DevExperience: What did you want to become when you were a child?

A millionaire. It seems that I'm still in my childhood :)

DevExperience: What is the story of your begining in this field? How did you start working in this industry?

I started when I was 10 years old. I was programming in Basic and enjoyed it a lot.

DevExperience: You have to tell us more about this philantropy thing and the „more or less fair competition” :) How did it all begin and how do you see it grow over the years?

It's a competition I organize every year in October. I accept open source projects and select the best. Then I give $4096 of my own cash to the winner. The goal of this competition is to let young/enthusiastic programmers feel the importance of quality.
Most or all similar awards and contests focus on the popularity of projects, while mine award goes to those who create the code of the highest quality and is capable of organizing the project in the most structured and disciplined way. Surprisingly enough, there are not so many people on the market, who can do that. The majority of projects I'm receiving every year have rather low quality, which is rather sad. However, this situation tells me that my contribution is important.

DevExperience: What are the top 5 countries in your opinion where IT is very highly developed?

I don't think IT is country-specific anymore. I believe that good IT people are chosing countries now the way they want it. The very idea of a country as something closed and having borders is expired.
We don't need countries anymore, we need comfortable coffee shops and fast Wi-Fi :)

DevExperience: What do you know about Iași and Romania? Dont Google it! :)

I know that your country was part of the Soviet block and I've read a lot about Ceaușescu. I was also speaking at ITAKE conference in Bucharest in 2016. I liked the city and was surprised to see that many people speak English, which is not the case in Ukraine or Russia.

DevExperience: What is your advice for a junior who wants to grow in this field? What do you think are the main qualities for a programmer?

Join the open source community, as soon as possible. In my opinion, this is what makes a good programmer, very fast. Let your code be visible to the public and you will grow faster than your friends.

DevExperience: What do you do for your both personal and professional development? How does a normal day looks like for you? What about a not so normal day?

I don't do anything. I don't develop myself on purpose. I develop products, like software, companies, or books. That's how I grow, if I grow :)

DevExperience: What is the greatest part of your job? What is the not so great part of it?

The greatest part is that I don't have a boss. Never had. Never going to have, I hope. The "not so great part" is that sometimes I run out of money and there is no boss who can help me out.

DevExperience: How would you explain to an old lady who knows nothing about technology what is it exactly that you do?

I can't even explain it to my fellow programmers, let alone the old lady! I guess the best explanation would be that I'm trying to replace annoying and lazy managers with computers. I want to let machines manage people. This is what Zerocracy is about.

DevExperience: Tell us more about the main ideas of your talk at DevExperience! Why should people register and attend the event?

I don't know what I will talk about yet. But most likely the talk will be about things I know best: people and computers.
I will also have a copies of my new book "Code Ahead" with me, which is fully dedicated to this very subject. I will try to share my 25+ years experience of working in software teams and highlight the most important problems we experience now.

You want Yegor's book directly from him, after hearing his talk at the event? You might wanna register fast, because the tickets are selling faster!