Jailbroken People

The lesson is: figure out what kind of world you believe should exist, and then live in a way that helps bring that world closer.

From Heinz von Foerster, I learned this: to live fully is to stay curious.

Carl Woese’s life resonates with me because it confirms something I deeply believe: the greatest discoveries happen when you wander off your planned path, follow your...

Things that let other people see, measure, build, and discover what they could not before.

One of the things I appreciated most about starting the UIUC Talkshow was that my life naturally became about finding interesting people on campus. One of those discoveries...

I first read You and Your Research in high school, and only years later did I realize, to my surprise, that Richard Hamming had also studied at the University of Illinois.

Keith was one of the first Future Selves I met in college: someone who had already walked the path I was just starting. He was close to where I wanted to be, just about...

Cory did not treat being a student as a weakness. He used it as leverage. Because he was young, people were often more willing to offer advice, take meetings, and give him...

The world will celebrate your acquisition, your valuation, your title, your exit. None of that guarantees you have built a self capable of receiving the life you made.

I don’t include these people to say, “Look, UIUC is amazing because these successful people went there.” I couldn’t give two fucks, and you shouldn’t either.

But during his sophomore year, he became restless with traditional education and started treating college like a system he could hack.

That’s the story I carry from Marc and Eric: build boldly, lawyer early, and don’t let a campus badge convince you the world stops at Green Street.

When Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, was in college, someone told him he would look back on his school days as the best years of his life. He replied with the following:

But whether you waste or use your energy and attention, that will define everything.

Carmen didn’t build his businesses by being the smartest person in the room; he built them by paying closer attention than most people.

Anatoly Yakovenko is best known as the founder of Solana, a blockchain project built around speed and scale.

I was enraptured. Look at my face, look at my happiness. That day, Michael Krasny made the world a better place.

I admire Tom’s belief in universities and the way he puts serious resources behind that belief. Thanks to his donations, my life and countless others’ have been better.

What I take from Hugh Hefner isn’t a call to imitate him. His story is complicated.

Now, Alex knows so many people on campus, it’s wild. He's happier, freer, and it all started with breaking through that first barrier, talking to that one person in the...

After that gap semester, Chris never viewed college the same way again. He couldn’t. He saw life and college more like a professor or a graduate student, driven by...

Ian had two choices: accept the mediocrity around him or build something entirely new. He chose the latter. With his friend Bartosz Wielgos, Ian co-founded the Liquid...

But for Aaryaman, it felt hollow. He pursues a different kind of feeling: the click in your chest when something you’ve made finally comes alive. Click. That’s reality....

Luke Clancy’s superpower is simple: he makes a list, sends a text, and suddenly a room is buzzing. He calls them “jam sessions,” where strangers become collaborators and...

His campus years show what he really believes: turn campus into a playground. He doesn’t complain that college is boring; he posts on r/UIUC and throws a campus-wide...

This chapter could have been hundreds and hundreds of people. It took me about three or four months on this section alone, with stretches of intense 4 and 6 hours a day of...