janiseGPT 5.2

people

an incomplete archive of friends + family, mentors, and individuals that inspire me

  • lauren reeder (partner @ sequoia)
  • diana hu (gp @ y combinator)
  • amanda askell (philosopher + alignment @ anthropic)
  • lawrence liu (co-founder @ willow voice) and i have known each other since middle school. his tenacity and optimism are so contagious, and i'm constantly struck by his ability to see the best in people.
  • emily li (partner @ contrary)
  • shagun maheshwari (engineer @ tesla)
  • advika jayanti (product @ samsara)
  • julia austin (author + executive fellow @ hbs)
  • aryan mahajan (founding engineer @ dedalus labs)
  • alina fang (product @ speak)
  • huarui lai (product designer @ palantir) dm'd me to ask if i was looking for a mentor for cmu's asian students association when i was a freshman. since then, we've had countless adventures together, from hiking up mount rainier in seattle to going on shopping sprees in nyc. huarui is, by far, the most exploratory person i know, and she constantly inspires me to say yes to the trip before i overthink it, start conversations with strangers, and make bold choices. she also just finished an ironman. crazy stuff.
  • george kantor (research professor @ cmu) was the head mentor for my all-girls robotics team. his work with agricultural robotics is really awesome too-- i remember being fascinated by the virtual demos he'd give us when we were on breaks. i also almost ran him over with our robot once. safe to say, i wasn't chosen to be on the drive team.
  • nat friedman (head of product @ meta superintelligence labs)
  • alana goyal (founder @ basecase capital)
  • kathleen carley (professor + director of IDeaS @ cmu)
  • lin qiao (co-founder @ fireworks ai)
  • nicole wischoff (founder @ wischoff ventures)
  • mom + dad -- my anchors. i'm so incredibly lucky to have them not only as my parents, but also as lifelong role models. i've been talking more about my upbringing with them recently, and their thesis for raising me was simple: "risk is a teacher you can't replace." against what everyone else told them to do, my parents bet early on my ability to recover from failure, learn, and try again. they believed in it so strongly that they completely uprooted their lives to immigrate here without knowing a single sentence in english, hoping it would give me more room to choose my own path. one of my life goals is to publish a biography about their story.
  • alex is my little brother and built-in friend whether he likes it or not. lol.
  • victoria + alexa are my best friends at cmu. i don't even want to know how many all-nighters we've pulled together.
  • stephanie zhang (applied ai researcher @ datadog) is genuinely one of the most amazing mentors i could've asked for. she played a defining role in how i began exploring ai safety research at datadog. beyond that, stephanie models the kind of humility and thoughtfulness that leaves a lasting impact. i’ll never forget our spontaneous phone booth sessions, where she’d help me with everything from stress-testing ideas to navigating my quarter-life crisis. i want to be someone’s stephanie one day.
  • mr. kyle adams was the type of teacher who truly went above and beyond-- the kind you think only exist in coming-of-age movies. when i first met him in third grade, i was the fresh face at my new school. from proofreading my travel diaries to inviting me to "looney lunches" (where he'd screen looney tunes in his classroom during lunchtime), mr. adams made a point of noticing me at a time when i felt largely invisible. when i ruptured my spleen after falling over a balcony, he was the first person to visit me in the hospital. he's proof that a teacher's impact goes way beyond the classroom.
  • laura du (partner @ afore capital) wrote me my first check to drop whatever i was doing at school and book a one-way plane ticket to sf. that choice gave me my first real taste of agency and rewired a lot of parts in my brain.
  • mar hershenson (co-founder @ pear vc) specializes in pre-seed + seed investments, and i love how thoughtfully bullish she is on early talent. you can tell she used to be a technical founder by how hands-on she is with the founders she backs. also, i ran into her earlier this year at treehacks, where she'd somehow made the time as a managing partner to come judge projects irl. says a lot.
  • dr. henny admoni (associate professor @ cmu) does super cool things with assistive robots at the harp lab. in another life i would've stuck with hardware. maybe i'll go back in the future :)
  • dario amodei (co-founder @ anthropic) is someone i look up to for his safety-first approach to scaling intelligence responsibly. i think it's really reassuring to see someone in his position care so deeply about the downstream impact of his systems, especially in a space where capability is moving so much faster than accountability. i recommend everyone to give this short essay he wrote a read!