My philosophy about luck is that it really does matter how many times you toss the coin. At some point, it stops being luck and turns into necessity.
While attending the University of Waterloo, I treated applying for internships like a statistics game.
I went through job listings on GitHub and sent out 200-300 applications before landing my internship at Tesla. The next hiring cycle, I tried again to join Nvidia. To be honest, I don’t even remember applying.
After the initial callback, the hiring process was very calm. I went through two interviews and it took about 4 days in total before I was contacted by Nvidia about the job offer. It helped that my background in high-performance software happened to align with what the data center tools team needed.
This role was a little unique because I worked out of Nvidia’s Redmond, Washington, office, rather than at Nvidia’s Santa Clara headquarters, where most interns are based. The community felt small, but I had great mentors and a reasonable work-life balance. Although we sometimes worked overtime, most people worked a normal 9 to 5 hour day.
What surprised me most was everyone’s enthusiasm. Engineers treated their work like a craft, not just a job, and were genuinely interested in building great software.
The greatest gift Nvidia gave me
I took the internship because I wanted to become a full-time employee at Nvidia. I thought that making money in Big Tech would give me a sense of freedom.
But in the end, I felt unfulfilled being a small part of a large organization. The greatest gift this experience has given me is that it taught me what I want to do with my time: build something of my own.
I also thought that starting a company would make me a better engineer. While startups need to understand the problem before building a solution, large tech companies often work within a much narrower sandbox.
I launched an AI startup called Gale.
While I was finishing my internship at Nvidia and still finishing school, I co-founded Gale, an AI startup that automates work visa applications. We were accepted into Y Combinator and raised $2.7 million in seed funding last May.
My parents were initially worried that I would be taken away from a stable career. But their views changed after seeing Gail gaining momentum.
And when I got my first customer, it was one of the best feelings I’ve ever felt when I realized that something I’d created with my hands could really help someone else.
Nvidia’s culture also shaped my personality as a founder. At Nvidia, mistakes were not blameworthy. Managers will work with us to improve processes and prevent the same issue from happening again. The idea of learning and iterating rather than blaming is something I have tried to bring to Gail.
Have a story to share about Nvidia? Contact this reporter at: gweiss@businessinsider.com.