Zach Latta is the founder of Hack Club (hackclub.com). Zach's a high school dropout who's now helped 30k high school students around the world start their own coding clubs. He also helped build the much-beloved "yo" texting app in 2014. This is a fun conversation about coding in school, being a kid, the importance of friendship in learning, and realizing that you can make awesome stuff with awesome people in this world.
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What is The CS Primer Show?
A show about computer science and computer science education by Charlie Harrington and Oz Nova.
So, Zach, you have been made the czar, the education czar of the United States, let's say, just to not be ridiculous, just the US. And the the question put to you is that should we have mandatory computer science education in schools just like we have mandatory mathematics education. Right? Like, obviously, there's some flexibility around that. It's not, like, mandatory through all levels of mathematics up to grade 12 or whatever, but there is some recognition that everyone ought to learn mathematics.
Oz Nova:Should we do that to schools? And you're welcome to say something in between. Like, we should, like, pivot the math education to be more computer science y or something. But my general question to you is given and to provide some context on Zach, the degree to which I believe you believe that it's empowering the kids to be able to control technology in this way.
Charlie Harrington:Don't influence his answer.
Oz Nova:Let's let's hear what Zach
Charlie Harrington:thinks here.
Oz Nova:I'm giving him time to think.
Charlie Harrington:Oh, okay.
Zach Latta:I I think the answer is yes as long as it's project based and as long as it's focused on building projects. And I think it should probably be 2 years, 1 or 2 years. And, I I think the hard realities of the American education system is that way too many young people go to school and don't leave with any real skills. And I think that in an ideal world, I think all education should be optional. But I I I think in the practical world that we live in today, I I think having mandatory, you know, 1 or 2 years project based CS education that will turn a lot of people that wouldn't be on to CS onto it.
Zach Latta:And I I I think that's just the route of where we're at right now. So that would
Oz Nova:be project based, it's like, are we also saying, like, no grading? Or is it like the teacher's allowed to grade the project or something? Are we saying no
Zach Latta:Oh, no. No. I mean, I I I think I think there should a 100% be grading. I think it should be, like, a real class. I think, but I I think that you know?
Zach Latta:So one thing that's happened in America over the past, few years is that there's been a huge rollout of computer science education in high schools. And we're seeing stuff happen on smaller schools too. So, in in 2014, I believe I believe the stat was 1 in 10 high schools in America offered a single coding class. Today, it's about 50%. And, that is one of the fastest rollouts of a new type of subject ever.
Zach Latta:And there's still, like, a ton of work to do, but the way in which we've done that rollout, is for you know, if you learn AP Computer Science Principles, it's taught different ways, but this is one of the new courses that's been designed. Some students go that entire year of CS education in high school without writing a single line of code. And I I think that the thing that's uniquely empowering about knowing how to code is realizing that computers and phones are not something that are made by people in cathedrals that are inaccessible to you. They're made by people just like you. And with just a little bit of effort, like, you can become one of those people too.
Zach Latta:You can kind of flip that switch from being a consumer to being a creator. I think that if you're not writing code, you're probably not having that experience of realizing you can be a creator too.
Charlie Harrington:So what are they doing if they're not writing code? Like, whiteboarding algorithms or something? What what tends to be the current state of an APCS that's not writing code?
Zach Latta:So this is specifically APCS principles. Yeah. I, to be frank, I don't deeply know the curriculum. I've just heard from students where they're like, oh, like, I'm in this class. We don't even write code in this class.
Oz Nova:Yeah.
Zach Latta:And, usually, what they're talking about is ethics, how computers work generally, some of the concepts, like the the buzzword that is used a lot as computational thinking. In my mind, you can't really learn computational thinking unless you're you're writing code. But, those are the concepts that we talked about. But to be frank, I I'm really not an expert in how we are teaching computer science through the fall methods. Like, where I've spent the past 10 years really trying to make a small dent in the universe is helping teenagers learn outside of the system.
Zach Latta:Because for the vast majority of young people, like, even today, more than 50% of high schools don't offer a single class. And when it is offered, like, they're oftentimes not great. Like, they're pretty under resourced. Most computer science teachers don't have a background in programming. Most of them are, like, formally taught a different subject like English or math or science that have been trained through professional development programs, which are usually pretty short.
Zach Latta:And they're trying their best, but there's just not a lot of resources, not and not a strong culture around it. So, I I I think that I I think, specifically, what I would picture is, like, I think a great, you know, 1st year CS course would be, like, everyone builds a website and builds, like, you know, first name, last name.com. Everyone builds their a back end in JavaScript. Everyone builds, like, you know, a web server from scratch. Like, where you have a series of probably 5 or 6, like, real projects that are actually attainable if you're, like, 14 or 15, where you're diving, you know, a little bit behind the scenes.
Zach Latta:And I I think that when we think about teaching math, like, that is the pitch for math. It's like math is a language of the world around us. If you learn the concepts behind it, you can start to understand the world around us. But, like, computer science is just that in such a more tangible way for so many people. And and also, I I think it's particularly important too where, like, increasingly, like, this I think there's a generation of people that kind of grew up, using computers as consumers.
Zach Latta:And, you know, if you learned and were using computers from, like, 2005 to 2015, the way in which you use your or before that, like, the way in which you use the computer is pretty similar to the way that people who code use a computer too. Like, you're downloading files. You have a file system. You have folders on your computer. Like, you're typing on, like, a QWERTY keyboard.
Zach Latta:We're increasingly for young people today, like, they don't use computers that way anymore. So the gap between going from, like, tapping on an iPad and not really understanding, what a file system is to, like, understand the concept of, like, a tree structure and knowing how to type quickly, is a huge difference. Like, one of the things we see a lot in HackClub, and I'll I'll stop, is you can if you go to, like, a hackathon where a lot of the people at the hackathon are beginners and are younger, like 14, like freshman in high school, you can really tell which ones play computer games at home and which ones don't based on if they know where the different special keys on the keyboard are. Like, I've noticed just in running hack over the past 10 years that the average teenager is is maybe half as fast at typing today as they were, you know, 10 years ago.
Charlie Harrington:But they know where to put their fingers on WASD, probably.
Zach Latta:Well, if you're playing computer games, you're on a like, you know you know the computer. Okay.
Oz Nova:If
Zach Latta:you're not playing computer games and you're mostly on a on a phone or an iPad, like, you have you don't even understand concepts like the file system. Like, the idea of, like, a file being on your computer versus on the cloud is actually quite confusing.
