What Is Cory Althoff’s Net Worth?

He may not be a TikToker or influencer, but Cory has tapped into wealth without using the power of social media. He graduated from Clemson University over a decade ago, where he received his degree in political science, but he decided to switch to a career in technology. In 2014, he got a job as a software engineer for eBay and then started working for startup Thuuz Sports in the same position.

But in 2016, he tapped into something everyone was looking for — a guide to getting a high-earning career in technology with little to no training. He wrote his first book, The Self-Taught Programmer, which he also self-published in 2017. “It was like solving a puzzle,” he told Forbes at the time. “I was trying to create a book you could follow with zero knowledge.”

“I wanted to try creating my own product, do something on my own, instead of working for a company,” he said at the time. “A lot of people asked me, ‘How did you learn to program? What did you do?’ It seemed like an area so many people were interested in,” so he wrote a book on it. To publish it, he raised over $4,000 on Kickstarter and put up $10,000 himself, which eventually led to a deal with Wiley Publishing for his second book, The Self-Taught Computer Scientist.

By the time he had two bestsellers under his belt, Cory was brought on as a Developer Advocate with Vonage and is now the Senior Vice President of CompTIA. According to various sources, he makes about $750,000 annually through all his revenue streams, with a six-figure VP job in addition to royalties from his books.