Adam McKechneay
15, Vienna
Programming since the age of 13, starting with a self-built trading app. Today he develops industry software and looks after clients.
How it started
Neither of us ever wanted to be average.
That was the beginning — no business plan, just the conviction that you have to do something if you want to get somewhere.
Adam wrote his first program at 13: a trading app with play money, wired to real market data. ChatGPT was still bad enough back then that he had to work out most of it himself — that was the real lesson. He had already traded with real money before that, at twelve, through his father's account.
Jakob built and sold computers first. He learned to program at 15, deliberately, for the business.
We met at 14, in the same class.
The first client came on an afternoon. The idea started at school; after lessons we sat down and called companies, one after another, until one of them listened. That one paid. By now there are thirty-five.
How this works alongside school: during the day the essentials run off our laptops, in the breaks and in class. After school we sit down at our workspace, usually until three in the morning. At seven we are up again.