Charlie Harrington:Yeah. I was just I I've talked to sort of folks who, you know, siblings and whatnot, and there's still this huge gap where people say, I know coding is writing things in a text file, but how does that go to something on my phone? And these are folks who were even, you know, in school in the nineties and whatnot. And because they weren't introduced to that, I think I think you're right. The phone file listing is recasting people's ability to understand this, and we've just put another veil behind this understandability thing that it it's kind of, I I I'm worried about that.
Charlie Harrington:I think that's, it's interesting that you brought that up as one of the key pain points.
Zach Latta:Totally. Well, I I think the the reason why it's relevant today is, like, you as a young person, you might not gain those, like, pretty basic computer skills unless you're being taught it. And I think that a lot of young people don't see themselves as a type of people who are capable of making things. And and when they when they start to gain some knowledge, knowledge is power, and they realize they're actually not too far away from, like, building your own website or, like, building a real app. Like, you know, there's 1 14 year old in Hackclub who, you know, she's really into making films and really into making movies, and she uses iPad.
Zach Latta:She uses Imovie all the time on her phone to do that. But when it came to, like, building a real app or something like it felt like that was a pretty distant concept. But when she realized that, like, in an hour, she could build a website, she started a local bakery business in her town where you can order a cake from her. She charges her $20, and she delivers it to you in town. And, like, she made, like, a couple $100 one summer through doing that.
Zach Latta:And and I think that, like, you know, we need to get Oz, one thing you said to me years ago that really stuck with me, was, the story of Laszlo Polgar and and, like, his whole, like, store like, you know, learning pedagogy, which is basically if you wanna become for anything, all you have to do is 3 things. One, you have to figure out how to make it fun so you can, like, spend 8 hours a day doing it without burning out. 2, you need to figure out how to have a feedback loop around your work so you can figure out if you're getting better over time or worse over time. And then 3rd, and most importantly, you need to figure out how to always get yourself, like, just outside of your comfort zone. Not so far where it's demotivating when you fail, but not so close that your wins aren't meaningful.
Zach Latta:And I think that for a lot of young people, they're, like, just a little bit of knowledge and understanding from, like, getting those three things around computer stuff. And, I I think if we had, you know, more universal, CS classes, I think, you know, more people be turned onto that. I don't like the idea of compulsory education, but I think it's needed today.
Oz Nova:I I'm actually quite surprised that, that you that you said that, that you took that pill or or that option of, like, let's make it compulsory. Because in my mind, everything that you say is true, but it is Hacklove that is doing these things. And Hacklove is, like, very intentionally outside of the system. And, the idea that you might actually want to, like, nudge the system into doing this itself, This isn't are you being humble
Zach Latta:here, Zach? Oh, well, I I think that, like, there's 14,700,000 high school students in the US. And Hackclub serves, like, 25, 30000 students in our programs a year. And, I think there's a lot more appetite for Hackclub than the number of students we serve today, but it's really hard to reach them. And, when you try and go through the traditional distribution channels, like, they're it's it's pretty hard to, like, you know, get people to go from, like, you know, watching YouTube or whatever they're doing at home to, like, spend their free time coding.
Zach Latta:Like, you kind of basically, what you need to get somebody to go from being a consumer to creator is, like, 1, they need to have inspiration. 2, they need to have friendships that reward them for spending their time making things. And then 3rd, they need to have specific actual nudges that get them to build projects. Where, like, if you're, like, a super deep coder and you spend a lot of time coding, it's like the coolest thing you can do for your friends is ship a cool project. You're regularly probably reading Hacker News.
Zach Latta:We're always seeing, like, new ideas popping up and, like, you're seeing stuff like Rust happening. Like, you wanna get on the Rust stuff and then there's, like, new stuff. Like like, there's a lot of hack that was in your knicks right now. So, like, you got inspiration constantly coming at you, and then you're constantly getting nudged because all your friends talk about is programming. So you're really, like, on that treadmill.
Zach Latta:But to get the people who aren't quite there yet but are pretty close, it's it's hard to get them started. And I think that, you know, as much as I I don't like it, like, I think that if every single student took a 1 year CS class in America, I think that the demand for Hat Club would skyrocket.
Oz Nova:Mhmm.
Zach Latta:Like, I think I think we would have half a 1000000 kids that that would, like, be, like, pretty eagerly, like, going after it. So
Charlie Harrington:Do you think, the way you're describing hat club and sort of following along with your friends just makes me think of the importance of being into something, especially in those early years. What and, like, it helps you find your tribe. It's like, oh, I know this esoteric knowledge about a band or something or yeah. For me, I was really into skateboarding for a while. Sounds like you've been working with people who've, like, figured that out.
Charlie Harrington:I I wonder if you'd be able to recapture that feeling, probably not, in the traditional school setting. Like, there are just gonna be people who choose not to, like, get into it. And how much of it feeling like a club and something away has led to success with that club to this point?
Zach Latta:Yeah. I mean, my vision for the future of education is, like I think high school should be half as long as it is. I think the classes should be much more skill relevant. I think there shouldn't be homework, and I think there should be a lot more things like HackClub for coding and for other things too. And I I think the thing is is, like, in my view, there are basically 2 types of education models that exist in the world.
Zach Latta:There are high floor low ceiling models where everyone learns to read and write, but it's pretty hard to go off the beaten path. And then there's low floor, high ceiling models like HackClub, where, like, a lot of people who come into Hackclub don't get anything out of it, and we're okay with that. But the people get engaged, they go really, really, really, really, really far. Like, there was a 17 year old hack lover from Singapore last week who found a 0 day exploit in iOS. And I tweeted about it, and it was, like, got super popular on Twitter.
Zach Latta:And, like, that's that's amazing. And I I think that, like, a good future education system is one that blends both. And and I think that a lot of the issues of high school in America today stem from a really broken college application process, where if you're if you're an ambitious young person, you are basically trained from birth to become a sociopath to try and get into a school. And, the way in which you get into college is through is through exaggerating, lying and pretending like you did things you didn't actually do. Like, we occasionally get these companies reaching out to HACCO trying to sponsor us, which we always turn down, whether these, like, absolutely insane college prep programs.
