Growing up, my family relied on government aid to buy food. My father had a stroke when I was in 6th grade, and despite being able to recover, my mother realized that she would be unable to support my siblings and I without him. I am the second oldest of 6 kids, so I was old enough to kinda understand the stakes facing my family.

My mother then went back to college to earn a degree in nursing. She pushed herself harder than I think a human should need to go to ensure my sisters and I had a stable platform upon which to launch our lives.

I then received an incredible need-based scholarship to university and this was hands down the best thing that has ever happened to me. My mind was expanded farther than I thought possible by the people I met, the culture of embracing and admiring the results of dedication and hard work, and the realization that I have agency to change my circumstances. I realized my life could be more impactful than I ever dared to dream as kid in my small, rural town.

I studied Chinese and CS, and stumbled into opportunity after opportunity that pushed me to grow as a citizen of the world and acquire skills that allow me to take part in it.

I am now working on (what is to me) one of the most interesting problems that humankind is attempting to tackle. I am learning incredible lessons about how intelligent people can make progress in an arena of extremely high uncertainty. I am learning what processes lead to innovation and technological advancement. I am surrounded by people from every corner of the Earth from a diverse array of milieus.

I am incredibly grateful for these opportunities to learn, adapt, and (hopefully) become an agent of change for those that had challenging starts in life. I know there are many others that were just as “deserving” of the chances I received, but for a myriad of reasons were never graced by the blind luck I was.

For these reasons and more, I am thankful.