Just Asking: Part 4

Meeting My Role Model

I went to HackPrinceton with a couple of friends in 2024. As is typical of hackathons, there was an opening speaker to kickoff the 36-hour event. I never really paid much attention to these opening speakers, with thoughts of the project dominating my mind. When I saw the speaker walk up, all these thoughts left my mind.

The speaker was this Venture Capitalist (let’s call him Jake) whose blog I’d been reading for the last 3 years. I least expected him to be present. So I was understandably focused on his presentation, which gave advice about choosing a path at this stage in our lives, and how it’s best to have curiosity as a compass in our journey over guiding methods (money, prestige, etc.). After the speech, Jake kicked off the hackathon and the room promptly vacated. I remained, though, since his blog (which I’d randomly found while surfing the internet) had been influential on my thought process and the kinds of things I prioritized as I entered my career.

Walking over from the other side of the room, I was waiting for a few others to finish talking to Jake. When it was my turn, I told him I’d been a long-time reader of his blog. He instantly tried to figure out when I’d started reading, and named some of his earlier work. I recognized them, surprising him. I also began telling him how his work had affected me and shaped me over the years. He seemed happy to hear that, and gave me his number. I soon left to work on my hackathon project with my friends.

Near the end of the hackathon, during the judging round, my team was pulled from our initial location to this huge auditorium where many judges (and Jake) were all there. A bit anxious from the grand scale of it, my team still pitched our hackathon project to the judges. Turns out the awards ceremony was in the same room. Before it started, Jake came over to me and whispered that he was on his way out, but we’d won best in the Health category. I was incredulous, but the award announcers repeated the same thing to the audience, and we went to pick up our awards.

Later, Jake and I spoke to talk about a topic I might address in the future.