When I started high school, my mind was already made up. I was going to become a doctor, and not just any doctor—a surgeon. Sure, I didn’t exactly know what kind of a surgeon I wanted to be, but that didn’t matter; I was going to be one.
Aiming High
Growing up, I thought that being a doctor was the most noble and important profession of all, superior to any other career choice. After all, doctors saved people from sickness and death. There wasn’t really any other profession that could make that kind of a claim.
This was maybe more important to me than it was to other kids my age, because my father had passed away at the age of 44, when I was only thirteen, and my mother was perpetually ill since childhood with renal disease. So I was exposed to the world of medicine from an early age, and I looked up to the doctors who had helped my parents. I wanted to help others in the same situation. And I was probably a little biased (and brainwashed), since I came from an immigrant family that believed medicine, law, and engineering were the only respectable professions to go into.
Obstacles 101
The first of about a thousand obstacles to that goal hit me hard in tenth grade, when I went to see my guidance counselor to discuss college. I told her about my intention to go into medicine, and the schools I was applying for: Harvard, MIT, Yale, and others. She listened patiently until I was done, and then smacked me with a reality check: there was no possible way I could get into any of those schools. In fact, my grades were not even close to what they needed to be for me to get into any decent medical school in the US. She told me that I should revisit my dreams.
That really hit hard, especially my ego! I had always thought of myself as smart, which had perhaps blinded me to the lack of effort I was putting into school. When she confronted me, I had to admit that she was probably right. I had been doing the minimal amount of work I could in order to coast along with B’s and a few C’s, in average non-honors classes, let alone AP coursework.
So I talked with her extensively about what grades I would have to make in order to bring up my GPA. To put it short - I had to get straight As from then on. Then I spent time talking with my uncle, who is six years older than I am, and who at that time was in college on the pre-med track. His advice to me was simply that there was no way around working hard and although I may see other students that seem that they are just having fun all the time and getting A’s - they are staying up late or waking up early and spending hours studying. Armed with their advice, I got to work on a single minded, one-track effort to get into a great college and top medical school.
Study Hard
That meant prioritizing studying over pretty much everything else in my life, except for some sports and going out on weekends. By eleventh grade, I was in all honors classes, as well as AP Biology and Physics. I did this quietly, without talking to anyone about it, even my mom. The pursuit was personal, for myself and nobody else. As time went by, I found that working hard and making progress toward my goal truly made me happy, regardless of what anyone else knew or said about it.
But although I turned things around, I still wasn’t accepted into any of the Ivy League schools I applied for, and many of the other schools rejected me as well. My about-face had been dramatic (and I was able to get straight As all the way through), but it didn’t bring my GPA high enough to allow me to compete with the super-high-caliber students who had been studying hard from the beginning. But I did get into one school that I was happy about: the NYU College of Arts and Sciences. The great thing about that one was that I would still be living in the city I loved, close enough to go home every week and see my family.
Study Harder
So I looked forward to college with confidence. By the end of high school, I had gotten used to studying and competing against the other students, even those in my honors and AP classes. In particular, doing well in AP coursework helped me to believe that I could take on college without too many problems.
So I worked out a detailed plan, choosing all the courses I was going to pile on. I decided I would include summer classes, so that I could finish my pre-med requirements by the end of my sophomore year (one year of English, one of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Calculus, etc). I maxed out my allotted credits for the first semester, something most counselors would tell you not to do. But for the first few weeks, I had everything under control, and I thought, “This isn’t as bad as I expected. I can handle this.”
That lasted until my first Chemistry exam.
It was harder than any test I had taken before, even the SATs! I got through it somehow, and walked out of class very upset, knowing that I had done terribly. After a while, though, I talked myself into feeling more hopeful. After all, the test was graded on a curve. And if I thought it was hard, then probably everyone else thought so too. So after the curve, my grade would probably be okay, right?
What I didn’t take into account was that my class included more than 250 students, all of whom studied as hard as I did, if not harder, and were arguably as smart as I was, if not smarter.
So it turned out that my “hopeful reasoning” was more like wishful thinking. When I went to class the next day, I found that I had totally failed that test with one of the worst grades I’d ever gotten. It was a punch in the gut, and hurt like one. It also scared the shit out of me! How was I going to get into med school if I couldn’t even pass my first chemistry exam?
