Hacking on Rd.io at Spotify - Comadre

This is part of my experience when I attended the Spotify NYC hackathon, way back in the day.

So, there I was - at Spotify NYC hackathon, starting to hack on Rd.io’s API - a competitor in the same space.

The fact that Rd.io was a sponsor at the event spoke volumes about the industry at the time: the pie was growing. There was enough for everyone.

That’s what I loved about the community: the generosity. Even though everyone was competing in a way, there was comadre - a shared sense of something bigger. By competing with each other, everyone got better - not just the winner.

At the time, I did feel like the “odd man out” by not doing a hack on the main sponsor’s API. Looking back and seeing the whole experience from this lens, doing anything at the hackathon on any system would improve everything.

As I progressed, I combined APIs together for my hack.