Why I dropped out of college to build an AI startup (and why most people shouldn't)

"I was sitting on the steps of Duke Chapel at 2 a.m. in December 2023, the Gothic towers looming above me, a 210-foot reminder of everything I was about to walk away from. My phone was exploding with notifications: Y Combinator had just accepted us. ChatGPT had hit 100 million users in two months-faster than TikTok, faster than Instagram, faster than anything in human history. And I was about to break my single mother's heart."

"In six hours, I'd be dropping out of one of America's best universities. The same university my mother had sacrificed everything to get me into. The same university whose acceptance letter made her cry tears of joy in our cramped apartment kitchen in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a place most Duke students couldn't find on a map, where American university acceptance letters arrive like answered prayers, meant to lift entire families. The only thing harder than getting into Duke from there was explaining why I was leaving."

"I threw up twice before leaving Duke that morning, once in the dorm bathroom, once behind the student center. Not from the previous night's parties; I'd stopped going to those months earlier while my hallmates were doing keg stands. I was too busy watching the world change at warp speed. While my classmates wrote papers about AI's potential, we were teaching it to think in practice."

At 2 a.m. on Duke Chapel steps in December 2023, a student faced leaving a prestigious university after Y Combinator acceptance and amid ChatGPT's explosive growth. ChatGPT reached 100 million users in two months, accelerating the decision to pursue an AI startup. The student's single mother had sacrificed everything to secure the university admission from Dhaka, Bangladesh, making the departure emotionally wrenching. The student experienced physical sickness, had abandoned campus partying to focus on building, and contrasted classmates' academic concerns with the startup team's worries about scale. The choice felt terrifying but necessary as history unfolded rapidly.

Read at Fast Company