SEASON 7 of Underserved kicks off with our guest Paul Belt. In our 76th episode, we cover Paul graduating from running a BBS and the warez scene into software development. Paul realized quickly that many companies and hiring managers in the software industry insist that you have that "piece of paper", an undergraduate degree, before they will consider you. We also discuss the importance of the mission and the market, measuring software development productivity as well as drag, and how to recognize and mesh with different personality types.   Additional reading links from Paul: Paul's first professional mentor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-thau-78b8a665/ An insightful boss from DataXu https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianjdolan/ Best Boss Ever! Marcia Goetsch  https://www.linkedin.com/in/marciagoetsch/ Marcia's the one that recognized "old school computing" and the value it brings to today's market... a mastery of the basics (her mastery is far superior to my own)... and helped formalize design patterns and domain-specific terminologies in a way that Northeastern failed to. She gave me autonomy and taught me the difference between managers and leaders. She is a leader. Personal Repositories:  https://github.com/belt and https://hub.docker.com/u/paulbelt How does the internet work? (in a nutshell): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model