7 ms·

Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012

96 points by weld 14y ago

chopsueyar 14y ago
Congrats Limor! I still want a Wave Bubble.
weld 14y ago
I first met Ada at the Boston 2600 meetup in Harvard Sq in 1992. I think she was 14. Deth Veggie from Cult of the Dead Cow introduced her to me. He said he could tell she was going to amount to something big. Heh. Congrats Ada!
- rdl 14y ago
  I met her around the same time when we were both hanging around MIT in the summer; I think I was 15 or 16. It was clear then too.
- tptacek 14y ago
  You've got me beat by 3 years. I think I met her for the first time at Pumpcon. She's also one of the nicest people. I tell my daughter about her all the time (it's no use, she still wants to be an author instead of an engineer).
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  'Sup weldpond? I first met her IRL at a Boston 2600 meeting too, at the Cambridgeside Galleria. IIRC she was being escorted around by Rogue Agent and Sarah Gordon. Already knew her on irc +hack/#hack back from when she was 'lem0n', which Deth Veggie still calls her (he still calls me by one of my old handles too). (I used a bunch of handles back then, on irc mostly gfm or geo)
- dhughes 14y ago
  I've never met her.
vaxdigitalnh 14y ago
I love the idea behind this company. I wish her every success. We need more entrepreneurs with this type of vision.
- Codhisattva 14y ago
  Exactly. (Frustrating that the other thread hi-jacked the attitude.)
meaty 14y ago
Am I the only one who finds the 'maker movement' slightly embarrassing. There are plenty of us before Limor who did the same stuff without the fanfare and movement crap. This isn't a flame - I'm just surprised that the application of spin managed to produce such a ton of noise.
- jfischer 14y ago
  I welcome the maker movement and I'm glad that what I did as a kid is now cool. I got my start in engineering by reading the manuals of my father's HeathKit projects and by building a simple computer using a Z80 and a few other chips that I got through mail order and Radio Shack. Back then, having a personal computer was much less common and I could imagine building something roughly comparable to what was on the market (Altair, Apple II, C64,...). A generation before me tinkered with Ham Radio. Today, HeathKit is out of business and Radio Shack sells overpriced consumer goods. Our electronics is now much more sophisticated and there exists a much wider gap between what one can do from on their own vs. commercial products. I think there was a dry period after the rise of PCs and before the maker movement, where there wasn't much opportunity for a hardware hobbyist. Limor and others like her are coming up with really interesting projects that are still relevant in today's world. I appreciate their re-imagination and invigoration of this hobby and hope to get my son interested when he's a bit older.
- jamesbritt 14y ago
  What do you mean by "same stuff"? Were you selling kits and tools to people who might not have previously thought of themselves as makers, making it super easy to jump in and get started? This is what I think she's got the attention for.
  - meaty 14y ago
    Yeah I actually designed two kits for maplin in the 90s before they started shipping velleman shit and containers full of Chinese plastic crap. Everyone sold the tools, kits and parts already. All that had been achieved is the application of hype and turning a bunch of prepackaged modules into a way of excusing the user from having to know what the hell they are doing. It's turned engineering into painting by numbers powered by social hype.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
MichaelAO 14y ago
Well done! I've enjoyed putting together a few of the kits from Adafruit. My favorite (not the most technically challenging) is definitely the "tv-b-gone". Taking that thing into a bar in my college town has provided a lot of laughs. There maybe some room to be critical towards the fan fare of the maker movement, but all in all it's a positive step towards individuals becoming interested in science/technology.
- AceJohnny2 14y ago
  While sold by Adafruit (among others), the TV-B-Gone was designed by Mitch Altman [1], who's as cool a frood as can be. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman
davidrudder 14y ago
The DIY electronics movement is entering an incredible phase, similar to what happened to the Internet during the post-boom decade. Companies like Amazon, Google, Twilio, WordPress and others made it easy for non-techies to build awesome applications. Now projects like Arduino, Electric Imp, Little Bits, and Raspberry Pi are doing the same for electronics. You can make a great project without needing to be an electrical engineer. The Internet gave the masses the power of communication and information. DIY electronics are giving the masses the power to build the world around them. Adafruit (and sparkfun!) are bringing that incredible tech to the world.

