This man dropped out of a no-name college in India to be a software engineer and by 33, worked his way up to being CEO of a $100M+ company in New York.
Here's the never-before-shared incredibly inspirational story of Ershad Kunnakkadan:
> be middle class kid in random state school in Kerala, India
> get really into computers
> senior hands you Ubuntu 8.04 CD, whole new world
> starts contributing to SMC (a malayalam computing group)
> gets into blogging cause SMC seniors are into it
> go to no-name small private college in Kerala
> spend more time in terminals than classrooms
> shell scripting contests, Linux admin, security, virus cleaning, bots, paper presentations
> doesnt see a point to college exams
> drops out after 2nd year, promises family "I will earn a degree somehow"
> lands internship at small software co
> grows into being an architect
> found security bugs in Github and Prezi
> reads "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" and the "The Google Story", dreamt of being in the US one day
> does Google Summer of Code
> earns a degree remotely from Bharathiar University
> gets remote job at BigBinary
> moves back to Kochi to be near family
> involved in local free software circles and workshops, events, meetups
> building a quiet dense body of work over loud personal brand
> gets introduced to Gumroad as a consultant first
> joins Gumroad as a senior engineer
> gets married
> moves to Abu Dhabi to be closer to wife's family
> does the boring crucial stuff - scalability, security, payouts, infra
> grows to being a staff software engineer at Gumroad
> support millions of users and $1B+ in creator earnings
> just focusses on self-improvement
> never once thinks about promotion
> moves to New York City on an O-1 visa
> Gumroad looking for a new CEO
> board looks around and its clear who is best fit for the job
> become CEO of a $100M+ gmv business
I just love the story of Ershad. No brands, no pedigree, no MBA, no loudness. When I asked him the quality that got him here, he said "reliability". A truly kind, quiet and generous person. Who loves computers. Dropping out when you're rich is trendy in America, but to see someone Indian drop out and work their way up into the top role is pure inspiration.
Don't worry if you don't have all the accolades and ornaments you see in people who achieve your dreams. Be a good person, and be reliable.
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