Something that inspires me that you can listen to while reading:
https://youtu.be/CNfmij_Cpq8?t=2737
I was born in Washington, D.C. to a Turkish Anne and Canadian Baba—Anne and Baba mean mom and dad in Turkish. Derin means deep. My brother joined us a year and a half later. My family is very tight-knit, and one of our favorite things to do when we see each other is all run upstairs, flop onto my parents’ bed, and cuddle.
My girlfriend and I met at a summer camp in high school. We were weirdly good at this word guessing game called Contact which is all about saying the same word at the same time. At some point, we said the same thing at the same time outside of the game, and I said "Jinx, you owe me Jamba Juice." We went on a late night Jamba Juice run, discovered the store was closed, and sat down on a bench nearby. We leaned towards each other, had a sideways hug, and walked back holding hands. My heart has never beat as fast as it did that night. We were in a long distance relationship for six years, moved in together after college, and got married a couple months before celebrating 10 years together!
After graduating from Stanford, two friends and I started a recruiting company as part of Lightspeed's Summer Fellowship program. We helped hundreds of students and had some pretty big name customers such as Palantir and Airtable, but we ultimately found that working on the company didn't pass our "deathbed tests" and decided not to continue.
I then worked at a company called Quip (we were acquired by Salesforce). I had interned there previously, thought they had one of the strongest engineering teams in Silicon Valley, and sought to learn as much as I could.
While I was at Quip, I resolved the chronic back pain I had developed in college. I thought I could help others resolve similar pain and lead happier and healthier lives, so I started working on a remote personal training app. While I was working on it, I was introduced to a company called Future and decided my vision was so similar to theirs that it would behoove me to join them–so I did! I started as the only front-end engineer and left after we raised our Series B to start a company.
Since then, I've been working with one of my friends from college on a company called Worldclass. Our goal is to help people feel known, accepted, heard, valued, and understood — to end loneliness and build community. We think empowering leaders in activity-based communities is one of the best ways we can do that. To that end, we're building a platform to help people start and grow community-based businesses for the things that they're passionate about.
Acts of service (thoughtful effort) > Physical touch >> Receiving gifts > Quality time > Words of affirmation
Make restitution >> Genuinely repent ≥ Expressing regret > Accept responsibility ≥ Request forgiveness
I LOVE compound interest. Seeing things get better and better at a faster and faster rate literally makes my chest feel warm. This is a big part of why I like engine-building and strategy games (Scythe, Starcraft 2, Slay the Spire), the scene where Iron Man builds his suit, the first Harry Potter movie.
I LOVE feeling inspired. One of the most emotional moments of my life was rising up into Blackcomb mountain on a chairlift listening to Odesza’s Corners of the Earth.
I love being in flow state: dancing, climbing, skiing, programming.
