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Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

S3 E9: Adam Wathan, Tailwind CSS

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO

Tech News, News, Business, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Careers

4.6216 Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2020

⏱️ 40 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Adam Wathan has been obsessed with computers since he was a kid. In fact, he was introduced to computers by his 1st grade librarian.. and his first programming project was using Q-Basic, following a tutorial on how to make a pro wrestling simulator. During his time in university, he wasn't enjoying the programming curriculum and ended up dropping out to play in his band, and working odd jobs to support his music career. During this, he got into the production side of music, and started a home studio to record local bands. Four years after he quit programming, he started tinkering with the same framework used to make Winamp - called reaper - and fell in love with pogromming all over again. At this point, he tried school again, but post internship, he decided to go straight into the field without finishing his degree. These days, he is married with a young family. Besides staying busy with that, he still finds time to play games with his remote friends, and occasionally trains for powerlifting. He met his business partner, Steve, in college, and hacked on side projects together. These side projects led to the creation of a mini CSS framework, which Wathan started using throughout other projects, growing it into something he was quite proud of. In fact, while live-streaming some coding, he was surprised by the influx of people asking what it was... and where they could get it. He decided to open source the framework in 2017, and it has steadily grown and grown in usage - to the tune of millions of downloads a month. This is the creation story of Tailwind CSS and Tailwind Labs. Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com * Check out Red Hat: https://www.redhat.com * Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORY Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

As a web developer, CSS is the only thing that's like a constant between every web developer and every ecosystem, you know?

0:09.4

PHP developers, Rails developers, React developers, Vue developers, dot net developers, like all of them have to write CSS.

0:17.0

It's like the one thing that everybody has to write.

0:19.5

Like not even HTML is really as universal.

0:22.8

But bootstrap is used in every possible type of web project.

0:26.8

And Tailwind is the same way.

0:28.4

So it's been pretty amazing to be able to work in like that part of the stack,

0:33.1

that slice of technology that has the absolute biggest market share.

0:38.6

My name is Adam Wadden.

0:39.8

I'm the creator of Tailwind CSS and I run Tailwind Labs.

0:47.6

This is Code Story, a podcast bringing you interviews with tech visionaries

0:52.9

who share in the critical moments of what

0:55.7

it takes to change in industry and build and lead a team that has your back.

1:02.2

I'm your host Noah Labhart and today how Adam Wadden created one of the most popular

1:07.8

CSS frameworks around by simply coding online.

1:13.4

All this and more on Code Story.

1:21.3

Adam Waython has been obsessed with computers since he was a kid.

1:25.7

In fact, he was introduced to computers by his first grade

1:28.8

librarian, and his first programming project was using QBASIC, following a tutorial on how to make a

1:35.1

pro wrestling simulator. During his time in university, he wasn't enjoying the programming curriculum

1:41.3

and ended up dropping out to play in his band and working odd jobs to support his music career.

1:47.0

During this, he got into the production side of music and started a home studio to record local bands.

...

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