[0:00]Hi there. I'm
[0:02]Sam. This is not going to be a polished
[0:05]message. I'm going to take you down to
[0:07]the ocean with me. Got a bit of a walk
[0:09]ahead of us. Before I get started, let
[0:12]me get my music
[0:13]going. We're near a lagoon right now in
[0:16]a national
[0:18]forest where I
[0:21]volunteer. I volunteer for the Forest
[0:24]Service. I live in an RV.
[0:27]I have for over a year
[0:34]now. And I am a programmer. One of the
[0:37]best you'll ever meet. That's not
[0:39]arrogance. That's just
[0:42]clarity. I'm nearly half a century
[0:45]old. Probably don't look
[0:51]it. So, let me tell you about my
[0:53]backgrounds.
[0:55]I started programming in the 80s when I
[0:57]was a child. Sixth
[1:00]grade, my dad had a business, had a
[1:03]computer, started playing with it,
[1:05]breaking that thing on a daily
[1:07]basis. By 8th grade, I was programming
[1:09]for my
[1:11]teachers. By 10th
[1:14]grade, always being something of a free
[1:18]spirit, didn't have a computer, and I
[1:21]was something of a nomad even back then.
[1:24]I would do programming on
[1:26]paper. I would run code in my head. I
[1:28]would design entire systems in my
[1:31]head. Put it down on paper. I worked on
[1:33]one of the first content management
[1:35]systems ever created before that term
[1:37]was ever
[1:39]coins. If you don't know what that is,
[1:41]think of WordPress. And I did it because
[1:44]I was already making clients and they
[1:47]always had uh requests for me to update
[1:49]text on their websites and things like
[1:51]that. And I wanted to make it easier for
[1:53]them. wanted to make it easier for
[1:56]myself. Always I thought about
[2:02]empowerment. All this before graduating
[2:04]high
[2:07]school. Since
[2:09]then, I basically been a freelancer all
[2:12]of my
[2:13]life. Did a lot of work on guru.com
[2:16]where I built a reputation. I earned
[2:19]$72,000 on that site.
[2:23]um 20 years
[2:26]ago. There's over 40 reviews from people
[2:29]on that site, all with glowing reviews,
[2:32]unlike reviews that you see for other
[2:34]other U
[2:35]freelancers, cuz I'm not your average
[2:38]person. They talked
[2:41]about how fast I was, how efficient my
[2:45]communication, how I would see their
[2:47]problems and design in a forward
[2:50]thinking fashion. How I took ownership
[2:52]of
[2:54]problems. How I created things they
[2:56]didn't they didn't even imagine were
[2:59]possible. How I took on projects that
[3:01]other people failed at or said couldn't
[3:03]be done and did it. Been doing that all
[3:06]my
[3:08]life. After that, I went to work for a
[3:13]company. I was still a freelancer. You
[3:16]independent contractor. I worked for
[3:17]them for 10 years. and I designed the
[3:19]website popstar.com. It doesn't exist
[3:21]anymore, but back then it was an
[3:22]entertainment
[3:24]platform. It featured celebrity, movie,
[3:27]and TV show profiles, a whole bunch of
[3:30]features,
[3:33]um, you know, data and all that stuff
[3:35]and had a writing program that I wrote.
[3:39]I had a bunch of freelance writers that
[3:40]would write for that site and it would
[3:44]track views to their
[3:46]pages and the revenue earned from those
[3:48]pages and we would split it with
[3:51]them. It had an admin panel for them
[3:55]where they could see what was trending
[3:56]on the site based on how the SEO was
[3:58]doing and they could focus on content
[4:00]for those things in order to increase
[4:01]their
[4:02]earnings. I manage the whole thing
[4:05]myself. Yeah. So, because I
[4:10]liked I like the community that was
[4:12]forming around the site, I created an
[4:15]auction system and companies would send
[4:18]us all kinds of merchandise and I would
[4:20]just auction it off and basically users
[4:23]could
[4:26]uh they'd earn points by doing different
[4:28]things on the site, writing in a forum,
[4:30]leaving a comment,
[4:32]um you know, reading a review, all kinds
[4:33]of different things. They earn points
[4:34]and they'd use those points to bid on
[4:36]these auctions and get stuff for free.