Understandably, I was super distraught during the rest of class. It was hard to focus on much, other than the crappy grade on my exam paper. Still, things came into focus when the professor gave a speech about how a lot of us had failed that test, and how it should be a wake-up call for everyone, a test of whether or not we were really committed to the pre-med track. He assured us that our course load and expectations would only get harder from there on out. But there was a glimmer of hope: he said that if we passed all of the subsequent exams, he would drop that first one.
Hanging on to that one hopeful possibility, I went back to my dorm room and began to make a new action plan. It was clear that I couldn’t get by with just reading the material once and taking some sample quizzes. I needed to double down and be completely immersed in my studies, even if that meant giving up weekends. I decided I would go to every office hours, every TA session, get to class early, sit in the front row, and take copious amounts of notes.
Finding Success (and Computer Science)
Over that semester, I got to know my teachers and the department heads. I studied for hours and hours a day, almost every single day. And immersing myself in school that way helped tremendously - I got a 98 out 100 on the next chemistry exam, and from there, became obsessed with making straight A’s, like it was a life-or-death challenge.
All of this stemmed from fear: the fear of not making it into medical school in spite of all my hard work. I wanted to achieve that goal so badly. So I kept going with my hard-core, one-track studying, and the longer I worked at it, the easier it became to study well and make perfect grades.
In my second semester, I settled on computer science as my major. There were several reasons for that: first, I had no capacity left for memorizing tons of information. Computer science was great in that regard, because it was more about solving problems on the fly and building things than it was about memorizing data. Also, I needed a good backup career, in case somehow I didn’t make it into medical school. Computer science was something I enjoyed, and could make a decent living at. I also thought it might help me stand out a little from the crowd, since most other pre-med students were majoring in chemistry or biology. Finally, since studying a lot was a lonely job that already had me spending hours at my computer, I was basically halfway there.
NYU Med: Yes or No?
By the end of my sophomore year of college, I had spent pretty much every waking minute studying, including summers. I had managed to get straight A’s in all of my classes, and to get into some honors courses along the way. I also took my MCATs during my sophomore year, and got a decent grade. So I decided to apply for early admission to NYU’s medical school. To do that, I had to commit to not applying anywhere else that year, but I figured that if I didn’t get in, I could start applying to other schools in my junior and senior year. That was much more common, anyway. So I sent in my application, and waited.
One day I came back from class to my walk up, 300 square-foot studio apartment on 20th Street and 1st Avenue. Checking the mail, I saw a regular business-sized envelope from the Grossman School of Medicine at NYU. It was clear that there was just one single-page letter inside.
My heart dropped, and my eyes started to well up with tears, because I remembered from applying in high school that all of my rejection letters had been like that - acceptances always came in big packets with brochures, catalogs, and all kinds of other stuff.
I opened the envelope and pulled out the letter. Through my tear-blurred vision, I saw the word “Congratulations.” In disbelief, I wiped my eyes and read it again.
All of the insanely hard work I had put in, week after week, for the past five years, had paid off! I had reached my goal, and I was so, so happy. Even more than that, I was relieved. It was like I had been carrying a 50-pound backpack for that five years, and someone had just taken it off of my shoulders. I could relax, finally, and not worry about med school—because I was already in!
I did the usual, calling my family, calling my mom, screaming and shouting about how I had made it. I called the maybe two friends I had left by then, since I had lost most of them (and not made any new ones) during my multi-year studying frenzy. It was the best news I could have asked for.
Starting Up Something New
From there until graduation, I focused mainly on my computer science work. Back then, the science department and curriculum weren’t as developed and rich as they are now, so I ended up taking a lot of graduate courses for my electives; that’s all there were. I also started working on the side, as a software developer for some startups. The Internet was starting to take off, and web technologies and e-commerce were just starting to emerge, too.
I found myself truly in love with the field of computer science, both from an academic standpoint and a real-world perspective. Working with cutting-edge technology was great in and of itself, but I also loved the instant gratification of seeing the results of my hard work, by launching a software application or going to a website. That feeling is addictive.
