By Hayley Ringle | Phoenix Business Journal
As a second-grader in Chicago, David Tedesco was one of those kids in the 1980s who immediately took to the computer.
He lobbied his teacher parents for two years to get a family computer, the Apple IIc portable model, for $2,000.
While early on he played games, he soon taught himself to write code in elementary school. He wanted to learn how to program so he could copy software and games like his favorites, “Conan the Barbarian,” “Dungeons and Dragons” and “Karataka.”
“I had a natural aptitude for computers,” Tedesco said. “I would fix computers in junior high, and I would sell pirated software and games to other kids.”
When he was a freshman, one of his fellow student’s father was an anesthesiologist who wanted software to run his practice. Tedesco was paid $8 an hour to write the software, and then split the profits 50/50 after they sold the software to other anesthesiologists.
