Interview date:
November 24, 2020
Pablos Holman is a notorious hacker, futurist and inventor who has worked on everything from Jeff Bezos' rockets to zapping mosquitos with lasers.
He says one of the best ways kids can acquire a hacker/inventor mindset is by playing video games like Minecraft to learn how to code and invent things. "I see parents saying 'My kids just wanna play Minecraft. I can't make them stop.' I'm trying to talk my kid into dropping out of school to play Minecraft and she won't do it. Disappointed parent because my kid won't play these video games."
"Nobody's ever invented something by reading the directions. Hackers are the people violating the warranty before they got the shrink wrap off. We need them. We need 'em. I'm not saying you want to hire them because sometimes there's a screw loose somewhere. There's a lot of screws loose but that's a different kind of mindset and it's really important. Instead of trying to suppress them, we need to celebrate it and help put them to productive use."
