Today is for Henry↗.
Just take a look at how he introduced himself: “Honestly, I am a nobody.” Such humble hypocrisy.
For the longest time, I have sought to live in a career vessel that’s at the intersection between Hardware and Artificial Intelligence. At best, I am a novice with acute experience in both worlds. At worst, I am an undirected fellow who knows so much about both fields, with no hardcore proof-of-work to show for these two behemoths.
My background is in Electrical Engineering (EE). Honestly, that was a big deal till I met my technical manager, Emmanuel↗, at my previous company, Climate In Africa↗, and realized that my background was in enshitified EE. Emmanuel lived and breathed electronics and embedded systems. He knew why we had to adjust the resistor to set the quiescent point of the tiny Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT).
Emmanuel knew why our climate monitors overflowed and started showing negative numbers. I had defined a struct with an int8 element to count the number of stored sensor data items in case of a network failure. However, I never once thought the network could fail for so long that the time to count up to 255 would overrun the int8 space, and then we deployed several of these monitors in the field. When the numbers started hiking the next day, Emmanuel saw through my shit in minutes.
At another instance, in two seconds, Emmanuel understood the importance of extern in C++ when I taught it to him. He used that as an interview question for an incoming EE engineer at our company and, in the same week, revamped the entire codebase with that idea.
Yet, Emmanuel was so humble. He could stay through the night to explain anything to me. Even to the shittiest questions like, “Hey, Emma, why did you define three tasks? What is state management? How can I become good at C++ like you?”
Meeting Emmanuel was the absolute reset of my life. I knew all these too, but only on paper. I had studied quiescent points, buffer overflows, critical thinking, and f*ucking BJTs, and was the best student in my class with the highest grades in these subjects, but when it came to making the BJT wet, I was stupid. I graduated as the valedictorian at my university, but I was dumb as f*ck when it came to putting into practice the beauty I had once read. And from thenceforth, I came to resent the mere pursuit of knowledge, and I totally agreed with Mark Manson↗ that learning more is a smart person’s best method of procrastination. It is why I am flaccid when my friends tell me they're pursuing a PhD, especially those who miserably do it for an 'et al.' tag. The actual essence of a struggle with knowledge is to bring its importance to reality, and even better, to better the life of your fellow man with it.
Since that realization, I have not grown the best. I’m meant to have shipped a music sheet translator↗, a gesture-controlled drone, and an educational OS for Africa, but for some stupid reason, unknown to precarity and me, I have been lazing around with stupid excuses and echo chambers that consolidate my misbehaviors. Then I met Henry.
Henry is a Nigerian.
Henry is Igbo.
Henry studied EE in Nigeria.
Henry went on to study AI at Queen Mary University.
Henry then applied for a PhD but was not granted one, then
Henry took a job as an ML engineer for a few years, then
Henry went through and got to the interview stage for a role at NVIDIA, then
Henry declined the role and,
Henry started his own company, Cactus↗, which is at the intersection of hardware and AI. Cactus got into YC and has partnered with DeepMind and Nothing.
Henry has also been facing criticisms ↗about his product, and has been taking it like a champ, and still,
Henry has been shipping ever since.
And yet, Henry thinks he’s a nobody! F*ckkkkkkk!
Nelson is a Nigerian.
Nelson is Igbo.
Nelson studied EE in Nigeria.
Nelson is currently studying AI at the University of Cambridge.
Henry is the perfect example for Nelson. But Nelson thinks he lacks Henry’s will and proof of work, as he’s still struggling to understand why gradient descent points in the direction of the steepest hill.
Nelson has told Henry that he thinks he lacks directed ambition, but Henry said that time will perfect things. But Nelson knows that Henry’s truth is the best soothing lie for his soul because he knows that he is far more than his current state, and time will only worsen his status quo if he doesn’t change something within and start shipping like Henry. Nelson has been complaining and downright procrastinating for too long.
But at least I’m happy about a small realization. I’ve now figured out why it’s important to think you’re a nobody in the first place. It removes the weight of the impostor thoughts and places you at the front line of the battle of intelligence. There, you’re free because you're a nobody who knows nothing yet, and you’re, in Plato’s voice, a tabula rasa. This is the greatest relief, because at that point you're at peace with diving into the unknowns, finding your way through it, and enjoying every new piece of knowledge you encounter, even if you get lost along the way. And if you died in that battle, you at least died at the front line and not as a coward, cowering and shouting instructions from the rear.
And instead of sobbing that you don’t understand what you see, you smile, say I’m a nobody who hasn’t met this knowledge before, and then you wrestle with it regardless.
Henry just released an AI CS Compendium↗. And I gawk at the wealth of knowledge and experience and how time has favored Henry.
For it is my hope that one day, my trajectory after Cambridge will be similar to, if not more than, that of Henry and Emmanuel. And one day, I can earn the right to finally say, “Honestly, I am a nobody!”