[4:38]Managed all that myself too. Sent them
[4:40]the prizes
[4:41][Applause]
[4:43]myself. He also had something called the
[4:45]celebrity love awards. Celebrity love
[4:48]awards
[4:50]where people would write letters to
[4:52]their favorite celebrities and based on
[4:54]how many that one got, it would rank
[4:56]them who won that year and I would
[4:59]create custom CDs for those celebrities
[5:01]and mail to them. did all kinds of
[5:03]things on this site. It was fun. Had a
[5:06]lot of fun. Had a lot of celebrity
[5:07]interviews. Did some of those myself. I
[5:09]lived in Kentucky at the time, so you
[5:11]know, they'd have to be in the area. Met
[5:13]some pretty pretty interesting
[5:14]celebrities that way, though. Um, from
[5:17]there, I moved on to another project
[5:19]with them in the travel industry. So, I
[5:21]worked on
[5:23]Hotel.net, Asia.com.
[5:27]Um we had a lot of the geog geog
[5:29]geographical
[5:31]um domains
[5:33]USA.com
[5:35]world.com
[5:36]Europe.com they had most of them uh
[5:39]because they had they had foresight and
[5:41]they bought them all when the internet
[5:43]was new and they retained the rights to
[5:45]those sites while selling the email
[5:47]rights to another company
[5:48]mail.com and so I developed a travel
[5:51]platform for them. I created SEM
[5:54]campaigns of over 100,000 different ad
[5:58]groups, millions of
[5:59]keywords for everything in the travel
[6:02]industry for hotels, flights, all of
[6:03]that stuff. Automated the whole
[6:06]thing, managed it myself. We must have
[6:09]done over $100,000 in business
[6:13]um on a monthly basis easily.
[6:17]Uh I created a price comparison tool way
[6:21]before the
[6:23]others where you could you know compare
[6:25]prices on different sites and pick where
[6:27]you wanted to book and we would you know
[6:28]get revenue based on
[6:32]um you know clickthroughs to those sites
[6:35]sometimes you know royalties share
[6:36]different things did that for
[6:39]years and then Google kind of killed our
[6:42]business when they decided to enter the
[6:43]market and every time somebody searched
[6:45]for something Google would come up
[6:47]first, right? So, pretty much killed
[6:49]that business and I moved on. Went back
[6:51]to grow for a short time and then met my
[6:53]next uh client who I worked with for
[6:56]somewhere between 8 and 10 years. I
[6:57]can't remember
[6:58]exactly. Um, but he owned
[7:02]Serena.com and I managed all of his
[7:04]projects. So we had a music streaming
[7:07]service Arena at
[7:09]arenomusic.com and then we had
[7:12]uh music distribution service at
[7:15]soundblock.com created an admin panel
[7:17]for you know his intra office
[7:19]stuff. Um we
[7:22]had we had so much going on there.
[7:25]blockchain contracts at Soundblock. That
[7:28]way that if you were a band and you had
[7:31]royalties and you wanted to split among
[7:33]your band members and you know your
[7:35]management team and things like that,
[7:36]you put it all into a a smart
[7:38]contract. We'd receive the royalties and
[7:41]we would split according to those
[7:43]contracts. Still doing that. The music
[7:47]streaming service I don't think is on
[7:49]right now. Uh my boss tends to pivot a
[7:52]lot and I call him my boss but I haven't
[7:54]actually worked for him for like 18
[7:56]months but he's still a really good
[7:57]friend and every once in a while I go
[7:59]back and help him doing some AI stuff
[8:00]with him now to help his playlist get
[8:02]better and a whole I have a whole bunch
[8:05]of ideas with that and I'm kind of on
[8:07]pause right now but which is why I'm
[8:09]looking for work and I'm just a free
[8:12]agent
[8:13]again. Um there's so much that I've done
[8:15]in my life like that's just a basic
[8:18]intro you know the freelancing projects
[8:21]I've taken on I've created databases for
[8:23]Comcast individual offices and then
[8:25]suddenly that got distributed to other
[8:27]offices who contacted me wanted to make
[8:29]changes to it u because they couldn't
[8:31]break into it. This was a Microsoft
[8:32]Access database which virtually
[8:33]impossible to not break into. Very easy.
