I grew up in the farming town of Rushville, IN. I lived far out in the country, and there really wasn't much to do when we didn't have chores. Seeking some sort of stimulation, in the 3rd grade I turned to reading. For me, it was always great to be transported to another reality with better adventures than my own. This became such a habit that, in 4th grade, I acquired an outstanding 715 AR points for reading so many books. I was always bothered by how these fictional characters were accomplishing great, oftentimes world-changing feats, and I was 30 minutes from the nearest town.

In my senior year of high school, a friend recommended *The Hard Thing About Hard Things* by Ben Horowitz. The idea of the immense impact one person could achieve with a computer instantly appealed to me. I then chose Purdue University Indianapolis, in part because of its location and its proximity to numerous companies in Indianapolis.

I accepted my return offer from my internship at DBISP. I worked there for over a year but wasn't fulfilled by my work and felt like I could do more. I had also saved up enough money during my employment to give me a year long runway, so I decided to quit at the end of July 2024. Since then, I have been peeking even more behind the curtain on how the systems I work with operate—covering JS engine internals, learning some C to work with microcontrollers, reading more books, and more recently working on Linkistry.