a letter to my friends

Hi friends,

I'd like to introduce you to Chase Peterson.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about that little kid recently. He was such a good and happy kid. I've got a big goofy smile on my face thinking about him right now.

I still love that kid, and I still really believe the world could use whoever he grows up to be. I've recently felt that I've gotten a little knocked off course, and it's time to find my way back. I hope you'll join me in re-discovering who that little kid was.

It was second grade. Chase's mom had started a Scratch club at his elementary school. He was a bright kid, and picked up Scratch pretty quickly with her help. Then once a week, he and all his friends would gather at the computer lab, learn a little bit about Scratch, and make projects.

Chase loved it. And every week, he'd get so excited to go up in front of the class, teach everyone how to build things in Scratch, and then run around and help everyone with their projects. He just felt so happy seeing what everyone was making, knowing that he was helping them learn and create things together.

A friend reminded me of that memory recently and noted what a smart little kid I was. It was nice being reminded of it, but the more I reflected on it, the more important that memory felt for my life story as a whole. So I'd like to tell my life story a couple of ways, both starting from that computer lab.

As far as I know, that club was the first time I ever programmed a computer to do anything. It was the first time I ever made any kind of a video game. You can unquestionably tie back my career as a software engineer to that Scratch club in the computer lab. It was the first time I'd really "made" anything, and I was hooked.

The first games I made were in second grade, but they certainly weren't the last. In fifth grade, I started to learn Java to make Minecraft mods. Then, in middle school, I started to build my own game engine, following tutorials by DesignByZephyr and The Cherno. My first game was made as a science fair project, followed by several games made for Ludum Dare in the years that followed.

I further refined these skills teaching Java to my robotics class in high school. I personally wrote the curriculum and ran the class in place of my teacher. Whether or not that's legal I'm still not sure, but I became a much sharper and more effective programmer throughout that process.

Then, when it came time to choose a major for college, I went with computer science and spent my years at UC San Diego studying how to become a great programmer. I spent my summers at my dad's machine shop learning to build websites and tools for him. Then, my last year of college, Sutter Hill Ventures recognized my talent, recruited me for their Codepoint Fellowship, and shipped me off to two of their startups. I received full-time offers at both.

It's an easy story to tell. Genius kid picks up love of computers in elementary school and grows up to be a talented software engineer, building the future. If you look at my resume, it's the story you'd be led to believe, and there may be some truth to it.

Still, I don't buy that story, and maybe you don't either. Another more convincing story is that the kid was meant to be a game developer. After all, he spent almost all of his life before college making games, and even in college, his best memories were in the school's Video Game Development Club. Surely that's what he was made to do?

That story makes better sense to me, but in my heart, I think a third story is true. I'd like to tell that one instead.

I'm in second grade. I'm running around, helping out all my friends make their games in Scratch. What am I feeling in that moment?

The first story suggests that it was a love of technology. An amazement that you can tell a computer what to do, and it does it! An excitement around solving all these little puzzles inherent to computer programming to make your ideas real.

The second story suggests that it was a love of video games. An excitement that I could create things that brought my friends joy. Maybe a love of the artistic side of video games, the idea that I could use computers to create a final product I was really proud of.

Neither of those are wrong, but neither gets to the core of what I was feeling.

More than anything, I was excited to help my friends create things together in that room. It was so unimaginably cool that I could teach a lesson on if statements, then run around and see that 20 of my friends had made completely new things using that knowledge! It was just... the greatest feeling in the world.

It's true that I spent some time making my own Minecraft mods, but where I felt most alive was running servers with my friends. There was a kind of undeniable magic in starting a server, then watching people go gather resources, come up with ideas, and then start to create a town together.

Every day you'd see a building or two pop up. You'd see one of your friends spend the weekend designing and building a little shop, then you and a bunch of friends would go and buy stuff from it. A little economy would start to grow. And the server would feel so full of life. It was the same feeling that I felt in that computer lab, watching my friends make little games. A room full of people building things together, sharing what they'd made with each other. Pure magic.

Roll the tape a little longer, and I started a little blog named Work of His Hands with my mom. It was a Christian blog at the time, but the core of it was that we'd take inspiration from the natural world to create things and share them with each other. My earliest Minecraft mods, including the white-tailed deer shown earlier, were made to share on that blog. The hope was that someday, people would create things every week and share them on the website. A little creative community of people making and sharing things with each other.

The vast majority of the games I made in middle school and high school were part of the Ludum Dare game jams, where my favorite part was almost always the period after the jam, where everyone would play and review each other peoples' games. I was so excited to see what everyone else had made, and I was so excited to get their feedback on mine. A group of passionate people making and sharing the things they'd made. It was the Scratch club all over again, at a bigger scale.

It didn't always have to be creative. I felt an unusual amount of joy in my middle school's tutoring club, helping my friends with their math homework. And the same was true in high school, teaching my classmates Java and helping them learn to solve problems. Ultimately, out of programming, game development, and teaching, it seems like teaching was the deepest passion of the three. But I was never happier than when my students were excited to show me the creative projects they'd made.

Finally, I found it again in the second half of college when I joined UC San Diego's Video Game Development Club. I joined as treasurer (because I said I'd take any role), and then served for two years on the board, eventually founding the tech team(!!!) to build the club's website and revamp its arcade machine. That club was easily the most meaningful thing I've ever helped to build.

It was my favorite place in the world, with my favorite people in the world. I got to spend my time bringing people together to create things together. I'm still closer to the club than I probably should be, but I feel an immense amount of pride in the work I did while on that team. We grew the club to around 10x its size, built a thriving culture of game developers, and even won Student Organization of the Year the year I graduated. It's still hard to believe how far we came in such a short time.

Little Chase didn't love Scratch club because of technology, or programming, or video games. He loved it because it was a way for him to help his friends create things together. And if he was going to grow out of it, it seems like 24 years wasn't enough.

There's a lot of uncertainty in my future, and I can't pretend to know where this journey is headed. But I know who I am, and who it is that I'm trying to become. Someone who fosters learning, creativity, and connection in the world. And someone who lifts people up and brings them together.

That's all that little kid wanted to do. The least I can do is try my best to carry it forward.

Thanks everyone.

With love and excitement,

Chase