This is what I call my work biography. It's about how to survive in the business world and, inevitably also about the changes in technology that I went through in 40 years of software development from punch cards to Artificial Intelligence. If you're young and reading this, I hope it shows you what to expect--not how to climb the corporate ladder, but how to contribute to making things people want while making life better for you, your family, your fellow employees, and the company you work for--whether they want you to or not. If you're farther along in your career and reading this, I hope you nod in recognition at many of the things I've been through.

Many books purport to tell you how to innovate, but most of us will never be Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates. I never had any interest in being among those folks. I just have always wanted, like most of us introverts who develop software, to be able to do a good job, making things better and getting a little recognition along the way. So if you're a future high risk/high rewards entrepreneur, this book is not for you. It's for the rest of us little people who just want to have a good life.

The technical side is not neglected, but I have tried to put most of it in what I call geeky asides for those who are not software developers but want to still read about a long career in the business. Software development itself is an inherently innovative business. Everything a software developer does is about crafting a unique product or way of doing things. I have found, over my career, that I had to learn a new technology stack every 5 years of my career as the rest of the software world innovates around me. Yes, that means I've had to relearn how to do my job 7 times. Actually, the last 5 years of my career, I knew retirement was looming, so I made use of my hard-won knowledge of AI and turned my focus on what's next to the technologies needed for my post-retirement writing career, rather than learning more than a bare acquaintance with the newest techniques in software development. Still, on my last work project before retirement, I turned out to be valuable because we were tasked with interfacing with 30 year old technology that is still out there and necessary.

My hope for anyone reading this book is that you have a good life, and that, maybe, what I've learned the hard way helps you with that.