Zach Latta:Like, there's this one where they you pay them 30 to $50,000. They plan an entire social mission trip for you, your junior year of high school, where like, I I got it's crazy. Like, I like, they were telling like, there's one student who said they they they found a building in Nepal, booked the tickets for them to fly to Nepal, recruited 30 students to go in Nepal to go to this building, and the student taught them coding over 2 weeks. They sent a photographer to take photos of the students sent sending us, and then they hooked them up with someone to help them write college essays about it. It's like, that is sociopath behavior.
Zach Latta:Like, that is absolutely insane, And that's where we reward in our system today.
Charlie Harrington:And that kid that kid still didn't get into Harvard. I'm sure.
Zach Latta:Yeah. I know.
Oz Nova:Didn't find the right rowing coach to bry it. Is that can we say that now?
Zach Latta:Yeah. I'm not gonna get the lead
Oz Nova:anymore when I say that. Yeah.
Zach Latta:It's it's so messed up. So yeah. I mean, I I I I think my my vision would be, like, a high floor, low ceiling set of classes that teach you basic things that help you fit like, see some of the different paths that are open to you. It should be much more skill oriented than the classes we have today, and CS encoding should be one of them. But then there should be things like Hackla where if you get into it, you can take your interest really, really far.
Oz Nova:Do you think that's been talking about color sorry. Go ahead, Shelley.
Charlie Harrington:I was just saying, the practical nature of coding in particular, it it seems like you're saying it's not that everyone needs to become a software engineer, but my read of what you're saying is that coding is very well suited to sort of teaching you that you can see things in the world, and you can be someone who can make them yourself. Is that is that why you're trying to encourage it? Or, like because it seems like you're not saying, you know, don't be an English teacher. Don't be a, you know, lib librarian or whatever it is or a lawyer. Become a software engineer.
Zach Latta:For me, really, it stems out of my own experience as a teenager, which is that I was a sad and depressed teenager that was really unhappy a lot of the time. And when I discovered coding, like, my entire life changed because I had something that brought me joy. I was able to connect with people that share the same values as I did, and it opened us up this entire world. And, like, I I see
Oz Nova:great on your college application. Do you know about that?
Zach Latta:Oh, great. Yeah. No. It's terrible. So for for me, like, wanting Hacklod to exist is, like, I I would have killed for a community of teenagers that loved coding and making things when I was a teenager.
Zach Latta:I really tried to find that, and I struggled to. And I think every young person who's, like, ever has that thought of, like, like, trying to make something could be kinda cool, whether it's coding or engineering or some hardware. Like, I think there needs to be a path for them.
Oz Nova:Yeah.
Zach Latta:And and I think the thing that a lot of people don't realize is, like, today, there are millions of young people that are interested in this stuff. Like, when you look at the most popular YouTubers on YouTube on YouTube, a lot of them make, like, engineering content, and their audiences are teenagers. Like, I don't know if either you either of you have seen stuff made here. He is absolutely incredible. I mean, he makes, like, these Yeah.
Oz Nova:Mark Rober. There's a whole genre of this stuff where it's like, can we just replace all of science education with people just, watching and tinkering with this stuff? Yeah.
Zach Latta:It's like a modern way better discovery channel. And, if you go to, like, an average middle school, there are a lot of kids that watch those videos.
Oz Nova:Mhmm.
Zach Latta:But for 99.9% of them, like, when they have that moment of, like, oh, like, maybe I wanna try being one of these people too. There's absolutely nothing to help them carry that forward. And that, like, dream and ambition just dies. And I I think that, like, we should have support. And I think the hope for HackClub is that HackClub can be that support for all of them.
Zach Latta:And and, specifically, like, you know, know, I I I talk about it later, but we we have this new partner at HackClub that we're trying to build out to kinda try and make that make that possible, where it's like, you know, like, they're, like, real support to help you go down that path.
Oz Nova:Can we just, like, fill the listener in, on your when I joke about your college application? Actually, I'll ask this as a question. What would have happened to the world had Zack Larter gone on the path of, the college application process and someone? What do you, like, where do you think you would have been compared to what what happened?
Zach Latta:Yeah. So so my background is I, I grew up in Southern California. Both my parents were social workers. My my dad worked in mental illness, and with homeless people, and my mom worked in the foster care system. And I went to public schools that, like most schools in America, didn't teach, and I believe still don't teach any coding classes.
Zach Latta:And as a kid, like, I I just love computers. Like, I I remember getting in trouble because, like, I took about the family computer and couldn't figure out how to put it back together. And, I love video games. And I was like, how do I like, I wanna I wanna be one of the people who can make these things. And I really struggled to figure out how to pursue that.
Zach Latta:Like, there wasn't really anything at my school. I didn't know friends who had engineer parents. So I was literally just googling. And, like, if you were on IRC, you know, in, like, 2007, you might have talked to someone that said they were in their twenties who really didn't sound like the like, they're in their twenties, and that might have been me when I was, like, a 5th or 6th grader trying to make friends on the Internet. And, I, when I discovered coding, like, my whole world changed because suddenly, like, I had a a thing that I could do that where I could, like, make real things and, like, try and do stuff.
Zach Latta:And my my first thing I worked on was when I was in 6th grade, I helped, I was, like, a super low level person for one of the early MMO games, for iOS. And, like, I helped design some of the levels, and they already did some of the scripting. And, like, to see a 1,000 people experience something that I made a small contribution to was, like, the most exciting and empowering feeling I'd ever felt. And at the moment, I was just like, I wanna do this for the rest of my life. And when I made it to high school, I think you know, I was 14, and I felt, like, incredibly lonely and isolated.
Zach Latta:Like, I I didn't know anyone else in person who shared this interest. I'd literally never met a coder before in real life. I was, like, desperately trying to find stuff. And, ultimately, I ended up dropping out of high school. When I was 16, I I moved so when I was 15, I left school.
Zach Latta:When I was 16, I moved out of my parents' house, and I moved to San Francisco to become a programmer. And when I moved, I had no idea how how I was gonna make rent. I, I I thought I had a lot of money saved up for my web contracting, and I I paid a $64100 security deposit on a San Francis on a room in a San Francisco apartment. I was, like, totally out of money. And I got a job May I
Oz Nova:ask just quickly? Sorry. This this feels like a very courageous thing. Like, there are not many 15 year olds who I can think of who would do something like that. Firstly, drop out of high school.
