Charlie Curnin

I’m deeply grateful to many people, but Matt Damon and Alan Turing in particular.

Matt Damon because, having two lawyers for parents, it was not until I watched Good Will Hunting in middle school that I got hooked on technology. I wanted to be like the janitor at M.I.T. he plays, who cracks a difficult combinatorics problem, and so for help I turned to Python programs’ infinite patience for trial and error. This cemented in me a love of coding that I followed from discrete math to computational biology and NLP, and from a research lab in New York to stints at software companies like Dropbox.

Alan Turing because, having sometimes felt like an outsider on account of being gay, I’m glad to be able to take inspiration from the exceptional contributions that outliers have made to technological progress. I feel very lucky to have a job that lets me help “outsiders”—maybe you!—remake the world.

Velocity—and thoughtfulness. Speed of execution is a virtue, in all kinds of settings. But careful and creative thinking (about your product, your team, your customers) helps you know what it is you should run toward.

In truth, I get excited about chances to work with all kinds of hardworking, dedicated people—and with all kinds of cool technology. (Especially machine learning!)

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