Internet Fame

My boss and I had a career conversation where he asked about what motivates me. I realized it’s not really money, as I’m already so far beyond the financial position I grew up in. I eventually had to admit, to myself mostly, that I’m actually motivated by fame, or more generally by being respected in my field. The funny thing is that I am almost certainly well past my high-water mark as far as fame is concerned. 

I achieved my modest internet stardom through an unexpected avenue: 3D printing design. I discovered 3D printing through my first job which sent me to a UAV conference (back before everyone called them drones) and I saw a printed radio controlled samara (one wing helicopter) that some college students had designed. They crashed and broke it, then went over to the Stratasys booth with a thumb drive and had them print a replacement. They were back flying the next day. My coworker mentioned that a new company called Makerbot was selling a kit to build your own 3D printer for $1200. For the first time I actually had disposable income, so I decided to splurge. 

I ordered one of the first Thing-O-Matics, and while I was waiting for it to arrive I figured I would start designing things so that I would have something to print. As an aerospace engineer I’d been trained in various CAD packages, but I uniformly hated them all. Perusing Thingiverse (Makerbot’s website for sharing 3D printable designs), I discovered a parametric gear library built with a free app called OpenSCAD, the programmer’s CAD language. I was intrigued and decided to try it.

I took to it immediately, being the right combination of mathematical and visual. I started designing things with gears, puzzles, art. I pushed the limits of what could be printed without supports, and started making preassembled mechanisms. My designs tended to be difficult to print, though they’ve gotten easier as they’ve found their way into printer companies' test object catalogs.

My closest brush with fame beyond the internet was when Bre Pettis went on the Colbert Report, which turned out to be Makerbot's big PR breakthrough. Beforehand they had 3D scanned his head and sent it to some of us designers asking for us to make weird stuff for them to print and bring on his show. I made a gear ball of his head and it showed up on camera for about two seconds. That was fun!

I'm impressed Colbert held that eyebrow raise for the whole scan.

In time I found my designs becoming popular, partly because I was early to Thingiverse, but also because I took some time in photographing my work and my style of mathematical art with gears and moving parts was well suited to this maker community. What took me by surprise was becoming the most popular designer on that site, at least for a time. My coworker even found a paper backing that up with data (the only account ahead of mine was Makerbot, which was the combined work of their in-house design staff). It got to where I could fly across the country to a Makerfaire, go to the 3D printing area and find one or two of my designs on nearly every table. No one knew my face, but I had a reputation.

I always gave my designs away, because I didn’t want to be in the business of printing. My family is full of artists and I learned early that art doesn’t pay, hence I rebelled and became an engineer. And I would say giving away my designs also paid off, as this hobby led me to a job at Microsoft, which eventually led me to become a full-fledged software engineer at Google, despite never having taken a CS class. Funny how things work out sometimes.

Makerbot asked me to include my Stretchy Bracelet as a starter print on their new printers, and because of this one of their engineers told me that was likely the most printed design in the world, due to its speed and availability. They also sent me these pictures of Heidi Klum wearing a bunch of them and holding my Heart Gears. 

Heidi Klum wearing a bunch of my Stretchy Bracelets with some Makerbot employees.

Heidi Klum with my Heart Gears and not me.

I haven’t been active on Thingiverse in a long time. I miss it sometimes; it really was (is?) a great community. Having kids cut into my hobby time, and doing 3D printing at work made it less fun to do at home. Also Makerbot fell apart spectacularly; you can get an inkling of what was in store by watching Print the Legend. It was sad watching from afar as Bre fired all the friends I had there. Another founder who made the mistake of thinking he was the source of his company’s success.

I still aim to be known and respected in my field (whatever that is at this point), but I’ll likely never equal that level of notoriety. I learned that popularity is not proportional to skill; skill helps, but popularity builds on itself such that a bit of luck to rise above the field at the right moment is the key ingredient. I enjoyed riding that wave, but I can't expect to repeat it. I try to keep this in mind when I look at artists, hedge fund managers, and CEOs. How much do they earn through skill vs. luck? I think skill is certainly present in those who make it to the rarified air, but also in many of those who don't, and it's the luck that results in the tremendous disparity of rewards.