Oz Nova:Like, forget college, drop out of high school, and secondly, move to, even a high cost of living city at that age. This to me is, like, exemplary courage, at least, like, right now. I'm sure 15 year olds, like, in 18 50 or whatever had a different kind of constitution, whether they wanted to or not. But, like, what gave you the confidence to do that, do you think?
Zach Latta:Honestly, for me, I hated school so much. It wasn't our confidence. It was like, I literally, like, cannot show up to this place anymore. I I missed, like, 40 days of school my freshman year. Like, it would like, the school was calling my parents saying they would have to show up in court and, like, talk about a truancy case if I didn't, like, go back.
Zach Latta:And it was, like, really negative, and I really wasn't very happy. So for me, like, honestly, it was a lot less about courage and a lot more about trying to escape what felt like child prison. And, you know, obviously, like, having background, like, you know, I was very lucky to, like, grow up in a nice area and, like, go to a, like, you know, a good school. But I I hate how we, like, I hate how we treat kids like they don't like, they're not real. Like, we think of kids as these, like, cogs in our system rather than as, like, real people.
Zach Latta:And I don't know about either of you, but, like, as a kid, I never felt like a kid. Like, I feel like my feelings when I was 12 are just as real and valid as my feelings today. And I think that, like, society should should see kids in that light and treat them differently.
Charlie Harrington:I feel the same way, but maybe inverted where I still feel like 12 years old. And, but, yeah, I see what you're saying. But I I've never I've never felt like an adult.
Zach Latta:Well, like, I love that. Right? But yeah. I I and I I I think that, you know, part of the goal of ACT Club is to treat kids like real people, and that's something that we do in everything that that we try and happen. So, sorry, long way to answer your question, but, I don't think it's not encouraging at all.
Zach Latta:I I I think it was about escaping school. And, honestly, I think school kills the dreams of a lot of kids. Like, Gallup does a survey, called the Gallup student survey where they survey about a 1000000 students every year. I haven't looked at it in a couple years. So my stats are for my 2018 or 2019, but I
Oz Nova:I don't think it would have gotten better since then.
Zach Latta:Yeah. I can't imagine that just got any better. But in in in 6th grade, something like 80% of kids report like, say that they have hope for the future. By 11th grade, it's less than half. One of the most important questions is, do you like school?
Zach Latta:And, like, 6th graders say they like school. It's, like, 70% or 80% or something like that. By, 11th grade, it's, like, 25% or something like that. And I I think that, like, you know, we we force kids to go through the system, which really isn't built for them. It's it's crazy.
Zach Latta:Like, school's one of the few places where, like, if you think about the incentive structures that drive things, like, it's it's lit literally, the students don't have any input into the feedback loop at all whatsoever. Like, parents have input, school boards have input, principals have input, funding bodies have input, like, textbook writers have input, but, like, the kids get absolutely no voice in any of this. And I I I think it's really, horrible.
Oz Nova:So, Phyllis, you know, on the rest of the story, you you end up in San Francisco. Everything goes catastrophically bad. You bail out. Go home. You know?
Oz Nova:What happens?
Zach Latta:So I, I moved into this hacker into a house, with a bunch of friends. It was a 6 bedroom house on 18th and Castro. If you've ever heard of the Revey coffee shop there, that was our garage. And, we had 12 people in there. And on my first day in the cities, I got asked to have coffee by a founder of a startup who said he was trying to hire a programmer.
Zach Latta:And his idea was to build the dumbest app of all time. And the the concept was, like, what if you built WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, but the only word you can send someone else is the word yo?
Charlie Harrington:Oh, no.
Zach Latta:And, and he he had a and he had a working prototype at the time, but, he he he wanted, like, someone to help grow it and, like, help manage the back end and everything. I think it was built on Parse at the time. So, we wanted like, he wanted a real back end bill for it. So he hired me on the spot. I started work, like, that Monday, and I couldn't believe it, but I was making more money than both of my parents combined at the time.
Zach Latta:Like, it was crazy. So I did that for 3 months. YO went on to become the number one app on the app store. The New York Times did, like, a front page article about it. We were on the front page of the BBC.
Zach Latta:Like, it was the absolute craziest introduction to Silicon Valley I think I could have ever had. And, I I saved, like, every single penny that I could because I I knew I wanted to start HackClub. And, after contracting with them for 3 months, I started HackClub to really try and create the, you know, the community of high schoolers I really wish I had as a student. So I I had, like, 30 k or something like that saved up that, I was trying to stretch for a year.
Charlie Harrington:I'm surprised the mission of Yo didn't really carry you through to IPO. It just it it didn't connect with you long term.
Zach Latta:I I know. Right? Well, I I thought, like like, honestly, I'm so incredibly grateful to who's the founder. Like, he he gave me so much like, such an incredible opportunity. I went on my first business trip ever, with Yo, and we flew to New York City.
Zach Latta:I feel like I I've never really been to the East Coast before. That was my first time ever in New York City. I remember, like, he took me to an investor meeting with some big investor in New York City, and I can only imagine what the investor was thinking at the time. But yeah. So so that that was my introduction to Silicon Valley.
Zach Latta:And,
Oz Nova:I just imagine you saying yo to the investor and, like, closing the briefcase.
Zach Latta:If the meeting
Charlie Harrington:did not open with Yo, like, you know, you knew it was not gonna be a good meeting. So
Zach Latta:Yeah. I I know. Right? The one of the craziest moments was, my roommates and I were all would all watch Silicon Valley, the TV show as it came out. And, the the first episode of season 2 made like, was a parody of an event at the AT and T Stadium.
Zach Latta:And one of my roommates was a person in charge of organizing that event in real life. So we were like, oh my god. This is so crazy. And then the second episode had Yoh as one of the subplots, and that was, like, one of the craziest things I ever received. So yeah.
Oz Nova:I wanna, pick up a thread from, from before, which is the kind of, spectrum, let's say, of of interest in computers and computing that you see in kids? Because I think you've got, like, one of the the most, like, the the you've got a a front seat. I just spilled a whole bunch of tea on my keyboard. Never mind me. Let me ask this question, and then I'm gonna actually clean this up.
Oz Nova:The there are some kids who do not know the modified keys on the keyboard. There are other kids who at the age of 17 are finding 0 day exploits. I actually see a lot of teenagers. I mean, not nearly as many as you do, but I see many teenagers because they they come to Bradfield being like, they'd be that make it make no sense for me to go to university. I already know this stuff.
