Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012 (opens in new tab)

I first met her IRL at a Boston 2600 meeting too, at the Cambridgeside Galleria. IIRC she was being escorted around by Rogue Agent and Sarah Gordon.

Already knew her on irc +hack/#hack back from when she was 'lem0n', which Deth Veggie still calls her (he still calls me by one of my old handles too).

(I used a bunch of handles back then, on irc mostly gfm or geo)

Can you explain to me what is embarrassing to you?

Is it the making money part?

Is it the understanding a market and serving it part?

Is it the education and knowledge sharing to better energize and expand the market part?

Is it the persistence, perseverance and timing part?

Is it the creation of a legion of folks who never would have participated had they not been given the encouragement and clear marketplace part?

Is it the successful marketing part?

Or is it some other part that I have failed to mention? We live in a world where people made billions selling tobacco, blood diamonds, sub-prime mortgages and Justin Bieber albums. But even without those, I can see very little embarrassing about an entrepreneur channeling passion into advocacy and sales of products customers clearly value.

I was truly sad that as my kids were growing up the world was actively conspiring to keep the knowledge about how things work away from them. In the US at least there is a tremendous amount of narrative that rides along on the 'don't try this at home' meme. Silly stuff like learning to build campfires and sharpen a pocket knife, and stuff like changing the timing of your vehicle's ignition. The problem with that is that kids believe it. They start believing its somebody else's job to invent the new things, to think outside the box, and to do stuff.

Into that sadness walked folks who said "You know, I'm going to make stuff you can tinker with." "I'm going to sell kits for people to make silly things and amazing things and I'm going to provide all the information they need to modify or improve or destroy them." They needed a word for people who did stuff like that. "Do-er" never caught on, "Hobbyist" was to generic, "Hacker" got sideswiped by the media, "Nerd" and "Geek" were epithets, so somebody started calling these folks "Makers" in the sense that they made things. And its wonderfully non-specific so people who "make" fabric are just as much makers and people who "make" technology gizmos.

Over the last 10 years the pendulum has swung back a bit and folks like Limor have helped that effort. That folks would embrace that and push back against those who would protect the status quo of not letting you know how things work, sometimes it requires a noisy and brash "movement."

People are much more motivated when they are told "No you can't know that" it seems.

Just because something is first doesn't mean it is best. Limor took something cool and made it awesome, and you can be sure that in a generation or two someone else will take her work further.

I grew up hacking on Heathkits and reading Forrest Mimms books and just as Mimms did for me as a child, Adafruit's products turn a new generation on to the fun, creativity and power locked up in understanding electronics.

The fact of the matter is that DIY electronics was fading out by the 1990's in no small part due to the ever tightening noose of proprietary technology and planned obsolecense in consumer electronics. In this environment, Adafruit was able to make soldering sexy and fabrication fashionable; how could anyone find fault in that?

Were you selling kits and tools to people who might not have previously thought of themselves as makers, making it super easy to jump in and get started? This is what I think she's got the attention for.

I was right all along.

(Perhaps if the movement gets big enough, my son won't get bullied and called a freak for tinkering like I did. Sounds like win to me.)

I got my start in engineering by reading the manuals of my father's HeathKit projects and by building a simple computer using a Z80 and a few other chips that I got through mail order and Radio Shack. Back then, having a personal computer was much less common and I could imagine building something roughly comparable to what was on the market (Altair, Apple II, C64,...). A generation before me tinkered with Ham Radio.

Today, HeathKit is out of business and Radio Shack sells overpriced consumer goods. Our electronics is now much more sophisticated and there exists a much wider gap between what one can do from on their own vs. commercial products. I think there was a dry period after the rise of PCs and before the maker movement, where there wasn't much opportunity for a hardware hobbyist. Limor and others like her are coming up with really interesting projects that are still relevant in today's world. I appreciate their re-imagination and invigoration of this hobby and hope to get my son interested when he's a bit older.

Be happy! A rising tide raises all ships (boats / skiffs / rafts / swimmers / floating bathtubs).

That's true. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way for people to buy your kits and learn from your vast engineering knowledge, so they've all started giving their money to someone else. Whose fault is that?

Talk is cheap. Consider putting your money where your mouth is.

Adafruit and newer companies of this ilk fill a need for us oldtimers and the newcomers. Many of my old sources of various parts and kits are dead, evolved or just didn't handle the transition to the internet well.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman