# Nicholas Bergson-Shilcock

> Nicholas Bergson-Shilcock is the co-founder and CEO of the Recurse Center (originally Hacker School), a free, self-directed educational retreat in New York City where programmers spend up to three months getting dramatically better at their craft. A lifelong unschooler who taught himself to code on an Apple IIe, he built RC with no teachers, no curriculum, no grades, and no certificates, funding it through an optional recruiting service rather than tuition. Since 2011, thousands of programmers from teenagers to sixty-year-olds have passed through its doors, guided by ideas like 'building your volitional muscles' and a handful of deceptively simple social rules.

- **Role:** Co-founder & CEO at Recurse Center
- **Organizations:** Recurse Center, Hacker School (former name of Recurse Center)
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** No formal degree; lifelong unschooler, Self-directed / unschooled
- **Known for:** Co-founded and scaled the Recurse Center, a free educational retreat attended by thousands of programmers since 2011, Built a sustainable business model that keeps the retreat free for participants by funding it through an optional recruiting service, Distributed roughly $1.5 million in grants to women, trans, nonbinary, Black, Latinx, Native American, and Pacific Islander programmers since 2012

## Career timeline

- **2006** — Moved to New York City
- **2010** — Co-founded Hacker School (later Recurse Center) and went through Y Combinator's Summer 2010 batch
- **2011** — First batch of participants attends the retreat
- **2012** — Begins distributing diversity grants to underrepresented programmers
- **2015** — Hacker School rebrands as the Recurse Center; begins paying alumni to interview applicants
- **2017** — Starts teaching himself Mandarin Chinese
- **2020** — Turns his personal site nick.is into a 'collection of things he likes,' inspired by the small web movement

## Achievements

- Co-founded and scaled the Recurse Center, a free educational retreat attended by thousands of programmers since 2011
- Built a sustainable business model that keeps the retreat free for participants by funding it through an optional recruiting service
- Distributed roughly $1.5 million in grants to women, trans, nonbinary, Black, Latinx, Native American, and Pacific Islander programmers since 2012
- Achieved a recent batch where over 50% identified as women, trans, or nonbinary, far above tech-industry norms
- Codified an influential learning philosophy including the 'self-directives' and the concept of 'building your volitional muscles'

## Latest updates

- **2026-06** — Continues to lead the Recurse Center as co-founder and CEO from New York City.
- **2020-05** — Relaunched his personal site nick.is as a small-web 'collection of things he likes,' featuring his Mandarin study log and an NYC bookstore guide.

## Links

- Website: https://nick.is
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasbs/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/nicholasbs
- GitHub: https://github.com/nicholasbs
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicholasbs

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/nicholas-bergson-shilcock
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-21