Oz Nova:Maybe Bradfield's a better alternative. And I'm like, no. The alternative for you is to start work now. Now you're you're 17. Maybe there are other aspects of starting work that you gotta, like, think about.
Oz Nova:But in terms of your understanding of this, like, you're way beyond the mid level engineer or something. There are there are teenagers who know more about specific systems than, like, even a lot of the experts in those systems will ever know in their entire careers. Like, just the degree to which they can get that understanding is astounding to me. And And then at the other end of the spectrum, you've got, you know, people who see the phone as their only computer that they that they have. What accounts for the spectrum, do you think?
Oz Nova:Do you think it's the kind of thing that we ought to I mean, I think you wanna nudge it a little bit or at least give opportunities to people who wanna be elsewhere in the spectrum. But I'm wondering how much you think this is about, like, an innate interest or, opportunity or, like, obviously, it's a complex thing. But would you like to talk a little bit to why you think we have such a it feels like a widening spectrum. Like, people becoming more and more capable at younger and younger ages, But, also, like, they they're using these things, as you said, in a way that they're less hackable. There there are fewer things they feel like they have agency over, in general.
Oz Nova:I don't know where the median is now compared to 10 years ago, or maybe you're even gonna tell me that it's not important to think about the median. But do you wanna talk to that a bit?
Zach Latta:Yeah. I think the thing about coding and mastery and just making things in general is that human nature is on our side. Like, once you get on the treadmill and once you get into it, spending your time learning and making things is a fundamentally satisfying activity. It's something that something about our psychology, something about, like, the way that we what makes us tick. Like, it it just hits those points.
Zach Latta:And once you're making things, it is just so much more compelling and engaging and interesting than spending your free time doom scrolling through TikTok. And I I think the challenge is that there are a lot of young people that get on that treadmill and have that realization, and that's how they go, like, so incredibly far. Because, frankly, it's so much easier to learn today than it was, like, 10 years ago. Like Chat GPT is so much better at finding stuff than Google. It's, like, crazy.
Zach Latta:And I think that for a lot of people, it's increasingly hard to get on that trip. Like, for an entire generation of coders, like, just by interacting on with the web, like, they accidentally had moments where they're like, wait. What? Like, there's more to this? Like, there's a whole generation of web developers who basically got introduced to the career through Neopets.
Zach Latta:And increasingly, I think people are not having those experiences where, you know, software is so polished. It's on mobile phones now. Increasingly, you know, I think one of the primary reasons why we're being pushed to mobile phones is because you can't have an ad block and map. So all ad driven content is, like, in a box that you can't touch, for that reason. And I think that's why it's more important than ever that we try and have nudges in society to help people have those, you know, small experiences.
Zach Latta:And I I think that's the way that that I think about it. And, you know, we're we're working on a new thing in HackClub where our internal name for it is called you ship, we ship. But I don't know if we'll keep the name. But the idea is if you're a teenager and you build a real coding project, like, this is one of them here. It's called Sprig.
Zach Latta:This one is if you build a game in JavaScript, and we have a whole little toolkit to help you do it, specifically helps make Sokoban games, which are pretty easy to code. We will send you all the parts you need to build your own game console from scratch.
Charlie Harrington:So And be able to play your game?
Zach Latta:Yeah. To be able to play your game.
Charlie Harrington:That's that's sick.
Zach Latta:And it's it's really cool. And, like, 100 and 100 and 100 of teenagers have, like, built games and won sprigs. And for almost all of them, it was the first time they ever built a game. And, obviously, you know, that's an entry point to something much deeper. We just started another one where, if you're a teenager and, and if you you design a circuit board, we will pay a factory to manufacture that circuit board for you for free and ship you your production, like, actually manufactured board up to 5 times for different designs.
Zach Latta:And I I think that and we have a new one that we're we're launching next month called Blot, where if you're a teenager and you create a piece of artwork using code, we will send you all the parts you need to build your own desktop CNC machine that can hold a pen and draw that artwork on your desk. And it's all driven by JavaScript. It's open source. Like, you it's almost like a a like you have to build the whole thing yourself. And I I think the way that we can solve this is you know, I think our vision is we wanna have a pathway of these projects where there should be, like, 40 eventually, where you start assuming no prior coding experience.
Zach Latta:Build, you know, a website and get your name.com to host it for 4 years, or, you know, and then whatever it is. And then they get gradually more difficult, gradually more difficult, gradually more difficult until you have teenagers doing, like, stuff way beyond what most college students are doing. And I think that, you know, in the same way where, every kid in America knows that if you walk down the main street, you can walk into the local library. You can find a book that looks interesting take it home and check it out and borrow it, read it, and then bring it back. Like, that's not a gift.
Zach Latta:No one's doing a special favor. It's not a special event. It's just like a social contract built into into society. I think that these grants should be like that too. Where, like, if you're a young person and you ever have the inkling like, whether or not you're interested in coding or making, and if you ever have the inkling of, like, maybe I wanna give it a go, you know these grants are available to you.
Zach Latta:You know that if you build the thing, you will get the thing in return. And you know that if you do all these grants, you will be an engineer and maker and be capable of building all your projects. And not only that, but, like, your bedroom will look like a high-tech lab with all the stuff that you've got in return. Like, one cool thing about Sprig is that this you know, the whole console is open source and hackable. It's really more like a hardware development kit where and we so it's Raspberry Pi based.
Zach Latta:We break out all the unused GPIO pins. There's a custom PCB that, like, a teenager helped design. So I I think that if we do that and we get, like, posters about this into every single library, makerspace, you know, math, science, technology classroom in America, I think that that is how we can kind of solve this challenge of increasingly kids being consumers instead of creators, because a lot of them have the appetite and you see that on YouTube. But then there's no path for them to go from there. And for most of them, those dreams die when they face the hard realities of, like, trying to get into college and realizing they have to lie, cheat, and steal to do it.
Charlie Harrington:It's that is so sick. I I keep saying the word sick. I need to improve my vocabulary, but it is. It's, I I wanna start a hack club for adults. Like, do you allow that?
Zach Latta:It has to be led by students for students.
Charlie Harrington:Like, the In lifelong learners?
Zach Latta:Yeah. I know. Right? No. All high schoolers.
Zach Latta:Yeah.
Oz Nova:Okay. Okay.
Zach Latta:The, one of the most important aspects of HackClub is that every aspect of HackClub needs to be opt in. Yeah. We we don't work with teachers. If you're a principal and you call us and you say, how can I get HackClub at our school? We we don't talk to you.
