San Francisco. Mitten of the winter January 10, 1982. The 49ers had made it all to the NFC title match. They were facing the Dallas Cowboys –perhaps the strongest team in the league — as 3 point underdogs at Candlestick Park. This venue was recently replaced with Levi’s Stadium. The 49ers led 21-17 at the end of the fourth quarter. A red-hot wave elicited hope in the city and made it believe that they might pull off an upset. They were trailing by 21 to 27 with just 58 seconds remaining and only 89 yards between them and the goal line.
The next event is one of the most memorable in NFL history. Joe Montana, a young quarterback who had just graduated from Notre Dame a few years before that fateful winter day, led the 49ers through one the most beautiful, clutch, goose-bump-giving runs ever made by a football team. It ended with a play that is deeply ingrained in San Francisco’s collective memory, called “The Catch.”
Montana threw his football precisely over three men who were right in front of him to Dwight Clark. Clark was one of the 49ers’ top receivers. Clark elegantly grabbed the ball from the sky and it landed on both his feet. This resulted in a game-tying touchdown. The city erupted in joy. The 49ers won the game and scored an extra point. This ended the Cowboy’s golden age of dominance in NFC conference and created a new era: the 49ers era. Joe Montana won the Super Bowl four times and earned the nickname “The Comeback Kid”. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2000.
Joe is doing so much more than just throwing the ball around for entertainment. He is now the manager of Liquid 2, a 25 million-dollar early-stage startup investment fund. This fund was established in 2015 and has been providing tech reporters with something to talk about.
Joe’s most notable fund investments, believe it, was in an IT training company that was founded by two Air Force veterans, who left their civilian jobs to create an IT training company. Joe didn’t have too much to do to find them. Angel Pad, America’s #1 startup accelerator, was founded by Carine Magescas, and Thomas Korte.
NexGenT, an IT training company, graduated Angel Pad and raised seed capital just a few weeks after demo day. The founders of NexGenT met Joe Montana during demo day. Joe was so impressed by NexGenT’s mission to provide affordable, job-ready IT education to as many people as possible, and decided to invest in the company. Joe is a strong supporter of the United States armed force. Terry and Jacob have decades of experience as systems engineers at top tech companies such as Cisco and also owning their own IT consulting business.
They could, to be honest, have a normal work schedule, great benefits, and a high-salary job. They chose to do something different. They realized that IT training and education are lacking a major element: people pay a lot of money to train but end up in debt and unprepared. Joe was intrigued by the idea of providing education so that anyone could jumpstart a career as an IT professional. This was something Joe had seen happen in their years of service in the U.S. Air Force.
Joe Montana saw in Terry, Jacob an opportunity to help address the nation’s biggest problem: the IT skills shortage. Joe Montana was aware of the fact that America has close to 6,000,000 open jobs. A large portion of these are technical jobs. He decided to trust his instincts and back this veterans’ venture with Liquid2, which is still Joe’s largest investment.
NexGenT has helped hundreds of people become network engineers with no experience in just a few months. It’s easy to see that NexGenT students are adding value to companies and advancing in their careers, even as others finish their first year of college.
The company has been overwhelmed by an unprecedented number student who, motivated by NexGenT’s message of standing against rising education costs and the inability of the system to prepare people for “real life”, have been using NexGenT’s cornerstone programs, zero to engineer and land your dream IT job, to unlock their potentials and jumpstart their IT careers. NexGenT students can avoid crippling student debt and can begin reaping the benefits of their efforts immediately after they have completed NexGenT’s training.
I don’t know if NexGenT’s training can be as impressive as Joe Montana’s incredible 89-yard winning run in the NFC title match of 1982. One thing is certain: NexGenT’s students know there are other options that can help them achieve a secure, stable, and financially secure professional and financial life. They know that they can go even from zero to network engineers earning a substantial salary in less time than a year. If they put in the effort and time, they can break the six figure mark in less that 24 months.