My Harvard Essay
Below is my graduate studies essay. Note: I dropped out after pre-mat and did not graduate.
I was in the waiting room of the neurologist’s office, reading a blockchain white paper, when they called my name. I booked an appointment because I had convinced myself that my memory was slipping. I found myself unable to recall information as easily as I could in the past and was determined to find out why. The appointment began with the doctor asking me a series of questions.
Doctor: “What is 50 divided by 5, plus 3, minus 1?”
Casey: “12.”
Doctor: “Who won the Super Bowl last year?”
Casey: “I’m not sure. I don’t follow sports.”
Doctor: “Looking at your paperwork, you clearly work a lot. What do you do in your free time?”
Casey: “I read, mostly about technology, but also about religion and philosophy.”
The questions continued, ranging from math to pop culture to my lifestyle. When he concluded his line of inquiry, the doctor sent me back to the waiting room to await a diagnosis.
“Stop reading so much,” the doctor ultimately suggested as he stared at my charts. “You’re perfectly
healthy. MRI is normal, blood work is good. Your grasp on pop culture is disquieting, but that’s beside
the point. We just can’t hold that much information in our brains. It’s information overload. Stop reading, or quit one of your jobs.”
I was confounded. How was I expected to stop reading? Reading was my primary method of information consumption. And his suggestion wasn’t capped at reading; podcasts and documentaries were out too. (Yes, I called the office and asked.) My doctor was essentially suggesting I limit the time I spend learning to give my brain more breaks. This felt absurd, heart-breaking, and impossible. While the neurologist might think I’m a “peculiar person” (his words, not mine), looking back on my childhood, it makes perfect sense why I turned out this way. My parents believed in the Montessori method of learning, so I had nearly no rules: no bedtimes, mandatory extracurriculars, grade requirements, homework checks, sugar limits, or curfews. Don’t get me wrong; there were some limits. For instance, I learned that taking a cab to Walmart, buying a trampoline, and jumping off the roof with friends was not tolerated. Instead of rules, I was given free rein to spend my time exploring the things that piqued my curiosity.
While some may assume this parenting style would churn out delinquents, my siblings and I became highly disciplined, self-aware and intrinsically motivated to succeed. I strived to get As, not because I would be praised for my marks, but because I realized grades were an objective measure of mastering material. I learned to get nine hours of sleep, not because I was instructed to do so, but because over time, I realized that sleep was necessary to feel present. In a similar vein, through trial and error, I chose to spend my time learning, not because anyone forced me to, but because I felt fulfilled that way.
In choosing what to learn about, I relied on my curiosity as a guide. My fascination about humans and the world we have created has led me down a few paths. Curiosity around how the mind functions drove me to pursue annual silent retreats, live with Buddhist families in Asia, organize weekly reflection groups and study various religions. Meanwhile, curiosity about our world and future motivated me to become an eternal student of technology. I dove deep into every advancement from AI to robotics to blockchain.
As I grew older, my desire to learn endured, but my interest in sharing my learning expanded. One of the greatest examples of this is my journey with blockchain. While this technology was of low public interest when I came across it in university, blockchain emerged as a hot topic by 2017. Everyone was asking what Bitcoin was and where to buy some. By this time, I had been a cryptocurrency holder for years, so I watched the craze from the sidelines. Through the hype cycle, I was disappointed by the greed that powered the price appreciation (and depreciation) and deeply dismayed by how people were rashly investing their life savings into a technology they barely understood. I wanted to help. I started organizing informal discussions at Google, and within a few months, I was elected the Blockchain@Google San Francisco Lead, bringing dozens of engineers together to discuss the true utility and future of blockchain. I thought engineers would be the most practical audience given their understanding of computing, but my audience quickly expanded. I lectured at universities such as Columbia, spoke at conferences including ConsenSys and Block2TheFuture, served on panels like SoFi’s Crypto Launch, judged hackathons like ETHDenver, and wrote content that is now part of curricula at MIT and Tufts University. To my surprise, even venture capital funds began approaching me, asking me to explain my blockchain theses and angel investments. Eventually Bessemer Venture Partners sought me out to join the firm in a part-time capacity. I thought, “Why not?” I had extra time on my hands considering the Google office got quiet around 6pm. Additionally, it would allow me to scale my impact as an investor, help a prominent fund understand blockchain, and learn about a new industry from the inside. With these reasons in mind, I accepted the role as an Entrepreneur in Residence. Within weeks, I was in love with this second job. Just like my role at Google, where I felt I was being paid to learn about software and machine learning, Bessemer paid me to learn, only about a different topic: technology investing. Over the past year I have spent my days working as an engineer at Google from 9 to 5 and going to Bessemer early in the morning and late at night.
On first impression, it might seem like I’m a classic workaholic. But that’s not quite it—I have simply managed to design a life where I spend most of my time learning about topics that interest me. As a child I learned to sleep nine hours a night because it made me feel present; at age 26, I feel lucky to have found a way to spend most of my waking hours learning, because that is what makes me feel alive.