Zach Latta:We only talk to students. We only interact with them directly. And I think what that means is when it works like Hackclub is a very special culture environment where you're there because your friends are there, not because, your parents says your parents says it will be good for your college application to be there. Yeah.
Charlie Harrington:I have a I have a question maybe for both of you. I'm, I feel like I've seen some hack flippers on Hacker News, like Cogniz put out that, she's a made like, the CPU land thing was just incredible. So I'd I'd be curious here to sort of talk about that. But when you find both of you probably found students where you're like, wow. This person this person could be something, like, really amazing, etcetera.
Charlie Harrington:Does that change how you handle your sort of, like, guidance towards them if you find these folks who, seem like they have, like, very high potential, upper like, opportunities. I'm I'm not sure, if that's applicable, but I'm curious because, like, me going through this, maybe, like, I can get through and make a game, but I'm not gonna be, like, a potential Turing prize winner. Maybe, Oz, you've in found encountered people, those stupid bubbles, like this. Do you change it when you see these people who have super high potential thresholds? Do you do anything different?
Zach Latta:Otis, do you wanna take that?
Oz Nova:Yeah. I mean, Zach's gonna give the more interesting answer for the younger people because I I see people at a at a later later stage usually.
Charlie Harrington:It's too late for us. Yeah.
Oz Nova:No. No. No. Okay. Look.
Oz Nova:Yeah. Let me let me restart that. I'm gonna say, firstly, I think everyone has a super high potential. Cool. Firstly, just like everyone has a way, way higher potential than they than they think.
Oz Nova:Just like the barriers are lower. Your abilities are higher. I am gonna default to saying, you can do it. I believe in you. Like, if nothing else, just because they're getting a lot of false feedback about how they can't do it.
Zach Latta:Yeah.
Oz Nova:And people don't believe in them and things are gonna go poorly. And I can say this with confidence in our domain in a way that maybe I couldn't if it was, like, arts or, like, you come and you you tell me you wanna be an actor or an NBA basketball player or something. Like, I don't know those fields. Maybe the that's well calibrated. And, actually, you're probably not gonna make it to the NBA or something.
Oz Nova:I just have seen that people who, people underrate their their capacity to make a living, make a worthwhile living, do something that's like feels self actualizing in their weird little niche that they're interested in. And so I just defer to saying, look. Does if you find something interesting, keep keep going deeper and deeper. So I think everyone has way more potential than they think, so I prefer to defer to just saying you can do it. And then I also say, like, kinda ignore the people who are telling you to find the the, like, realistic version of this, it's like, oh, you're interested in security and to go to this, like, borg of a security company and do the, like, the mundane easily, like, the legible, easily employable kind of stuff, or, like, even go to university and study security or whatever.
Oz Nova:It's like, no. You'll be fine. Just keep going. You're doing the right thing if if I see that. So for me, it's more like, is someone exhibiting a huge amount of interest that's like that's actually manifesting them doing stuff?
Oz Nova:Just keep digging. Yeah. Okay. The only caveat to that to to show that I'm balanced about this is that if they express a huge interest in something that they could have been exploring but haven't been, then I will sometimes, particularly for older, like, Korea switches, say, hey. There is some reality about the degree of interest that other people have in this field, which if you do not have this interest like, I totally believe in your ability.
Oz Nova:But if you do not genuinely have this interest to the degree that they have, then your role in that ecosystem is gonna be maybe different to you, what you imagined. So I'd like to be concrete. If someone says I've been running software for 10 years, I wanna switch into machine learning research. I have no backgrounds. I've had this interest for 2 years.
Oz Nova:I haven't done anything yet. Like, I haven't hacked around on things, done a project, whatever. But I would like to make this career switch, then I'll be like, well, this is what it looks like to be at the forefront of this. There are also these other opportunities here where maybe, like, that's not necessarily at the forefront, but, like, here's a kind of realistic picture of how interested other people are. Again, I believe in your abilities, but will you interest?
Oz Nova:Right? That's my Yeah. Kind of, caveat caveat to that. But, yeah, I wanna hear from Zach because I I think it's really, particularly interesting for for the, like, teenage year kids who showed this. Because then, you know, the the question of university is a bigger question to them.
Zach Latta:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it frankly, in my experience, I have I am a terrible predictor of who's gonna become a superstar coder. Like, every so often, I look at, like, the hack clubbers who like, some of the hack clubbers that are doing just, like, amazing things. I look back to, like one of the things that's kind of amazing at Hackclub is that since people are there for 4 years, you know, like, if you think about it in terms of, like, relative time, like, the difference between being a 14 year old and 18 year old is so huge.
Zach Latta:But the difference between being, like, a 24 year old and 28 year old is not not a very big difference. So it's great because you can actually, like, look back in Hat Club and see, like, what was this person doing 4 years ago, and how did they talk? And almost always, I am very surprised by where they were 4 years ago. And I think that if you ask me to predict, I would be wrong. The people who get really deep and are just like, build incredibly inspiring projects are those who did the Laszlo Polgar thing.
Zach Latta:They figured out how to make it fun. They got a feedback loop going around them, and then they figured out always just be right outside their comfort zone. And typically for teenagers, what that means is that they figure out how to get consistently inspired. They made friends that keep them around coding and that push them and inspire them to go further in coding and give them a feedback loop. And they have some sort of regular source of, of, like, specific nudges of things that they can do, which is usually, like, Discord chats are in or, like, events that they're going to where they're learning about stuff or maybe rehacker news or something else like that.
Zach Latta:And the thing about being a teenager too is, like, you know, any teenager is, like, a 1000 hours away from being exceptional at something, and that's not that much time. So if you figure how to make it fun, you're gonna have put a 1,000 hours in before you, like, even realizing it. Like, I remember I was talking with a hack club. We're at our so every summer, we do, like, a big summer event. So I came up with a hacker named Matt Glick.
Zach Latta:You can look him up on GitHub. He's in college now. He was doing photography for, our summer event this past summer, and I was reflecting back to when I met him. Matt was shipping some of the most amazing projects I had ever seen a hack clubbership in Go, and he was writing, like, amazing Go libraries from scratch, like, writing all these command line tools. And some of them were getting, like, you know, like, not like enormous pickup, but, like, over a 100 stars on GitHub.
