I grew up in Houston, Texas, with a twin sister, older brother, a mother and a father, and always a dog (or two). We lived below the poverty line, but we never realized it.

My dad began to lose his sight and stopped working when I was two. This changed everything. I started looking for ways to make money and minimize my burden on my family.

At six, I discovered entrepreneurship. I began selling candy during recess in 1st grade. I was hooked. And not just on the candy.

I discovered volunteering at 12 with Earth Club–we helped recycle paper at my school. I truly enjoyed doing good and was always the most eager volunteer.

Around 12 I started reading encyclopedias for fun. You can spot the nerds early.

I began working at 14. I got paid to go to school and learn job skills. It was great. I loved working then, and still do.

My high school was an experimental school. We were able to choose which classes to attend and when, and choose when to turn in our work (to a point). It was empowering, except we abused the freedom. In my case, I studied little and instead founded three organizations, experimented with microbusinesses, worked, and did competitions.

A turning point was when I founded my first organization at 15–it was a team to compete in an international space settlement design competition for high school students. I realized humanity needed to become an interstellar species if we were to survive a nuclear or AI holocaust. This was my first deep entrepreneurial experience and it changed my life. I competed nine times in local, regional, and international competitions across three coasts of the United States–as much or more than anyone else in the world at the time.

At 16 I lost my mother, an absolutely remarkable woman who deserved a much better life. Since then I’ve dedicated myself as a change agent. Much of my work is done in her honor.

College was amazing for me. I ended up as a triple major/quadruple minor. But I spent more time building organizations, doing research, and working than I spent on academics. I founded seven organizations, held seven part-time jobs and internships, and helped with 10 research studies before I graduated. College was my first time truly experimenting with a life of purposeful self-direction.

The next five years were a blur. After two years in a well-funded startup trying to redefine the museum industry, two sabbaticals, some time traveling the world, and a brief stint as a medic, I found my way to Singapore where for four years I worked to build the social impact sector. I worked for a Member of Parliament there trying to build the world’s first major social innovation park, among other things.

At the end of my Singapore stay my primary startup had just run the world’s first lifehacking bootcamp, but was on the verge of running out of money. We were saved by a small investment from conscious investor in Seattle. So we made the move there, running another bootcamp. We then moved to the DC area, running another there. Then to the San Francisco Bay area, running yet another.

In 2015, I stopped running lifehacking events to focus more directly on doing what was most counterfactually valuable. I became the principal founder of Effective Altruism Global, helping introduce effective altruism—and AI safety—to the broader world.

A lot went downhill from there. I witnessed significant corruption amongst effective altruist leadership, which I reported as a whistleblower. This turned out to be devastating for me. It was the first time I emotionally understood our species would likely go extinct in the very near future due to our own selfishness and short-sightedness.

The next year, I took a job helping to run Stanford ChangeLabs. I did some of the “Bay Area thing”—I lived in a lifehacker house, attended a few tech parties, etc. But I couldn’t stomach the relentless focus on frivolous things pervasive in the Bay.

I moved back home for a while to reclaim my Texan roots. Then I moved to Bali for five years, where I finished my life’s work—a protocol to efficiently and effectively help people self-actualize. Eventually I got tired of the rampant exploitation of Bali by expats and locals and left.

I soon found myself in the Philippines where I’m currently scouting locations to live off-grid. I’m hoping to survive the coming AI catastrophes and help humanity rebuild, if we’re able. I’m also working on a movement around “existential safety” and on international AI governance.