I went to a great college, and so I was far from the smartest guy there. In particular, there were three of us in my freshman class of computer programmers that were smart and hung out constantly.

Tom could come up with a way to do anything, programming-wise. A lot of what he did was silly, but he still had to explain a lot of it two or three times before I had a clue what he was doing.

Anton was into hardware and robots, and as kind of a secondary side thing he also wrote mind-blowing programs to make lasers dance to music or recognize sounds with a microphone.

I was convinced I was the dumbest of the three, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from hanging out, you know? I learned a lot while they put up with me.

Of course, both other guys felt the same way. I’m told I was impressive when I was in college too.

Mutual hero-worship societies are the best. If you’ve never been in one, go do it. Yeah, you’ll spend all your time feeling like you suck. But you’ll also get better fast… And you all will. Nobody is really, truly not learning anything.