Zach Latta:Like, pretty meaningful, if you know what I mean. And he had never written a line of code, like, 6 months before that. Like, he had just gotten into it. So I I think that the the types of support that the, you know, crazy peonators need are are the same as everyone else. Yeah.
Zach Latta:And the question is really just how do you spend as many hours as possible on good practice, which is really a challenge of how do you make practice fun, which is really a challenge of those three things I've said before.
Oz Nova:The, for the community aspects of this, can you speak a bit to the online versus offline aspect? Like, you know, you sit up set up physical, like, high school clubs, but you also have a large online community. You personally moved to San Francisco, lived in a house with 11 other people. Like, how how much of the social feedback dynamic needs to be in person, do you think? How much can be substituted with an online thing?
Zach Latta:I I think the when Hat Club is in its best form, it's a friendship factory. That is the most important thing that is happening. Teenagers are making friends with other teenagers that share their interest, and the reason why hacker friendships are so important and valuable to teenagers is that almost all their other friendships are friendships of circumstance rather than friendships of interest. You're friends with that person because you sit next to them every day or they live across the street. Where with a hacker friend, you're friends with them because you share some sort of common interest, and the way you advance that friendship is by advancing that interest, and it gives substance to all the interactions of you together.
Zach Latta:There's also, like, almost no better way to become friends with someone than by working on a project together. And I think people with lifelong friendships, that's what they do. So I I think that for in person versus online, I think, really, it's more of a challenge of just how do you help help teenagers make as many hacker friends as possible. And and teenagers live, like, very social, you know, very varied lives. And for some of them, they're, like, chronically online.
Zach Latta:For others, they're, like, basically only in person. And for a lot of them, they're somewhere in between. And I the way I think about Hackclub is, like, our job is to help all of the teenagers who are interested in this stuff or think they might have that interest make building projects with friends a primary thing they do in their high school years. And, you know, I think that needs to be a combination. It's basically, like, an ecosystem, and there needs to be tons and tons and tons of nudges.
Zach Latta:I I think something that you see in HackClub is that every aspect of what we do has a very handmade quality and handmade feeling to it because we want to encourage people to organize their own events and do their own things in person. A good example of this is, like, this past summer, we did a big hackathon. We had almost 200 people from all over the US, all over the world come out to pretty rural Vermont. And instead of doing it in a corporate office, we got a 100 acre piece of land, in, like, the Northeast Kingdom, which is a very remote and rural part of the state. And, everyone camped together and coded for 4 days.
Zach Latta:And like, we think kind of blending both, like, highly technical and very product and online aspects of HackClub with, like, super in person roughing it aspects is how you help people have very meaningful experiences. And, and I I think that that's that's important. I I would say that since the pandemic, we've we've, leaned much more heavily into in person. And we also try and make all of our in person events very, inspiring and special. Like, one thing at our flagship events is we always have live music.
Zach Latta:We don't have a speaker playing like a Spotify place. We have an actual band that comes out and performs, like, music that you probably wouldn't hear other otherwise. This past summer, we had a circus group come in and do, like, a circus performance throughout. I mean, it was it was kinda magical. And part of HackClub was trying to get people outside of what they typically think computers as a being.
Zach Latta:And, you know, I I I think that Hack Club is a community of enthusiasts, not of job seekers, and that's an important aspect of community as well.
Oz Nova:Do we have time to answer the the question of how you fix all the college stuff? Because it's like, what what happens when you when you ignite the spark, Zach? You send somebody the game console, and they play their game, and they're excited, and they wanna go into all this. And then, like, they've got all these voices saying, hey. This will look great on your college application.
Zach Latta:Yeah. Well, I I think, in my view, I mean, if I if I could change the college system however I wanted, what I would do is I would have 2 admission tracks. I would make one entirely test based like they do in India, and then make the other entirely portfolio based like the way our school works. And you can do 1 or the other or both or whatever you want, and that is just how you get into school. You either build a great portfolio because it's very hard to lie about a portfolio, or you pass the test because it's very hard to lie about passing a test.
Zach Latta:I think where the ambiguity comes in is, like, with the personal essays and, like, trying to do a holistic like, that's that's just impossible. It's basically just it's an invitation for people to commit fraud, and that is what happens. Like, there I don't know how large it is, but there is a huge and large industry focused on deceiving college admissions people. And when you talk to the people who are reading college essays, which we've had a couple conversations with them, it is really hard for them to tell the difference between fraud and not fraud. It's not like they're, like, trying to favor the person who hired the fake firm to put together a fake summer thing for them.
Zach Latta:They literally can't tell the difference. We had one conversation with someone who was part of the admissions office at one of the top engineering schools in the country, and they did not understand how to evaluate someone's GitHub. And it's like yeah. Like, if you're going without that understanding and you're looking at, like, things that are prone to fraud, I think it's too easy for it it encourages people to lie, exaggerate, cheat, and steal.
Charlie Harrington:How important has, the pizza sponsorship been to growth of Hat Club? And I ask because, I'm looking at the website now, and it just made me smile because it reminds me of in the nineties, they had this thing called the Pizza Hut book it challenge, where if you read 5 books and they were stamped by your school librarian, you would get a free Pizza Hut deep dish pizza. And my poor parents, I made them take me every week, but I read 5 books every week. But, yeah, they had a serious love hate relationship with Pizza Hut as a as a result of that.
Zach Latta:That's so great. Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, it's great.
Zach Latta:Like, people love pizza, and it it you know, we part part of the reason why we do these, like, time based grants is it really helps with getting the word out. Like, if you if you know, GitHub is one of our most important partners, and they do so much to help teenagers who use GitHub to hear about Hat Club because they have a GitHub student newsletter. They talk about Hat Clubbers regularly in it. But the thing is is, like, it's one thing for GitHub to say, like, look at Hot Club. It's enough that it'd be, like, get a $100 for your Hot Club meeting in the next month if you apply.
Zach Latta:It just makes it so much more urgent. So it's been great. I I think we've bought, at this point, like, hundreds of pizzas, and, there are a lot of new hack clubs that have been started as a result of it. I remember we had this one, hack clubber. This is the first time we did this in 2019.
Zach Latta:His name's Cedric. Cedric is, like, one of the most incredible low level programmers I've ever met. Like, when I met Cedric, he was, like, writing a rogue like game from scratch in c, and he got was, like, getting really frustrated with Open GL. And he was like like, that's all he wanted to talk about. And, and and and he Cedric's also, like, very cynical and very skeptical, and but, like, an incredible person and incredible programmer.
