#479 – Dave Plummer: Programming, Autism, and Old-School Microsoft Stories

**Lex Fridman** (0:00)
The following is a conversation with Dave Plummer, programmer and an old school Microsoft software engineer who helped work on Windows 95, NT and XP, building a lot of incredible tools, some of which have been continuously used by hundreds of millions of people, like the famed Windows Task Manager. Yes, the Windows Task Manager. And the zip-unzip compression support in Windows. And he ported the code for Space Cadet Pinball, aka 3D Pinball to Windows. Today, he's loved by many programmers and engineers for his amazing YouTube channel called Dave's Garage. You should definitely go check out. Also, he wrote a book on autism and about his life story called Secrets of the Autistic Millionaire, where he gives really interesting insights about how to navigate relationships, career and day-to-day life with autism. All this taken together. This was a super fun conversation about the history and future of programming, computing, technology, and just building cool stuff in the proverbial garage. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description or at lexfridman.com/sponsors. It's the best way to support this podcast. We've got Uplift Desk, which is an incredible company that has been my go-to for a long time for all my office and podcast studio furniture. Zogdoc, which is a platform that connects patients with top-rated healthcare providers. Fynn for AI agent for customer service. Alio Capital for folks who understand the turmoil of global markets. And finally, Shopify, a company that we've talked about for 20 hours with DHH. Because they use Ruby on rails, and they show that it can scale. Anyway, choose wisely my friends, and now on to the full ad reads. I try to make them interesting, but if you skip, please do check out the sponsors. I enjoy their stuff, maybe you will too. To get in touch with me, for whatever reason, go to lexfridman.com/contact. All right, let's go. This episode is brought to you by a company that I cannot sing enough praises to. In fact, today, I got another desk from Uplift Desk. The number of desks I have, the amount, the quantity of joy they bring to my life is immeasurable. Like I said, it's my go-to for all office and podcast studio furniture. I have a desk with a Linux box. I have a desk with a Windows box I do editing on. I have a quadruped sitting on top of another desk that I'm working on. There's a big quadruped and it's a four-legged robot. And then there's a mini baby quadruped. They're both sitting on the desk and I'm working on them. And it's connecting to the Linux box where there's a lot of, I have to take them apart, I have to bring it back together. And then of course, the podcast desk that you see on the podcast, that sort of woody color. I have three of those desks and I've been using that for many years. Long, long, long, long, long before Uplift Desk was a sponsor. And I just got a new desk today in the podcast studio, where I have some more robots, Linux laptop, and I'm doing some more development to do some robotics related stuff in the podcast studio. So anyway, these are standing desks. You can customize the amount of options, it's incredible. I can vouch for these guys. Good people, good desks, good ergonomics, just incredible. Anyway, go to upliftdesk.com/lex and use code Lex to get four free accessories, free same day shipping, free returns, a 15 year warranty, and an extra discount off your entire order. That's uplifddesk.com/lex.
This episode is also brought to you by ZocDoc, a platform that connects patients with top rated healthcare providers, if you're anything like me, remembering to go see a doctor before things go terribly wrong. You know, checkups, making sure everything's okay, is a thing I just don't do, and I'm very stressed about. And really the main reason for the stress is because, at least in my perception, a lack of tooling for finding a doctor, for having easy-to-use, fast, efficient, accessible, huge number of choices, tooling, okay? And so ZogDog does that incredibly well. I can recommend them. That's my go-to place to find a doctor, to find a healthcare provider. Me saying these words is motivating me to do so, because I haven't seen a doctor in quite a while. And so hopefully my words motivate me, and perhaps even motivate you, if you're anything like me, and have been avoiding this topic, because everything's gonna be fine until it's not. One day it's not going to be fine, and you're going to regret not going to zogdog.com/lex. That's zocdoc.com/lex.
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