I grew up in Northern Germany and attended the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel, a harbor town at the Baltic sea. I received a M.S. in computer science from Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I taught computer science at San Jose State University for almost thirty years and held visiting appointments at universities in Germany, Switzerland, Vietnam, and Macau. I was a “serial entrepreneur” before that was a thing, including a stint as VP and CTO of a dot com startup that went from three people in a tiny office to a public company. In my copious spare time I write books and develop online courses for beginning and professional programmers.