The Venture Capitalist Who is Teaching Prisoners How to Code with Chris Redlitz
“Unfortunately we see a lot of shows like Lockup and so forth that portray a certain subset of what goes on in prison. And that’s real. But there are a lot of things that are not necessarily shown all the time that are really positive.
I had no experience with prison. Never been a prison before. I stepped in San Quentin the first time. I had the same sort of perception that most people do. San Quentin is a very ominous looking place. It has all the death row inmates for California. I thought this a place where people go to serve out their time and a lot of these guys are beyond any type of help. That was my perception and for most people I think that’s the case.
I did a small class talking about entrepreneurship, and I did not have any idea that the response that I would get would be so amazing and deep. These guys were just thirsting for education, for conversation about things that they were so interested in. They wanted to start business. They wanted to learn. “Unfortunately we see a lot of shows like Lockup and so forth that portray a certain subset of what goes on in prison. And that’s real. But there are a lot of things that are not necessarily shown all the time that are really positive.
I had no experience with prison. Never been a prison before. I stepped in San Quentin the first time. I had the same sort of perception that most people do. San Quentin is a very ominous looking place. It has all the death row inmates for California. I thought this a place where people go to serve out their time and a lot of these guys are beyond any type of help. That was my perception and for most people I think that’s the case.
I did a small class talking about entrepreneurship, and I did not have any idea that the response that I would get would be so amazing and deep. These guys were just thirsting for education, for conversation about things that they were so interested in. They wanted to start business. They wanted to learn. And it immediately changed my perception of that. — Chris Redlitz
