Greg Kerzhner, our nimble, quick-footed developer has a penchant for climbing and scaling, both code and rocks. This kid has some serious credibility, having climbed one of the world’s biggest rock climbing challenges, El Capitan, in just two days! Fortunately, he carries the same passion for developing awesome code. Greg heads out almost every weekend to climb the many challenging landscapes accessible to the Bay Area, and he led the team through the basics of rock climbing during this week’s BoF Friday presentation.
He explained the various styles of rock-climbing, fielding questions bordering on fascination as well as being the recipient of some good old ribbing. For this post, we decided to skip explaining the various styles of rock climbing (Look here and here, if you must), but instead want to talk about Passion, Persistence, and Practice—The three P’s most evident from Greg’s presentation, and how they relate to GT code and GT’s pursuit of excellence.
Greg coiling his rope to hike down after climbing Tuolumne, just another beautiful Yosemite climbing challenge
Greg’s love for climbing started when he was 6 years old in Russia. His passion fuels him in spite of the risks involved and the mental and physical strain of the entire process. You’ve probably heard it before, but it begs repeating that the success of any venture or project depends on the passion behind the idea and the passion of the workforce that implements it.
You may have a great idea for a website, but if the people who help you implement that vision don’t believe in their job; whether it is providing a great user experience, creating an elegant workflow, or developing awesome code, then you are set up for failure.
Love is not enough. Well, romantic assertions aside, one also needs the attitude to ‘stick with it’. The persistence to see goals to the finish line, or in this case, to reach the summit was transparent in Greg’s attitude. This doggedness applies to our developers too, because it is this attitude that makes them go beyond just creating an average codebase to fostering a culture of collaborative and efficient coding practices.
Greg did a lot of practice and training to free climb El Capitan in 2 days. “It was a lifetime goal,” said Greg when asked how long it took him to train. The answer was self evident to him because every climber knows that it isn’t possible to reach the “summit” of El Capitan without dedicated practice over a reasonable period of time. It is exactly this kind of practice, spanning thousands of hours, that a developer puts in to become an absolute winner in this field. Without passion and persistence, this level of intense practice is impossible to achieve.
These three qualities are integral to the pursuit of excellence – as a person, as a professional, and as a company. This is why we love having BoF presentations. They remind us of the nuances of human nature and the reason for why we have come together as an organization—to excel.
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