Zach Latta:And he joined just for the pizza. He's like, there's no way I will ever like Hat Club. I'm not interested in meeting people. I don't wanna get together with people in person. I just want free pizza.
Zach Latta:And he joined and became one of the most active people on the Slack and then eventually worked with us for a year in Vermont and was at, like, tons of events and, you know, kinda became one of the people who was, like, an inspiration in the community. Cedric is now writing CAD kernels in Utah, and I think he's 19, or maybe he's 20 now.
Oz Nova:That's gonna look great on this college application. Sorry. I'm gonna keep saying that. It's gonna end up finding the whole time.
Zach Latta:Yeah. How
Charlie Harrington:did you how did you 2 meet? I because I when I met, Zach, when I met you first, you were, you both were sharing office space, but is there an origin tale between the 2 of you that's worth sharing?
Zach Latta:Yeah. Yeah. I, Oz, do do you remember how you're introduced? I remember the first time we've had coffee, but I don't remember how you were introduced.
Oz Nova:Maybe Amjad? I don't know.
Zach Latta:Yeah. Might have been through Amjad. I remember that, was it I'm trying to I I I I'm blanking on it.
Oz Nova:Oh, yeah.
Zach Latta:But, HackClub, for many years, was a very scrappy operation. Like, let me tell you, you you do not run a nonprofit to make the money. I think that that is a terrible financial decision if you try and do that. For the first, like we started in 2014. When we hired our first employee, we paid him like, he, like, he slept on the floor of my bedroom on a foam mattress for a year that he found outside on the street.
Zach Latta:Like, it was I mean, we were, like, 60 at the time, but, like, it was, like, low budget kinda situation. And I remember when we met when I first met Oz, I was like, this is, like, one of the most brilliant thinkers I've ever met on education and, like, actually doing it too.
Oz Nova:You were young. You knew very little at the that.
Zach Latta:I don't I don't know about that. I don't think that was the thing driving the thought process. And, and Oz made an incredibly generous offer to, you know, post Hackslaw about that space on 7th and Natoma way undercharges for rent. We were not good tenants a lot of the time. And, but really, like
Oz Nova:I was just hoping that Hat Club magic would rub off on, on our students and that that see teenagers doing this, and they're like, I too can do this.
Zach Latta:Yeah. Well, it made a huge difference. And, really, I'm I'm so incredibly grateful to you, Oz, for for hosting us and for all the inspiration during that time. I mean, really, like like, I feel like we've learned so much from you and also, like, just the essentially, the donation you made in the space, like, really helped Hackclub grow during that time a lot. So thank you so much for that.
Oz Nova:That was that was nothing. It's, it's always a pleasure to see you guys make such a dent. I really don't know of any other organization that's that's operating at the can you tell us again the scale at which Hackclub is operating around the world?
Zach Latta:Yeah. So Hack Club serves about 30,000 students a year through our programs. We have clubs in high schools. We have tons of stuff online. We have tons of project, like, you know, projects throughout the year.
Zach Latta:Hot clubs are in 2% of US high schools today. We are in almost all 50 states. We are in 38 countries internationally. Every day, there are, like, incredible projects shipped in the online community. And, increasingly, you know, we were running these grant programs, and the things students are building out of these grant programs are are just incredible.
Zach Latta:There is this one teenager named Paulo from Italy who's 17, who, using his onboard grant, just built an RP 2040 boards like a Raspberry Pi, mini clone. That is, like, literally the size of your thumb. Like, it barely fits the USB c, like, thing on it, And it's a fully functional browser. It has all the same breakout pins and everything. I mean, it's just it's just incredible.
Charlie Harrington:And you and you swallow it, and it can be, like, an internal computer that I'm I'm waiting for that that Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi Nano.
Zach Latta:Totally. Yeah. The next iteration. So so that's kind of the big picture. And and, you know, the call out to any students listening is, like, Hackclub is a free and open source community.
Zach Latta:We ourselves are nonprofit. Nearly everything we do at HQ is fully open source@github.com/hackclub. Please consider contributing. Please consider getting involved. There are over a 100 in person hackathons all over the US happening each year.
Zach Latta:Go to hackathons.hackclub.com. Sign up. Come to a local one, and, check out Spriggan onboard and start a club and, you know, get involved in a community of teenagers like you who love computers and wanna build cool things with them.
Charlie Harrington:What can a middle aged person like myself do if they wanna help?
Zach Latta:So for every $100 donated at hackclub.com/ donate, that will fund a spring kit to a student or an onboard kit. Our new block CNC machine is a little bit more expensive, but, like, that is money that will go directly to funding a specific student. And for many of the teenagers that are winning these grants, like, this is the first real project that they've built, and they spend many hours. Like, many of the students I've talked to, like, have spent, like, 30 hours on their sprint game, and they are really proud of it. It's the first that they've ever built, and, like, you can make that possible for a high schooler.
Oz Nova:Awesome. Well, Zach, you're doing, you're doing very important work. I think each one of these escape hatches, can we say, fair fair for each one child is a huge deal. It's life changing for them. And, to do that in the order of tens of 1,000, every year, is just kinda mind blowing.
Oz Nova:So thank you. Thanks for joining us. Yeah. See what That was amazing.
Charlie Harrington:I I feel like you 2 had a friendship factory, and I was able to come into it occasionally over on Natoma. So, it's it's really amazing, and I I I'm I'm psyched, and I I wish I could do high school all
Oz Nova:over again. Seriously. Yeah. I wanna do I wanna be in a HackClub. Yeah.
Zach Latta:Well well, thank you, guys. But and the last thing I just wanna say is, like, it's HackClub isn't me. It's not, like, HQ staff. Like, HackClub works because there are over a 1000 teenagers all over America and all over the world who, like, make HackClub happen in their community. Like, it is a true grassroots movement of coders who are building the spaces that they themselves wanna be in.
Zach Latta:Every hackathon is run by teenagers. Every club is run by teenagers. If you're a teenager, listen to this. Like like, you can be the person to do it in your town and in your community too.
Oz Nova:Thanks, Ed.
Charlie Harrington:Awesome. I'm gonna try to make those those fireworks show up. No? There we go. Okay.
Charlie Harrington:So bad. Alright. Bye.
Zach Latta:That's awesome. Yeah.