Episode 204 | Abel Wang - Intensity

Guest: Abel Wang @AbelSquidHead Abel Wang talks with Dave Rael about background expectations, outlets to maintain sanity, growth, and working hard Meet #TheRockstar. Abel Wang is the Senior Product Marketing Manager for .NET and Mobile at Microsoft. Before that, he was a Technical Solutions Professional on the Developer Experience team in Microsoft focusing on developer tools including Visual Studio, Visual Studio Team Services and Team Foundation Server. Before joining Microsoft, Abel spent seven years as a Process Consultant and a Certified Scrum Master helping customers globally develop solutions using agile practices and Team Foundation Server. Prior to that, Abel founded and sold his own software company. Abel is also an avid programmer and musician. Chapters: 2:26 - Dave introduces the show and Abel Wang5:32 - Abel the musician7:43 - How Abel got started in software9:57 - How Abel compares to the expectations and examples of his family and the importance of working hard12:07 - Abel's relationship with Donovan Brown15:22 - The primacy of effort over giftedness18:53 - Donovan's family19:37 - Abel's story of building software companies26:02 - Abel's story of failure - building a product without a market and desperation for an escape31:58 - Abel's success story - textbook application of Agility and turning around a failing situation34:41 - How Abel stays current with what he needs to know36:56 - Abel's book recommendation39:10 - The things that have Abel most excited41:12 - Abel's role at Microsoft and getting into learning about marketing43:46 - The things that cause Abel pain and suffering45:36 - Abel's top 3 tips for delivering more value48:37 - Keeping up with Abel Resources: Abel's Blog Donovan Brown on Developer On Fire Linda Rising on Developer On Fire Mindset: The New Psychology of Success - Carol S. Dweck Jurassic Park: A Novel - Michael Crichton Jurassic Park (Jurassic World Fandango Cash Version) - JURASSIC PARK Gary Zimmerman Abel's book recommendation: Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software - Erich Gamma The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win - Gene Kim Agile Software Development with Scrum (Series in Agile Software Development) - Ken Schwaber Abel's top 3 tips for delivering more value: Be customer obsessed Iterate quickly, get feedback, make course corrections, fail fast Work hard