Remarks On The Bidecennial
Good evening. Wow. Thank you, thank you, it's so good to be here. Welcome to the opening plenary of the twentieth annual meeting of the A.H.A. [Pause for applause]. 20 years, can you believe it? Gary's showing it a bit. Just kidding Gary.
Truly, though, I can't believe how much this organization has achieved in such a short time. Let me take you back a bit to 2025. [Slide of ridiculous 2025 fashion; pause for laughter]. In 2025, Louisiana required a license to be a florist. In Florida it took six years of study to be allowed to practice as an interior designer. Tennessee required 70 days of training to shampoo hair. In Kentucky you needed a license to put things in boxes. Eight states required a license for a job called "travel agent" – back when "agent" still meant a person. [Pause for laughter].
That's right: the health and safety of the public was being protected in all these domains, and yet unlicensed coding was permitted in – as it was then – all "50" states. Literal children were not only allowed, but actively encouraged, to learn to code without restriction. Can you believe that? Human viruses are combatted by extensively trained and (just as importantly) properly credentialed doctors. But at that strange time, computer viruses could run rampant with nothing but the distributed local efforts of motivated individuals to combat them. Unconscionable.
It was a difficult battle. So many of you were there in the trenches for it – Gary's got the gray hairs to prove it. I'm kidding Gary, you look great. Some of the stories of how we exactly got that first crucial legislation passed are perhaps, ahem, best saved for a more private venue. Let's just say I'm glad that we in Silicon Valley moved on from our "teenage" relationship to Washington DC, and figured out that when technologists and government work together, we can do more than either one of us could do on our own.
If our first ten years were a struggle to get the Responsible Coding Act into law, our second decade will be remembered for the staggering success of the Coding Internship program. It's hard to believe that twenty years ago an "intern" at a software company was a college student paid a market rate in the hopes of hiring them to a full time role in future! [Pause for laughter].
Now, through the extreme selflessness and generosity of our colleagues at the five MAGMA companies – generosity that has of course extended also to sponsoring tonight's beautiful gala, thank you colleagues – we have transformed coding education and ensured that every licensed coder in the United States has spent a rigorous two-year stretch at one of the five biggest companies on earth learning how reliable, robust corporate software must be built.
To the interns here today: shouldn't you be at work? [Scattered laughter]. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Just know that the process is making you a better coder, and that all of us are stronger for having gone through it. Well, not us oldsters who were grandfathered in, but I've heard from all six of my assistants over the last two years that they're ultimately glad they went through it.
In the process, we've truly raised the bar on what it means to be a developer. Gone are the days of some 19 year old who thinks she can drop out of college and build a software business just because she "knows how to code." Gone are the days when an unregistered 30-something can come back to coding without keeping up their continuing education credits and association membership dues.
Most importantly: gone are the days when hundreds of thousands of inexperienced amateurs can sully the MOST important profession [pause awkwardly, unclear whether for applause] with their unprofessional work; thank you to Sarah for running our legal efforts on that and making sure that violators pay a heavy price. As of last year the law is finally up to date with the times, and we can finally demand jail time for unlicensed coders, even if the software never leaves their own device. You have to squash a lot of bugs to write good software! [Uncomfortable muttering].
Yes: in the bad old days of 2025, 100k students graduated from computer science degrees, and as many as 300k more "students" "graduated" from "bootcamps." I'm proud to say that – learning from the example of our esteemed rolemodels at the AMA – we have brought those numbers down to just 50,000 qualified coders joining the job market each year today. The market results speak for themselves: while average salaries in most industries have declined over the last ten years, average salaries for coders go up by up to 5% every year. Let that sink in: that's 50 thousand good-paying jobs created by the AHA for AHA members.
So, here's to you, American Hackers: let's make the next two decades as productive as the last two.