#479 – Dave Plummer: Programming, Autism, and Old-School Microsoft Stories

The following is a conversation with Dave Plummer, programmer and an old school Microsoft software engineer who helped work on Windows 95, NT, and XP, building a lot of incredible tools, some of which have been continuously used by hundreds of millions of people. like the famed Windows Task Manager. Yes, the Windows Task Manager, and the zip on zip compression support in Windows, and he ported the code for Space Cadet Pinball, aka 3D pinball, to Windows. Today he's loved by many programmers and engineers for his amazing YouTube channel called Dave's Garage that you should definitely go check out. Also, he wrote a book on autism and about his life story called Secrets of the Autistic Millionaire, where he gives really interesting insights about how to navigate relationships, career, and day-to-day life with autism.

All this taken together, this was a super fun conversation about the history and future of programming, computing, technology, and just building cool stuff in the proverbial garage. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description or at lexfriedman.com slash sponsors. It's the best way to support this podcast.

We got Uplift Desk, which is an incredible company that has been my go-to. for a long time for all my office and podcast studio furniture, Zogdog, which is a platform that connects patients with top-rated healthcare providers, Fin for AI agent for customer service, Alio Capital for folks who understand the turmoil of global markets, and finally, Shopify. a company that we've talked about for 20 hours with DHH. Because uh they use Ruby on Rails and they show that it can scale. Anyway, choose wisely my friends and now onto the full batteries.

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