96 points by weld 14y ago

Congrats Limor! I still want a Wave Bubble.

weld 14y ago

I first met Ada at the Boston 2600 meetup in Harvard Sq in 1992. I think she was 14. Deth Veggie from Cult of the Dead Cow introduced her to me. He said he could tell she was going to amount to something big. Heh. Congrats Ada!

rdl 14y ago
I met her around the same time when we were both hanging around MIT in the summer; I think I was 15 or 16. It was clear then too.
tptacek 14y ago
You've got me beat by 3 years. I think I met her for the first time at Pumpcon. She's also one of the nicest people. I tell my daughter about her all the time (it's no use, she still wants to be an author instead of an engineer).
georgemcbay 14y ago
'Sup weldpond? I first met her IRL at a Boston 2600 meeting too, at the Cambridgeside Galleria. IIRC she was being escorted around by Rogue Agent and Sarah Gordon. Already knew her on irc +hack/#hack back from when she was 'lem0n', which Deth Veggie still calls her (he still calls me by one of my old handles too). (I used a bunch of handles back then, on irc mostly gfm or geo)
dhughes 14y ago
I've never met her.

vaxdigitalnh 14y ago

I love the idea behind this company. I wish her every success. We need more entrepreneurs with this type of vision.

Codhisattva 14y ago
Exactly. (Frustrating that the other thread hi-jacked the attitude.)

meaty 14y ago

Am I the only one who finds the 'maker movement' slightly embarrassing. There are plenty of us before Limor who did the same stuff without the fanfare and movement crap. This isn't a flame - I'm just surprised that the application of spin managed to produce such a ton of noise.

jfischer 14y ago
I welcome the maker movement and I'm glad that what I did as a kid is now cool. I got my start in engineering by reading the manuals of my father's HeathKit projects and by building a simple computer using a Z80 and a few other chips that I got through mail order and Radio Shack. Back then, having a personal computer was much less common and I could imagine building something roughly comparable to what was on the market (Altair, Apple II, C64,...). A generation before me tinkered with Ham Radio. Today, HeathKit is out of business and Radio Shack sells overpriced consumer goods. Our electronics is now much more sophisticated and there exists a much wider gap between what one can do from on their own vs. commercial products. I think there was a dry period after the rise of PCs and before the maker movement, where there wasn't much opportunity for a hardware hobbyist. Limor and others like her are coming up with really interesting projects that are still relevant in today's world. I appreciate their re-imagination and invigoration of this hobby and hope to get my son interested when he's a bit older.
jamesbritt 14y ago
What do you mean by "same stuff"? Were you selling kits and tools to people who might not have previously thought of themselves as makers, making it super easy to jump in and get started? This is what I think she's got the attention for.
- meaty 14y ago
  Yeah I actually designed two kits for maplin in the 90s before they started shipping velleman shit and containers full of Chinese plastic crap. Everyone sold the tools, kits and parts already. All that had been achieved is the application of hype and turning a bunch of prepackaged modules into a way of excusing the user from having to know what the hell they are doing. It's turned engineering into painting by numbers powered by social hype.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

MichaelAO 14y ago

Well done! I've enjoyed putting together a few of the kits from Adafruit. My favorite (not the most technically challenging) is definitely the "tv-b-gone". Taking that thing into a bar in my college town has provided a lot of laughs. There maybe some room to be critical towards the fan fare of the maker movement, but all in all it's a positive step towards individuals becoming interested in science/technology.

AceJohnny2 14y ago
While sold by Adafruit (among others), the TV-B-Gone was designed by Mitch Altman [1], who's as cool a frood as can be. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman

davidrudder 14y ago

The DIY electronics movement is entering an incredible phase, similar to what happened to the Internet during the post-boom decade. Companies like Amazon, Google, Twilio, WordPress and others made it easy for non-techies to build awesome applications. Now projects like Arduino, Electric Imp, Little Bits, and Raspberry Pi are doing the same for electronics. You can make a great project without needing to be an electrical engineer. The Internet gave the masses the power of communication and information. DIY electronics are giving the masses the power to build the world around them. Adafruit (and sparkfun!) are bringing that incredible tech to the world.