Meet the 29-Year Old Entrepreneur Who Spike Lee Wants to Work With

Chad Sanders and Spike Lee

Chad Sanders, a 29-year old tech entrepreneur and rising star, is partnering up with Spike Lee for a new TV series inspired by no other than himself. The series entitled Archer is a sociological thriller with a pinch of dark comedy that revolves around the life of a character described as a "young black Zuckerberg."

The story behind the story

The series is partly based on the life of Sanders, who worked for four years in Google moving around its Silicon Valley headquarters and New York and European offices. Following that, he served as a partner and head of business development at Dev Bootcamp, an intensive coding school that produced thousands of developers worldwide.

In 2016, after resigning from Dev Bootcamp, he co-founded the business development agency Archer Genius Management with Ed Bailey, a former LinkedIn and Google executive. That was when he started creating his TV series, Archer.

Archer, the main character for whom the eponymous TV series is named, is a skeptic African-American coding genius that developed a dating app that reads sexual chemistry. The story's setting will be in New York, where Archer resides, Silicon Valley, and Berlin, where its sexual and hedonistic environment is emphasized.

When asked how he came up to the idea, he said, "Something clicked and I realized I could use my code - language, expression, and imagination - to unlock new worlds the way my colleagues used coding in tech. Companies are investing heavily in young creators and original content right now. I had a compelling story that I felt a passion to tell. I saw the market opportunity. So I jumped."

Working with Spike Lee

Apparently, he and Spike Lee both graduated from Morehouse College. But it wasn't before they were reintroduced to each other by a mutual family friend that they talked about the project.

Lee, known for supporting young creators, is on board to direct the pilot episode and executive produce the series through his 40 Acres and A Mule Filmworks production. Sanders, on the other hand, is not only the creator but also the executive producer, writer, director, and star of the series.

Follow Chad Archer on Twitter at www.twitter.com/chad_sand
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