5 years of red, white and blue
Disclaimer: I am sharing this to provide so other internationals moving to this country can benefit from my experience. For some, this might be just a solidarity post - knowing someone else went through a similar journey. For others, it might have a lesson or two on how to navigate it. And for some, this may be a waste of time. I enjoyed the introspection indulgence while writing this post.
5 years ago, last week of October 2015, I landed in USA for the sixth time. Soon, I would make this country my home and work towards creating a new life. Like most internationals moving to this country, my hope of moving to this country was to be successful here.
My story is not as dramatic as those of refugees having to leave everything behind and flee a life-death situation, or people moving here with $5 in their pocket and unable to speak English.
I moved to San Francisco after having built a tech start-up in India and having graduated from India’s top liberal arts University. My private school education in Delhi also meant english was my first language and western culture was part of my childhood fabric. It helped I had the confidence of a young man who was told at each step of his life that world is his playground and everything is within his reach. My parents, teachers, and friends always reinforced this belief in me. I was also extremely lucky to be with an American girl.
But still, the first few months and the first year was challenging. I knew all of 4 people in the country which means I had a complete lack of social fabric. I did not speak with an American accent, so every-time I ordered a drink or food at a restaurant, I would either be asked to repeat myself or asked “Oh! I hear an accent, you are not from here, where are you from”. I also wasn’t used to American grocery stores and a lot of simple American traditions. for e.g. on the street when someone asked politely how I was doing - I would say “not bad” (for those who grew up with British English - this is code for “good”) but for Americans anything less “great”, “fine” or “amazing” elicited a concern, a concern that I didn’t know how to deal with. Every-time I would go out to a party or a social gathering, I realized how hard it was to make connections. For example - someone would tell me they are from Wisconsin - I had no idea where that was, what the winters there are like, what teams are from that region - I had no common language or shared context to build connections. Also, no one in silicon valley gave a fuck about what I did in India, I did not have American education, I had never worked at a company that was recognizable to them, and starting a company in India didn’t impress anyone.
I am not asking for pity here. I had it pretty good overall, but these little everyday things - from not being able to place my order without a clarification note, or not being able to hold a conversation about American life with people I met, or not being able to navigate grocery stores made me feel bad. The credit card rejection because I had no credit history and having to do rounds of paper work to legalize my presence in the country. At points, I did feel if I ever will have a chance to establish myself in this country. It also did start chipping away at my confidence. I would find myself often letting whoever was with me at the bar or restaurant place the order on my behalf - I just didn’t want to repeat myself. I stuck to the same grocery store for a month or so. My first 100 or so emails to people in silicon valley I wanted to meet or get in touch with did not respond to my requests. It wasn’t going well.
I knew moving wasn’t going to be easy, but I had not anticipated this daily emotional drain of getting through simple activities. At the end of 2015, I decided I needed a plan - a hack - because going through routines and working hard wouldn’t cut it.
I broke it down to two essential things:
How do I get people to take me seriously?
How do I surround myself with the kind of people I want to work with?
Answer: I needed either a job at top 5 tech firms or do a graduate degree from a top 3 school.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that beyond the “everyone is equal and everyone has a chance meritocracy” hyped by companies, what they are really looking for is pedigree. The top schools and top companies provide that and are breeding grounds of smart people at a much higher percentage. So in order to build the relationships and credibility - these are the places to go.
If I wanted to succeed long-term in this country, I needed a network of people who can enable that. I needed relationships. I needed a team. You don’t succeed alone. If you read my blog, you know I believe surrounding yourself with the right people is the biggest lever we have for a great life.
Also, once you can claim that you worked at “X” or studied at “Y”, people start being responsive to you.
And if one does an empirical analysis [I did] - the highest lever on pedigree in the USA comes from the college you went to. Also, big companies don’t work for me. Also, the kind of people who are joining Google, Facebook today are not really the kind of people who will be starting their own companies in large numbers. I was certain I wanted to build my company.
