I felt compelled to write this as I believe it is crucially important to convey who I am, what I aim to achieve, what I stand for, my strengths/weaknesses; simply, my operating system. Originally, written to find a cofounder for my previous company, and now updated as a continue to discover the next part of my journey.

Who am I?

(Currently live in NYC metro)

I would describe myself as a deeply fortunate and grateful, yet incredibly unsatisfied being. Life has dealt me a seriously good hand in life; I was given all-functioning limbs, an insatiable mind, birth in one of the most economically powerful countries in the world, loving immigrant parents, and a soul hungry for adventure. I would argue that not despite, but because of these reasons I feel a burning desire to spread the fortunate circumstances I was given in the world to others.

I was born in New Jersey to two hard-working immigrant parents from Pakistan with one older sister, and moved to a small town in North Carolina at the age of six. While growing up most of my time was spent with a large (>80) extended family all located in the same small town in NC, which is truly a blessing. I have a niece who is absolutely the greatest thing in the world. I, also, met the love of my life to whom I am now married, and is a major addition to the bedrock of my existence.

I studied Chemical Engineering in college, and only realized it was not what excited me at the very end of my college career. I taught myself to write code for fun, and only later realized the joy of building solutions to various problems through code. But, learning how a manufacturing facility worked taught me a lot about how physical goods get made. A perspective I do not forget.

I started a startup in 2016, called Trakex, that made 3-D scanning technology for large shipments to allow trucking companies to price based on how much space something took up in a truck. I got into YC mostly because our team was incredible at chasing down customers and getting them to work with us. Ultimately, this business failed but it launched my career into startups where I've served in various roles:

• Solutions Architect @ Pendo (B2B SaaS for PMs)
  • Lead West Coast Solutions Architect activities ($4M → $25M ARR)
  • Tech Lead for brand new SF HQ, helped scaled team from 4 - 20 in 12 months
• Engineer/PM @ Farmshots (Remote Imagery software for Agriculture)
  • Started out writing production code, eventually my skills as a coordinator became more critical to the team so took on the role of leading our product revamp
  • Assisted in building computer vision systems for optimization of agricultural production
  • Acquired by Syngenta
• Head of Partnerships - Asia / Africa @ Global Data Consortium (Data Aggregator for Identity Verification)
  • Grew our entire data coverage in Asia and Africa from a handful of datasets to over 70
  • Acquired by London Stock Exchange Group
• Co-founder/CTO @ Casama (pre-PMF startup enabling user-owned networks)
  • Basically did everything under the sun (eng, sales, support, legal, admin, etc.)
  • Built products around ERC-20s, DAOs, Soulbound Tokens, On-chain Revenue Splits, etc.

I am convinced that crypto/blockchains will likely change almost every aspect of human civilization, with potential for both the good and the bad. It is an incredible opportunity to reset everything that we've come to take for granted in the 21st century, and re-architect it for a more equitable society. I aim to contribute towards that vision.

What I aim to achieve?

I've spent a significant amount of time self-reflecting and answering the important personal questions: What do I want to do and why I want to do it? I realized that what drives me in my core is the sense of mission. To be able to dedicate the time necessary to accomplish incredible feats, you need something grander than money and fame, and that is a mission.

What I want to do is to help the world improve on three specific axes:

• Increase global economic opportunity, freedom, and mobility
• Make Earth sustainable
• Make humans a space-faring civilization

At the time of writing this, I am primarily focused on mission number 1. I am aiming to live my life in a sustainable way as much as I humanly (yet flawed) as I can and a deep interest in exploring space in my future, if am I given one.

What I stand for? (My values)

I'll try to bullet through these.

• Time is the most scarce resource.
  • Therefore the most valuable resource in the world. Value your time and others.
• Impatient on actions, patient on results.
  • Dividends get paid when value is created, captured, and distributed back. Each step takes significant time, and there are no shortcuts. You must put in the work, analyze the data, and keep moving forward every day if you want to get anywhere meaningful. Long-term consistency.
  • Stay frugal, stay humble, and be ready for a repeated punches in the gut. Because whatever you hope to achieve, chances are it won't happen overnight. Play the game so you aren't ever knocked out, and you can keep building towards your dreams by compounding each successive attempt.
  • Most people want fast money, and fast fame. Those things can also go away just as fast.