In Loving Memory · Of A Career Still In Progress
Tonight we gather to honor a man, a legend, a software engineer who achieved nearly everything Silicon Valley dreams of and then, inexplicably, joined a startup anyway. He is not dead. He is, in fact, approximately three feet away, reviewing this page in real time and already drafting a rebuttal.
Please hold your applause until the production incident is resolved
Begin the tributeThe Accolades
Each of these awards is real in the sense that we made them up and printed them on this page. The trophies are in the mail. The mail is also fictional.
Navigated the entire University of Minnesota campus exclusively through the Gopher Way tunnel system, emerging into daylight only to be photographed for his student ID. Doctors confirm his vitamin D levels are best described as 'theoretical.'
Touched the two most elite tiers of finance, gazed into the abyss of generational wealth, and then said 'you know what would be fun? Equity in a pre-revenue texting app.' A decision economists are still studying.
Why use staging when prod has real users to provide instant, screaming feedback? A pioneer of the 'ship it and find out' methodology. The logs were merely a suggestion.
Awarded for choosing an institution with five NCAA hockey championships over one with a slightly more famous robotics lab. When the rink is roaring, who's counting acceptance rates?
As Eng Lead, helped construct an artificial intelligence whose entire purpose is to text people on behalf of humans. He has effectively automated the one thing he was already avoiding. We call this 'product-market fit with the self.'
Walked away from commission-free trading dopamine machines to monitor stack traces at 2 AM. Truly the people's champion of questionable career arbitrage.
Glowing Testimonials
Every testimonial below is 100% authentic, legally binding, and notarized by people who do not exist. Any resemblance to actual coworkers is the funniest possible coincidence.
"Samyok was the finest intern I ever had the pleasure of explaining a yield curve to four separate times. His questions were so deep that, frankly, none of us could answer them, which we have chosen to interpret as genius rather than confusion."
"In twenty-three years of teaching, I have never seen a student attend my 8 AM lecture so consistently from the comfort of the tunnel beneath the building. He understood entropy intuitively, mostly by living it."
"Samyok once shipped a feature so fast the rest of the team is still catching up to what it does. Was it tested? That's between him and the production database. Would I work with him again? My therapist says I'm not ready to answer that."
"I came from Apple, Amazon, Bloomberg, and Jane Street, where I did the London office that same summer Samyok did New York. Working with someone of MY caliber must be intimidating for him, and I want to say: he handles it with remarkable composure. Truly inspiring how he keeps up. With me. From Apple, Amazon, Bloomberg, and Jane Street."
The Saga
Cue the swelling orchestral score. Dim the lights. Pretend you are watching this on a giant screen while strangers dab their eyes.
The Beginning
In a moment that would define everything, a young Samyok looked outside at the warm, glowing sun, looked back at a glowing rectangle, and chose the rectangle. The sun has not forgiven him. The rectangle has not stopped asking for his attention since.
University Era
He entered the great Minnesota tundra and emerged four years later, paler, wiser, and with a deep spiritual relationship with the campus tunnel system. He learned algorithms, data structures, and exactly how many degrees below zero he could tolerate before crying (it's around 12).
Summer 2024
Ascended to the holy mountain of quantitative finance in Manhattan. Meanwhile, his colleague Max was doing the very same Jane Street internship in London that exact summer. Two brilliant minds, one elite firm, two continents - and the universe, watching closely, began quietly preparing both of them for the same humble startup.
Also That Era
Joined the company that turned investing into a slot machine and lived to tell the tale. Witnessed dopamine being weaponized at scale and thought, reasonably, 'I should probably build something calmer.' He did not build something calmer.
The Turn
Despite holding a resume that could open the door to literally any trading floor on Earth, Samyok walked into a startup building a texting assistant - an AI whose entire job is to text people so that humans don't have to. The finance gods wept. The product roadmap rejoiced.
Present Day
Rose to Engineering Lead at a company automating human conversation. He now leads a team building software that talks to people on your behalf, which is convenient, because leading a team requires talking to people on your behalf. The irony is load-bearing.
Currently
And so we arrive at the summit of human achievement. From the University of Minnesota, through Jane Street, past Robinhood, all roads led here: to a glowing terminal at an unholy hour, scrolling through stack traces, whispering 'this worked yesterday.' He is exceptional at it. The logs have never been read with more love. We salute you, Samyok. The cursor blinks on.
Standing ovation (he cannot hear it over the alert pager)