[8:36]And that's how I learned that my work
[8:38]had been
[8:39]spreading without my knowledge or
[8:42]consent. Work with those customers a
[8:44]long
[8:49][Music]
[8:50]time. Just all kinds of things. I have
[8:53]been programming all of my life.
[8:56]I am
[8:57]a the way that I
[9:00]work. My brain is all about pattern
[9:03]recognition. I see patterns in
[9:05]everything and I have all of my life.
[9:07]And so programming for me was just a
[9:10]natural extension of that. Felt very
[9:13]natural. These days I work with AI all
[9:16]the
[9:17]time. It's what's helped me to embrace
[9:19]the lifestyle I have
[9:20]now.
[9:25]and become the person I am today. I'm
[9:27]very proud of
[9:31]myself. I'm ready to work on new
[9:33]projects, but they have to align with my
[9:35]lifestyle, with my desires because I
[9:38]have done a lot in my life and I see
[9:42]how how easy it is for some clients
[9:47]to basically abuse their freelancers.
[9:50]They don't pay them enough. They don't
[9:53]they're not
[9:54]reasonable.
[9:56]And that won't work for me. I am too
[9:59]good to let people take advantage of me.
[10:02]But if we work
[10:04]together, I'll create things for
[10:06]you at scales you can't even
[10:09]imagine cuz I know how good I
[10:14]am. We're almost to the ocean. So, we're
[10:17]going to walk up that dune there. and
[10:19]we'll be at the ocean and I'll end my
[10:21]video there. Sorry for the wind. Wasn't
[10:24]really thinking about that when I
[10:25]started this
[10:27]video. But this is how I am. I don't
[10:31]apologize for who I
[10:34]am. I worked hard to become the person I
[10:36]am. I'm proud of
[10:38]myself. I know what my worth is. I know
[10:41]my
[10:41]value. I'm real. I'm honest. I have
[10:44]integrity. These are qualities you don't
[10:47]find every day anymore. I
[10:50]communicate. I'm I'm
[10:54]ethical. I care deeply about myself and
[10:59]others. And I tell the
[11:06]truth that I'm exceptionally proficient
[11:08]as a programmer, as a systems engineer.
[11:12][Music]
[11:15]some things I didn't think to mention at
[11:17]the time. So, I managed a team for
[11:19]Arena, dozens of programmer, hundreds
[11:21]over a
[11:22]decade. So, I know how to do that
[11:25]also. And that experience taught me just
[11:29]how rare I am cuz I would hire people
[11:32]that I thought would turn out to be
[11:33]great and they weren't. It was a
[11:35]constant
[11:36][Music]
[11:39]struggle. You're not going to have that
[11:41]with me. I'm somebody when they commit,
[11:44]they commit fully. When they say they're
[11:46]going to do something, I do
[11:48][Music]
[11:51]it. When I say I can do something, I
[11:53]will find a way. I also be honest
[11:57]about what I think about it, how hard I
[12:01]think it will be. If I know how to do it
[12:03]out of the box or I need to do research
[12:04]on
[12:07]it. You get no games with me. You get
[12:10]authenticity and
[12:12]integrity and that
[12:17]matters. I'm like this ocean out
[12:19]here,
[12:22]expansive, deep, does not apologize for
[12:25]being what it
[12:28]is. It controls the environment, the
[12:36]atmosphere, and it's got rhythms and
[12:38]patterns.
[12:43]It's the greatest force on earth. And
[12:46]that right there is my
[12:51]mirror. So if you're looking for the
[12:53]best developers, best programs that you
[12:55]could ever find, you're looking at me.
[12:58]Hire me.