“whatever you were into at 16 is what you were born to do.”— @cxgonzalez
At 16
01
Playing tennis three times a day.
morning camp, team practice, and evenings with my dad — who i’d coax onto the court by quietly changing the clocks in the house. my grip wasn’t standard. i figured out how to make it work. i hit shots my opponents didn’t see coming — angles that only happen when you’re not holding the racket the way everyone else is.
i came to tennis the way i’ve come to most things — i saw it through a car window a few months after moving to america from india, pointed, and said: that. i want to do that.
instinct toward the new
02
70 boxes of florida navel oranges.
my school’s band and chorus were going on their annual trip. everyone else’s parents paid the $700. i didn’t want to burden mine — so i found a way. i worked every warm connection i had: my parents’ coworkers, family friends, my mom’s choir members. for the last 15 boxes i went door to door. strangers. i got to 70.
ps — those navel oranges were genuinely delicious.
resourcefulness over asking
03
Two colors. Pasta. One portrait.
in art class, the assignment was: create a portrait. i gave myself the constraints. two colors only — red and green. fine vermicelli pasta glued to cardboard, laid into a pattern. i wanted it to look realistic — the kind of thing that only resolves when you step back far enough to see the whole picture.
it worked. it sat behind a side table for years until insects found it. the pasta didn’t survive.
constraint as method
The career that followed
i didn’t plan a non-linear career. each step followed the next, almost in spite of me.
i nearly majored in philosophy — i loved the questions. i ended up in economics because i could use it as a framework to understand and solve complex problems, and i wasn’t afraid of a little math. at 21, wanting to do something that mattered, i went to do research at the united nations. i thought that’s where the real work happened.
then at a conference, something shifted. a lot of people were talking about problems. two startup founders were actually solving them — quietly, in the real world. i felt it immediately: that. i want to do that.
marketing, consulting, operations, program management, product — something more interesting kept appearing just around the corner, and i kept following.
what that path built wasn’t a collection of skills. it was a more textured, more accurate read on what’s actually going on. the more angles you hold, the closer you get to what i can only call a seed of truth — the real version of the problem, underneath all the versions people present to you.
you start to see the shot nobody else sees. because you’re not holding the racket the way everyone else is.
i’ve also experienced burnout, rebuilt slowly, and learned more from that chapter than from most projects. you see organizations differently when you’ve felt what it costs to ignore what isn’t working.
i’m currently based in new york, after most of my twenties in san francisco. i think carefully about most things. i’m curious about what technology does to people, about beauty and why it matters, about the design of everyday life.
My work has
Now
thinking about
what good AI-assisted work actually feels like
what fractional work done well looks like
reading
The Dawn of Everything
Finite and Infinite Games
building
this site
quiet experiments in AI + ops
i see myself clearly enough to know what i’m good at. seeing yourself clearly — really clearly, without the flattering edit — is one of the rarest and most useful things you can offer another person or organization.
if something here resonates — i’d love to hear from you.
What people say
“she doesn’t just understand the problem — she understands the room, the history, and the three reasons nobody’s solved it yet.”
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“the kind of person who makes you feel like the complexity is finally under control. strategic, calm, and genuinely curious.”
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“rare ability to move between the 30,000-foot view and the weeds — without losing either.”
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Placeholder role, Company
i’m currently exploring fractional engagements, transformation work, and project-based collaboration with teams building something complex and consequential. if you’re building something that needs someone who can find the shot nobody else sees — let’s talk.