Alexandr Wang: “This is a Once-in-a-Civilization Opportunity”

All right, [music] full rockstar treatment for Alexander Wang, everyone. All right, [cheering] [applause] so why don't we start out uh backstage? were saying, you know, one of the cool ways to think about this event is like, you know, this room is actually full of people who are just like us, but when we

were 18 or 20 or, you know, there's some 16 year olds in this audience, you know. Um, let's jump to your story. I mean, you got it came up always really smart like math olympiad like jump us to, you know, the Alex of that time like what were you feeling? What were you

thinking? And what drove you down this road? Yeah, I um uh well I grew up in New Mexico, Los New Mexico um which now Oenheimimer famous, but um it really was the middle of nowhere. And uh I remember I did all these math competitions, all these um computer science competitions, but then um I knew I wanted to do really

big things and it was like not exactly clear how or what the exact paths to do that would be. Um, and I had a friend who was really into programming. Um, and you know, after high school got an internship in the valley, worked, I think his first internship was at Palunteer. And, um, and he, you know, he

was kind of this, um, influence for me. And so, after I finished, uh, high school, I ended up working at Quora, um, here in Silicon Valley. And then, um, I worked there for a year. I took a gap year to work there. Um and then I went to MIT. Um and this was I was 19 when I

worked at Quora. I was 18 when I went to MIT. And I was 19 when I started um scale. And I remember this period from like 17 to 19. It was um uh I felt like I was constantly changing like you know exactly what I want to do was constantly changing you know I was learning so much