The three colleges which can create the highest delta in your pedigree on paper are : MIT, Harvard and Stanford. MIT didn’t have a program I liked, I also wanted to stay in San Francisco/Bay area. If I was going to move to Cambridge - I rather go to Harvard for grad school. I looked at Harvard and the HBS website did not appeal to me at all, I knew it wasn’t for me.
I was left with one option - go and study at Stanford. I decided to put all my eggs in one basket and apply. It was hurried, last minute and a hustle. Good thing - I did not have a job and could devote everything to this pursuit.
I knew if I could solve for people and pedigree, I would have my opportunity. And once I have my opportunity, I am not foolish enough to throw it away. All I needed was one chance. And Stanford gave it to me.
I met the most amazing, driven and passionate people at Stanford. They were intelligent, thoughtful and competitive. I loved it. I had found my people, and soon they would lead me to new adventures.
Back to present
In 1 month, I complete my 5 years of being in USA and I reflected back on far how I have come.
Here’s a little recap to remind myself that no matter how uncertain life might seem in the moment, as long as one makes forward progress - a lot is possible. It is also to serve as a reminder to myself that I should demand more of the next 5 years and I can do a lot better. Once again, I ask myself - what is the biggest lever I can create for myself to move to the next level.
Recap of the first 5 years in United States:
I decided to apply and got admitted to Stanford University and graduated as an Arjay Miller
Learnt machine learning, website development, algorithms and database
Travelled 25+ countries
Lived on East Coast and London
Turned down a job at the worlds largest hedge fund and a Private Equity firm
Ran 4 marathons, 1 triathlon and learnt skiing, rock-climbing, sailing and skateboarding
Explored mind-altering experiences and went to the festival I have longed to go and belong: Burning Man
Did small stints across a fast growing tech-company, a hedge fund and a venture capital firm. I worked for a Silicon Valley Tech Start-up funded by Peter Thiel’s fund [now a unicorn], spent 2 months at Ray Dalio’s Hedge Fund - Bridgewater, and an early Uber investor Venture Capital firm - Founder Collective.
Worked at a Tech Unicorn and we added 1000+ employees in 18 months. I grew one of the product lines into 11 digit revenue and got my first US patent
Started a company with significant early financing in financing from top investors in Silicon Valley
Added substantially to my savings and added equity in few tech start-ups to my asset base.
For the next 5 years, here’s my wish
I want to be one of the top players in the IoT/H-SaaS (hardware+SaaS) space. I want to do it both through my technology company - Spot and through starting an investment fund just focussed on this vertical.
As a kid Richard Branson inspired me by not just being a great entrepreneur but living a very vivid and exciting life. I want to do the same for myself and achieve that through physical outdoor adventures. In next 5 years, I want to be bad-ass at few sports - but climbing, skiing, running and a water sport are at the top of the list.
While above are things, I want to do for myself. I do want to create a network of what I call the “new immigrants” - those who are coming with some privilege into this country and have ambitions to excel to the very top of their field. I want to connect them, inspire them, build more resources for them. In my current thinking these “new immigrants” come from the field of Art, Technology and Entertainment.
Two question once again are in front of me to capture the next five years
Who are the people I need in my life to make the above happen?
What do I need to unlearn and what do I need to learn to be valuable to those people?
While I ponder over these questions, I still have 40 days to finish my 5 years and I am taking the following two challenges
Drop 10 pounds to my 2015 Ironman race weight and run a 10k in 40 mins or less. My personal best is 42 mins. While this is the output, the input is working out at least 45 mins daily towards this goal in the morning before work.
Second, is writing. I want to write either about top 1 or 3 above. In 1 - I want to write more about my learnings about IoT and H-SaaS and where I think Spot and the industry will go. The other topic I will write about it is this concept in my head of “new immigrants” - a class which is not coming here to survive but dominate. I want to capture stories, study laws that enabled this, study and write about ways I can further this. The input lever here is 40 mins of writing at least 200 words every day. By the end, I should have 10,000+ new words.
