"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
Sometime in my Sophomore year in college, I started thinking about the above question. What could be a meaningful purpose to my existence? In my experience, college was the perfect environment to explore some of these fundamental questions. After years of pondering, I ultimately found my purpose around fixing some of the deeper issues that I had seen during my childhood.
I grew up in a middle class family in Lahore, Pakistan. During my early years, I saw so many people struggle with some of the most basic necessities of life. At the time, this didn't seem odd to me. I thought this was the way of the world, the standard default human condition of our times. Many years later, after spending time in the US, I realized that many of the things I had seen while growing up were actually unique to Pakistan. And as I read about history, I learned that there was historical context to the status quo.
All of the above ultimately led me to an important decision -- I wanted to spend my life fighting for the underdogs, making it my mission to lift large communities of people out of poverty. An important nuance to this decision was a desire to do this at a country-level scale. I didn't have all the answers, but one thing that seemed obvious was the importance of building your own skill set. And that led me to the world of early stage startups.
I can be reached at gul@metal.so.