommate. Of course, if you ask my grandmother, she introduced my mom and dad. (Given that my grandmother was living in Korea at the time, this is probably not the case. A stretch maybe.)

My mom and dad quickly moved in together, and when I was 5, my dad, Rich, asked if it was ok if he married my mom. While I did say yes, I do regret not negotiating a better deal for myself, such as free ice cream or tv for life.

When I was seven, I told my mom and dad that I didnt like having a different last name, Silver, and I wanted to be a Baldwin. I knew then, as clearly and strongly as I know now, that belonging to a family was the most important thing for a person.

Over the course of two years, Rich and my mom worked through the court system to finalize the adoption. The final step was that my biological father had to approve. He came out to California, and while he and I were sitting on a beach, I explained to him that I wanted to be adopted by Rich, and almost without any delay, I got his permission.

That was the last time I saw my biological father until I was eighteen and a freshman at University of California, Davis.

I often juxtapose the decisions that both men made over the course of my life. Rich was 19 when I was born, he was 24 when he married my mom, and 26 when he adopted me. By 30, my sisters Marissa and Natalia had joined our family.

My biological father on the other hand, continued to struggle with drug addiction until he was 35 (I still think he has his issues), and finally remarried when he was in his late 30s / early 40s. Recently, he and his wife adopted a child from China, and they are a happy family. He is a successful, brilliant vet.

When you look at the two men and their beliefs about the importance of family, its clear that my dad, Rich, puts family first. Here is a great example: Rich was working at Stanford University, and in his early 30s was asked by the founders of Cisco to join them. When they had 4 employees.

I know. It would not be a question. I would have jumped at it. Rich didnt.

When I asked why, Rich, in his easy pragmatic, Michigan way recounted how Cisco was being sued by Stanford for stealing the idea of the router, and having three kids, he just couldnt take the risk.

When I didnt hear any tinge of regret, I was surprised. Just as quietly as he explained the reason for his decision, he explained that for him, there could be no regret in making a decision that was best for the family.

There are many examples of Rich’s decision making process of putting the family first. He turned down a job at UC Berkeley, because the move would have been too traumatic for my sister, Natalia. When Marissa finally found her true calling in musical theatre, Rich was a stage hand for all of her plays, and drove her around the country looking at colleges (until she settled on Western Michigan in Kalamazoo, MI).

What is amazing is that all of this has been his choice. He does it because he loves it, and its the right thing to do.

Often, there is a debate about nurture and nature. Am I who I am because of Rich or my biological father?

I look a lot like my biological father (which caused my mom many times to assume that I was just like him. Especially when I was screwing up, which was quite often. Cant be awesome, unless you break a couple laws, I always say).

And, there are pieces of my personality the stem from him. I know that my bipolar and addictive personality certainly can be traced back. My quick thinking and clear understanding of complex problems are also very similar.

Yet, I act, often, especially when problem solving, like my adoptive father. I think pragmatically, because thats what he taught me.

My absolute believe in doing right comes directly from Rich’s influence.

I suppose, at the end of it all, at the beginning, I was who I was because of my biological father, but I am who I am because of Rich.

The greatest gift my biological father gave me was a start.

And, Rich? Well, he gave me the framework for my future.

Happy Father’s Day.

My biological father, Robbie, and my mother, Dafna, were divorced when I was about a year and a half old. My mother soon left Colorado, intent on moving to Oregon. She stopped in California to visit some friends, and never left.

My adoptive father, Rich, moved across the street from my mother and I after moving out to California from Albion, Michigan, and the story I was always told was that after a couple of weeks, Rich and my mother started dating, moved in together soon there after, and when I was 5 (3 years after they first met), they married.

At least that was the story I was told. It turns out it was a bit more juicy than that.

My mom was dating my dad’s roommate, who apparently was still married (but separated), when she met Rich and they started dating. I told you it was juicy…

So, there it is. Two dads, two very different people.

My biological father battled drug addiction for a long time which really shaped his interaction (or lack thereof) with me. When I was eight years old, Robbie decided that it was time to stop taking to me, and that lasted until I was 18 years old. in the 18 years since then, we have connected (really connected) maybe a dozen times or so.

Rich, on the other hand, was someone I saw daily. We battled as fathers and sons do, and there were many things he did (he was a yeller), that I refuse to do. There are also many things he does, that I tried to emulate. He is one of the most responsible, trustworthy, dependable people I know.

So the question becomes: nature or nurture?

Last night, my friend Pete over at Mashable, put up a post asking people to link to tweets or posts they had written about Fathers Day. So, last night, right before bed, I tweeted:

I have 2 fathers. One who reminds me of how good I can be; and one that reminds of what I could have been. To both Happy Fathers Day.

I thought a lot about that as I went to sleep. I have tried to have a relationship with my biological father, but every time we interact (he is my vet for example), I am disappointed and scared that the man I see before me is what I could become if I dont watch out. Dont get me wrong, he is not a bad guy, but he is many things I wish never to be. He is selfish, he is self-centered, he is unreliable, he is pig headed and he has difficulty connecting with people.

At the same time, he is many things I hope to be: brilliant, caring, an expert at what he does, and respected.

When I think of Rich, he has so many characteristics I wish I could emulate. He is dependable, intelligent, selfless, unassuming, practical and pragmatic.

So, whats the answer? Nature or Nurture?

For me, I have decided that my nature is something I am inherently. I have all the bad habits and some of the positive characteristics of Robbie. Thats who I am, but its not who I am required to become. With Rich, I see what he has taught me, both directly and indirectly, and realize those things I could become.

At the end of the day the truth lies somewhere in between.

I have 2 fathers. One who reminds me of how good I can be; and one that reminds of what I could have been.

And thats what makes me uniquely me.

Happy Fathers Day.