The high of my startup work was amplified even more because I was getting paid, sometimes $100 or even $200 an hour, doing work that I loved. This was as much money as, say, a tenured lawyer might make, but I was just twenty-one years old and still an undergrad. It helped me save up a good bit of money that would come in very useful later on.
On the other hand, when I thought about becoming a doctor and practicing medicine, it all seemed like a distant dream. The only way it could become a reality would be if I went through years and years of more work: four years of medical school, followed by many more years of residency, and perhaps even more years of a fellowship.
NYU Hospital, Up Close
Around the second semester of my senior year, things got very dark for me. I was still living in the same walk-up building on 20th Street and 1st Avenue, which was arguably not a great neighborhood at that time - but it was within walking distance from campus, and also very close to NYU’s med school, so I figured I would keep renting there for some time.
That turned out to be an extremely helpful circumstance, because around that time, my mom suffered a sudden and massive hemorrhagic stroke. She was hospitalized for about six months. Initially, she was admitted to the hospital in Long Island where she lived. But because of the severity of her condition, she was moved to NYU Medical Hospital, right down the street, for treatment and recovery.
For the first six weeks of her stay there, my mom was barely conscious. l spent all the time I had, aside from working and going to school, sitting next to her bed, studying at her bedside instead of in my apartment, and sleeping in a recliner next to her most nights. In the morning, I would walk to my apartment to shower and clean up before going to class. Here and there, my aunts, uncles, and grandparents would help, taking turns to stay with her so that I could get a break. It was a draining time, emotionally and physically, for everyone.
What made things even harder was the fact that now, I also had to run my mom’s real estate business. I had no idea how all of it worked, so I had to reverse-engineer everything by going through her physical files (she didn’t use a computer, or keep any digital copies). I couldn’t ask her any questions, because she was barely conscious, and even when she was semi-awake, she couldn’t remember even the basic things like people’s names.
Thankfully, I was able to figure it out, piecing things together with her accountant and lawyer, and I spent a good amount of time putting it all into a computer system that made it much easier for me to manage. I hoped it would make things easier for her, too.
After my mother regained consciousness, and her memory started to come back, her doctors started her on physical therapy at the Rusk Institute, which is right next door to NYU Hospital. That was great, because I could be with her a lot, and help her through her recovery.
My mother and I a few months before her stroke
Throughout my mom’s trauma, I was spending a lot more time in the hospital than I would have even if I had already been in medical school! I got a lot of hands-on, real-life experience dealing with doctors, patients, interns, nurses, and other medical staff. I learned about medical billing, and what criteria patients must meet to stay in the hospital or physical therapy. I got to see the good, the bad, and the ugly of the medical profession, and it turned out that it wasn’t as ideal or pretty as I had expected it to be. I realized that doctors are actually overworked, underpaid, and severely under-appreciated!
As my family and I worked through the weeks and months of my mom’s hospitalization and recovery, I also found myself dealing with some very heavy and negative issues with my mom and life in general. And because I started to associate all of that with the hospital, I began to almost hate the place, or at least hate being there. And I started to dread the thought of spending four more years in that same place. Was medical school actually, after all of my work to get there, the wrong choice? I wondered in the back of my mind. But I had come too far to back out. So I kept going, in spite of the way I felt.
Starting Med School
My mom was doing much better by the end of my senior year. She could walk with a walker and someone by her side, and was finally ready to go back home to Long Island. Once graduation was over, I decided to go to Long Island as well, so I could spend the summer helping her, driving her around, and assisting with her extensive physical therapy. I also spent a lot of time training her on how to use the computer and the digital system I had set up for her real estate business. I also saw that summer as a little break before the brutal studying requirements of med school took over.
Fall semester arrived, and my mom was well enough to be on her own (with some daily help, and assistance from my grandparents). So I started medical school, moving in with a friend of mine named Jon. We found a one-bedroom apartment on 36th Street and Park Avenue, put up a dividing wall to split it into two bedrooms, and shared the rent so that we could afford it. The first day after we moved in, I headed off to class, and he started his first day of orientation at Goldman Sach’s trading division. We were on opposite sides of the spectrum when it came to our life goals and career trajectories.
