MLH Co-Founder: The Future Belongs to Software Creators

So hey everyone, we are here at AI Engineer Singapore and I'm with Mike.

Hello Mike. Uh so how are you are enjoying the event?

It's been wonderful. So uh it's so funny because I literally sit on my couch at night and watch AI Engineer YouTube videos and to actually be here seeing the conferencing the top talks in real time is just like the most surreal

feeling. It feels like I'm in the center

feeling. It feels like I'm in the center of the AI universe right now and I couldn't be more excited to be here.

Yeah. And as you all can understand, Mike is from uh MLH and he's a co-founder of that. So I don't think anyone needs an introduction of MLH, but still if you want to share one line

about what MLH is, it would be amazing.

Yeah. So uh Major League Hacking or MLH is the largest developer community in the world. I actually was going to be a

the world. I actually was going to be a lawyer before I went to my first hackathon and uh figured out I should probably be a software engineer. But

back then I had to figure out how to get into tech myself and MLH is a massive community of events and content and learning where you can get your hands dirty with the coding tools that matter and build your track record, your

network, and your confidence to get your start. That was amazing. You know, you

start. That was amazing. You know, you mentioned that you wanted to be a lawyer and then you transitioned into a software engineer. I would love to know

software engineer. I would love to know more about the journey if you can share about it. Yeah. So I had literally

about it. Yeah. So I had literally finished my entire undergraduate degree doing pre-law and a friend figured out that I, you know, was interested in coding and invited me to my first

hackathon. And honestly, I didn't even

hackathon. And honestly, I didn't even feel like I belonged there. I worked on a team by myself because I thought if it didn't go well, I could just leave and no one would know the difference. But I

learned more in 24 hours than I had in my entire university degree up to that point and literally the next day I switched into computer science classes thinking that was the best way to become a software engineer. But I very quickly

learned that computer science classes are not the way. Technology is 10 years out of date. It's a solo sport. It's all

theory. And so back then I had to take my education in my own hands and there weren't communities like MLH, but I I hackathons and open source and capstones and eventually I got to my point where I could get an internship

all united by this idea of learning by doing.

Yeah, I mean I really resonate with that problem because I also had this problem that okay, you know, books are not teaching us the very up-to-date things and now

with the you know, involvement of AI things are moving you know, faster than ever. So, hackathon is a very good way

ever. So, hackathon is a very good way for us as well to you know, learn with a lot a lot of things and I still remember you know, as a hacker myself you know, whenever I go to a hackathon I always

try to tinker with a new technology and it just works, right? You

make a lot of bugs and that kind of works. So, I would also like to know

works. So, I would also like to know right as a really huge community, how are you looking you know, forward with the you know, more and more AI incorporating in in this? So, how are

you looking forward to that?

Yeah, I mean I think I have a very different message than what most people would hear in Silicon Valley or on maybe X, but I think today is the greatest day in history to be a software creator. And

I'm using that term software creator really intentionally because we're going into a world where there's only 40 million software engineers in the entire world, but now there's a billion people coming online who can suddenly write

code and make things. And they're not going to have the strong technical foundation that we all have, but they're going to need to understand the problems they're trying to solve and be able to like navigate working with agents and

other tools to bring their ideas to life and create the type of software that we're all going to depend on every day.

I think that hackathons are literally the most dynamic curricular environment you can imagine where every person comes up with a hyper-personalized, hyper-disposable learning project that they bring to life in a small amount of

time and there's no better place to try something and fail than a place like a hackathon that's just supportive, awesome environment. So, I believe that

awesome environment. So, I believe that you know, communities like MLH are helping to create this space where the next generation of creators can come and learn, build, and share.

Awesome. Yeah, I mean, a lot of, you know, students use this place as a platform to, you know, build their next startup. And as you all know, a lot of

startup. And as you all know, a lot of startup actually came from hackathon projects, which is a very good way. So,

I would like to know, I mean, if you want to summarize like few tips for students or hackers who are attending their first hackathon, how should they approach it? Is winning the everything

approach it? Is winning the everything or like they can also just participate and learn from it?

Yeah. Well, I think that honestly the most The biggest value you can get out of hackathons is learning. You know, I went to hundreds of hackathons in my life before I actually won one, and I didn't even get a top overall prize. It

was actually just a sponsor prize category. But I You kept going to

category. But I You kept going to hackathons not because I was there to compete, but because it was literally the most supportive learning environment I could find in my life. And truly the value for me was the people I met, the

things I built, and the things I learned along the way. Um I would encourage anybody to do that. The last thing I'd say though when it comes to founders is that the world is changing a lot in terms of what you need to create a

startup. You need less money, less

startup. You need less money, less people, and less time than ever before.

For the last 10 years, only about 5% of MLH's community had taken the plunge into starting a startup, but in the last 12 months that's doubled about 10% of all the hackers in our community who've

actually gone on to become a founder of a tech startup. You need way less today than you ever needed before, and there's never been a better time in history to get started.

Awesome. So, if you are planning to attend your hackathon, do it now. Don't

hesitate anymore. So, yeah, it was nice talking to you, man.

Amazing.

Well, thank you guys, and good luck everybody. Yeah.

everybody. Yeah.

Bye.