FOUNDER DOSSIER // T. OCHSEN
HOW I
GOT HERE
I started working in technology when I was 18 years old. ISP tech support. Level 3 network engineering. Siemens. Then my own computer shops. Then everything stopped.
This is the story of how DaemonCore got built — and why DaemonCore Academy will always be free.
CAREER TIMELINE
TECHNOLOGY WASN'T SOMETHING
I DISCOVERED LATER.
It had been my career since I was a teenager. Networks, break-fix, enterprise infrastructure, small-business ownership — every version taught me something different about how systems actually survive contact with reality.
TECH SUPPORT // SMALL ISP
Started at 18 as the guy on the phone when somebody couldn't connect to the internet. No AI assistant. No YouTube. You listened, figured out what was happening, and fixed it.
LEVEL 3 NETWORK ENGINEER // TIME WARNER CABLE
Backbone-level work. Cable plant, routing, escalations. The kind of job that teaches you what breaks when scale meets reality.
NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR // SIEMENS
Enterprise infrastructure, disciplined change control, and the difference between a network that works and one that stays reliable.
PORT JERVIS COMPUTER
Kim got pregnant. I took a chance on myself and opened the shop. Fixed computers. Built networks. Solved IT problems for businesses. It grew. Then another shop. Family, business, career — all moving at once.
MAY // SYSTEM FAILURE
A big security-camera job had gone well. I wanted to buy Kim jewelry. I never made it home the same person. Career stopped. Businesses disappeared. Marriage ended. Home, cars, everyday life with the kids — gone.
REBUILD // BARNES & NOBLE
Homeless and in a wheelchair for a period. Barnes & Noble was warm. I read programming books and computer books until they closed. I couldn't afford bootcamps, but nobody could stop me from learning.
SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE UNIVERSITY
Went back to school. Kept programming. Kept building. The rebuild wasn't a movie scene — it was years of showing up.
DAEMONCORE
All of it — ISP, engineering, Siemens, the shops, the loss, the self-taught code, school, starting over — became DaemonCore. And a big part of why DaemonCore Academy is free.
MAY 2015 // SYSTEM FAILURE
THAT ONE MOMENT
DIVIDED MY LIFE.
I'd landed a pretty big security job. The customer needed roughly 16 PoE security cameras installed. It was the kind of job I loved getting as a small business owner. It was substantial work, I finished it, and I got paid really well for it.
I remember being happy about the money. And I wanted to do something nice for Kim. So after the job, I decided I was going to the mall to buy my wife some jewelry.
That's the reason I was out there that day.
On the way, I was involved in a head-on collision. And that one moment divided my life into a before and an after.
I didn't come out of it bruised up, take a couple weeks off and go back to fixing computers. My injuries changed my life. I lost my ability to walk normally. For a period of time I needed a wheelchair. Recovery wasn't measured in weeks or even months. It took years before I could walk right again.
And while I was trying to recover physically, everything else I'd built started falling apart too. I couldn't run my businesses the way I had before. Eventually the shops were gone. My marriage ended. The house was gone. The cars were gone. The everyday life I'd had with my kids was gone.
The career and businesses I'd spent my entire adult life building were gone.
There was no master plan for what came next. I was just trying to survive it.
STARTING OVER
PROGRAMMING BECAME
SOMETHING I COULD STILL BUILD.
At one point during those years, I was homeless and still using a wheelchair. And that's where a place that probably seems completely insignificant became a major part of my story: Barnes & Noble.
I could go there and be warm.
So I'd sit there. And I'd read. I read programming books. Computer books. Anything technical I could get my hands on. I'd sit there for hours learning, sometimes until it was time to leave.
I didn't have thousands of dollars for a bootcamp. I didn't have some perfect home office with three monitors. At that point, I didn't even have a home. But the books were there.
Nobody walked over and told me I'd reached the end of my free trial. Nobody told me the next chapter was behind a paywall. I could sit there and learn.
So I did. Programming became something I could still do. More importantly, it became something I could build with. And little by little, I started building again.
2022 // BACK TO SCHOOL
I KEPT SHOWING UP
UNTIL SOMETHING WORKED.
In 2022, I decided to go back to school at Southern New Hampshire University.
By then this wasn't some clean comeback story. Years had passed since the accident. I'd spent those years recovering, learning how to walk properly again, learning programming, dealing with everything I'd lost and trying to figure out what the next version of my life was supposed to look like.
I kept going to school.
I kept writing code.
I kept building.
And eventually, I built DaemonCore.
OPEN CASE // WHAT I STILL HAVEN'T GOT BACK
I GOT MOST OF IT
BACK. NOT ALL OF IT.
I've rebuilt a lot since 2015. I learned to walk again. I learned to code. I went back to school. I founded DaemonCore. I built software. I built a life again.
But I still haven't gotten back what matters the most.
My kids. My son. My daughter. My youngest son. My world.
Who knows, maybe my kids are reading this right now. If so, your dad misses you so much. Please call me. I love you.
My ex disappeared down South somewhere. And with that disappearance went the everyday contact, the routines, the simple things most people take for granted — watching them grow up, being there, hearing about their day.
I don't write that for sympathy. I write it because it's true. Some losses don't get fixed by a comeback story. You carry them while you keep building.
DaemonCore is part of what I built while carrying that. The Academy being free is partly because access to knowledge saved me when I had almost nothing left. And it's partly because I know what it means to have people you love out of reach.
If this project reaches somebody who needs a door to walk through, then some of what I lost gets turned into something that matters.
WHY THE ACADEMY IS FREE
ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE
CHANGED THE DIRECTION OF MY LIFE.
DaemonCore didn't come from somebody waking up one morning and deciding that starting a software company sounded cool.
There's a long road behind that name. An 18-year-old answering tech-support calls at a tiny ISP. Time Warner Cable. Siemens. Kim getting pregnant. Taking the risk and opening Port Jervis Computer. Building a second shop. Getting married. Raising three kids. Installing those cameras in May 2015. Getting paid and deciding I wanted to buy my wife a piece of jewelry. And then a head-on collision that changed everything.
The wheelchair. Losing the businesses. Losing my home. Starting over. Sitting inside Barnes & Noble because it was warm and realizing that as long as I could open a book, I could still learn something. Going back to school in 2022. Writing code. Building again. And eventually creating DaemonCore.
That's why I feel as strongly as I do about DaemonCore Academy being free. I know what access to knowledge meant to me when I didn't have much else.
ACCESS FIRST
If all you've got is a computer, an internet connection and the willingness to put in the work, you can learn.
NO PREMIUM GATE
No premium tier that unlocks the good lessons. No $50 course halfway through. No credit card.
NO THEATER
No fake terminals. No imaginary XP. No course cards pretending to be content.
REAL EVIDENCE
Operators leave with a record of work they actually earned. That's the only leaderboard that matters.
Today, DaemonCore builds commercial software. We can make our money doing that.
The Academy is different.
If you're broke, you can learn.
If you're starting over at 40, you can learn.
If you're 18 years old answering support calls and wondering how far you can take this, you can learn.
If all you've got is a computer, an internet connection and the willingness to put in the work, you can learn.
No premium tier that unlocks the good lessons. No $50 course halfway through. No credit card.
The Academy is free.
Because sometimes access to knowledge can change the direction of somebody's entire life.
I know because it changed mine.
THOR OCHSEN
Founder // DaemonCore