In Chapter 3 of 16 of his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, Joe Stump leaves Eastern Michigan University to pursue a one-year sabbatical in Silicon Valley during the first Internet boom. There he builds hands-on programming and website architecture experience before returning to Eastern to finish his degree.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: This is 2000. You are midway through your time at Eastern Michigan University and you popped out to take this opportunity and next thing you know you working, programming for a top 500 Media Metrix site.
Joe Stump: It was pretty insane. I went to collage. I was on scholarship at Eastern and they have this awesome thing where you can take a one-year sabbatical. I was looking at it as the worst-case scenario I get a year of experience and those were very lofty times. So, I went out there for a year and then paychecks became intermittent and so I ended up heading back. Actually Care2 is still around and doing really well, and profitable.