The Worlds That We Can All See

Throughout my life, there have been moments where the lines between what seemed improbable and what I knew in my heart to be true blurred. Discussing this with friends, I realized I wasn't alone in experiencing this feeling. These moments define us, where our inner callings resonate the loudest. This internal conflict between doubt and conviction is often where our true callings lie.

For me, fear, especially the fear of failing, has typically been the main blocker I had to overcome. It took many failures and some wins to master seeing the opportunity on the other side of fear. During this ongoing journey, I've come to greatly appreciate the critical role of catalysts - people you meet or moments in time that Silicon Valley refers to as 'crucible moments.'

Reading, practicing, discussing with my mentors, and teaching myself to really see the worlds beyond fear and the unknown has been one of my proudest personal development accomplishments. Emphasis on ‘seeing’ and ‘worlds’.

In 2017, during one of my crucible moments, I took a leap of faith and applied to the Stanford University Graduate School of Business . In my 'what matters most to you and why' essay and admission interviews, I talked about the worlds I was seeing at the time. A world where exponential tech, particularly AI, could be the ultimate catalyst to democratize access to opportunity and augment human capabilities. Although not super technical in my background, I had spent hours taking online courses - Fei-Fei Li 's course on convolutional neural networks and visual recognition (thanks, YouTube!) was another catalyst for me. Before AI became the buzzword it is today, I decided to invest most of my time at the GSB learning about AI and meeting the people driving long-term, paradigm-shifting, high-risk AI research that would change how things are done in 5 years. Who could tell that it wouldn't even take 5 years…

The fight between conviction and fear also resurfaced when I graduated and was looking for my next career play. Fei-Fei, again, appeared as a catalyst, offering me the opportunity to join the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) very early on to build out our industry programs. After a few conversations, it became clear that we were both envisioning the same world - guiding industry leaders to reimagine and accelerate their AI journeys. It was about expanding the vision of the worlds they, and our AI communities on campus, see, building HAI industry programs as a platform to become a catalyst for them as they develop and deploy AI in a way that benefits the world, with human-centered values at the technology’s core. I documented these early inspirations in a piece I wrote back then.

This week, as Fei-Fei Li releases her book, "The Worlds I See," I find myself reflecting on this incredible journey. I couldn't recommend this book enough, not just because of my personal bias (which I openly acknowledge) but because I sincerely believe in its power to inspire.

"The Worlds I See" is more than a memoir; it's a narrative that intertwines the human spirit with the transformative power of AI. It's about the blurry lines of improbability, the catalysts that drive us, and the vision that guides us. I think the book will resonate most with those who’ve faced adversity but still pursue a life of kindness and conquest of the worlds they saw on the other side of fear - immigrants, minorities, founders, scientists, women breaking through in the male-dominated field of AI, and many more. The self-made, the underdogs.

Among the many things I’d be forever grateful for to Fei-Fei is how much of a catalyst she has been in empowering me to envision new worlds and enable others, in a modest way, to do so. Just as working with Fei-Fei has inspired me over the years, her book can be a catalyst for you to explore your own 'True Norths' - and learn about the history of AI along the way.

?"The Worlds I See" is now available in bookstores.