#32 Quincy Larson (Founder and educator, freeCodeCamp) - The value of free education and building communities

The Hacking UI Podcast - with Sagi Shrieber & David Tintner

Episode #32: Quincy Larson Today we had the pleasure of talking to Quincy Larson - Founder and educator at "

freeCodeCamp", where you can learn to code completely for free.

Quincy started out as a teacher and a developer, driven by the 'pay it forward' mentality, and helping others to succeed. He also has a background in journalism, which had him passionate about writing and creating content, to share it openly with the world.

Also, freeCodeCamp is an open source community, which is empowered by positive energy and empathy, has more than a million users and learners around the globe and also, it runs Medium’s largest technical publication. If you write about development, design, or data science — and are looking for an audience — this is a good place to get published and 'borrow' an audience of more than 1 million users.

In this episode, Quincy shared his insights on focusing passionately on one field, building communities and free education to everyone, on a scale that impacts the world massively even 20 years from now.

This is the seventh episode of the third season of the Hacking UI podcast - 'Scaling a Career'.

In this season we have 10 amazing guests for you, who are leaders and influencers from a variety of different backgrounds. Design managers, development leaders, entrepreneurs and product geniuses that we admire, and we'll be sharing a new episode every Thursday.

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Links from the show

• Learn to code for free - freeCodeCamp.org
• A handful free Guide to get published on Medium.
• Twitter - @ossia

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Key points from this episode:

• Learn about what Quincy is doing and what is freeCodeCamp. [00:03:31]
• Find out how freeCode camp is powered by positive energy and empathy, and how that engage more than a million users to contribute and help each other, for free. [00:04:50]
• Learn about how the organization is structured. [00:09:47]
• Quincy shares his insights on promotion, marketing, writing and growing. [00:12:52]
• Find out what is the strategy of a long-term vision planning. [00:21:33]
• Learn about how the organization is focused on web development, and helping adults with technology. [00:25:19]
• Understand education and the value of it, and how you don't have to get a masters degree in order to develop yourself. [00:27:00]
• Get tips for the best way to get yourself a career in the field. [00:27:00]
• Learn about the community and how they help campers to engage with each other. [00:31:93]
• Find out how to build communities and audiences through writing. [00:35:00]
• Understand the process of writing in publication and how that process works (See 'freeCodeCamp publication guide' in the show links). [00:36:25]
• Quincy shares on how they got their big breakthrough and about focusing very passionately on one field. [00:40:00]
• Thoughts and insights about success and tips from Quincy. [00:45:50]

About The Hacking UI Podcast The Hacking UI podcast is hosted by Sagi Shrieber and David Tintner, a designer, and developer who are also both entrepreneurs, bloggers, productivity/time-hacking maniacs, and all around tech geeks.

We are thrilled to launch the third season of the Hacking UI podcast, where we hack our way through product design, development, and creative entrepreneurship.

Our first season, was called ‘Scaling a Design Team’, the Second season was called ‘Scaling a Side Project’ and we’ve decided to call this season - ‘Scaling a Career’.

In this season we have 10 amazing guests for you, who are leaders and influencers from a variety of different backgrounds. We have design managers, development leaders, entrepreneurs and product geniuses.