How Did Computers Change Garry Tan's Childhood in Fremont?

Garry Tan grew up in Fremont as a child of immigrants. His father struggled with alcoholism and later got sick from it. His mother was a nurse assistant who did not speak English well and had a hearing impediment. The family moved often, including through one- and two-bedroom apartments, and he remembers times when food was not secure. He says technology is what carried him out of that childhood. While he was still in high school he studied at Berkeley, and he went to Stanford for undergrad. The computer, in his telling, is the thing that changed the path, not a hobby he picked up after the hard years were over.