How Hacking Helped Me Become Obama's CTO

[Commentary] It was on a bulletin board that I first learned about hacker culture, the “let’s just break through this wall and see what’s on the other side” mentality. Before I was hired by President Barack Obama’s team as the CTO for his 2012 re-election campaign, I had certainly never been involved with anything of that nature before. Yet, I somehow knew I could do the job.

I attribute that confidence to my experience as a hacker and the subsequent willingness to take risks. If you never break through that wall of doubt, you will never see what might’ve been possible. I would still describe myself as a hacker. I still remember feeling the magic, the sense of discovery, when I first connected to a bulletin board. It seemed like the world was somehow brighter, the greens were greener. Like I’d stepped through a portal to the other side. I knew back then that things would never be the same again for me. And I was right.

[Harper Reed is CTO of Obama for America and Threadless.com]