About a month into med school, I was completely miserable. When I wasn’t at the library studying, I was in my apartment studying. I did make a few friends in medical school, some of whom I had actually known growing up! But I found it hard to connect with them, because all they could talk about was medicine, all the time.
Meanwhile, I had spent the last two years away from the pre-med psychos, studying other subjects and socializing with people outside the pre-med and medical fields. I just didn’t share the consuming passion for medicine that the other med school students had. In fact, constantly being in the same hospital where my mom and I had spent those dark and difficult months was super depressing, bringing back bad memories day after day. A lot of the time, all I could think about was when I could leave.
Living with Jon wasn’t helping, either. He was living it up! Constantly having friends over to the apartment, going out for dinner and drinks, and working at an exciting job that actually made him money. Whereas I was paying a ton of money to basically become a hermit, tortured with memorizing mundane facts about biochemical processes. I wasn’t jealous, but it was all making me doubt my choices. Was my life goal of being a doctor even what I truly wanted? Or was I just going through the motions, because I felt like I had to?
Serious Business
I got my answer one Sunday morning, a little over four months into my first year at NYU Medical School. Jon was still sleeping in after a long night of partying, while I had been up since about seven that morning, studying in my room with a huge anatomy book on my lap. It was a dreary, cloudy, cold day in NYC and I was dreading the hours and hours of studying I still had left to finish.
Jon eventually got up, and ordered in some bagel and egg sandwiches. When they arrived, he brought them to my room, and started talking to me about a new tech company he had learned about at work. The company was called Citrix, and they made special software that allowed people to use Windows applications without having to run Windows on their own computers. The software ran on a server, and the users could use the internet almost like a long mouse, keyboard, and monitor wire to access it. Then he started to talk about the implications of that technology in terms of making computing more like a utility you pay for, instead of the way it worked back then, buying software and hardware and upgrading every few years (and in many cases needing a tech person or team to help with all of that).
He told me the future was in companies that were ASP’s (Application Service Providers, or as they’re now known, SaaS companies). Half-jokingly, he said that he should quit Goldman Sach’s and I should quit med school, so that we could start one of our own. But only half-jokingly. Things got serious when he said that, if I agreed, he would do it.
As he spoke, I slowly closed the anatomy book, and the proverbial light bulb went off above my head. Everything he was saying to me resonated with me, like I was listening to a beautiful song, and the puzzle pieces of the universe were coming together in my head so that I could see the big picture, and how brilliant and elegant the idea was.
I knew right away that it was what I wanted to do. We both had some money saved up from working, and we could use that to seed the business. Plus, he had two other friends who could join us as founders that would be great additions. Jon would focus on the business aspect of things, like sales and raising money. I would focus on the technology and be the CTO. I told him I was in.
We were both super excited. He would give his two weeks’ notice the next day, and I decided that I would just not go back to school at all; I wouldn’t waste one more minute there. Another 50 pound lead backpack had been taken off my shoulders, just like the day I received my acceptance letter. We didn’t need a business plan - although we would eventually make one for investors - to know that this was the right thing to do for us.
I called my mom and told her I wasn't going to school anymore: that I was going to start my own business with Jon. She simply said, “I love you and trust you - go do it if it makes you happy!” That really solidified things for me, because it was my mom who was paying for my med school, and had already paid for that first semester. The sun had come out, shining a bright, inspiring light on my life and career path, that dreary NYC day. I spent the rest of the day working, the same way I would usually have studied all day - but now with a renewed feeling of joy, and a smile on my face!
Failing Upward
Fast forward about three months, and we had set up our company, raised over a million dollars in investor money, set up a cliche, loft-like office on 36th Street and 5th Avenue, and hired about 10 people, mostly tech, to join our team. We called our business Offyx.
Screenshot of the Offyx Website in 2000 Courtesy of The Way Back When Machine
It was around the dot-com-era boom, and investors were acting irrational (like giving a million bucks to a bunch of 22-year-olds who had never started a business before). Six months in, and I had finally created a functional web portal where business users could access their applications and files online (this was before the term “cloud” existed), and buy new applications they needed (this was before the term “app store” existed). We were breaking the rules of tech, innovating and working fiercely.
It might sound unbelievable, but even though I was working probably ten times as hard and as much as I had in school, I didn’t even feel it. It was all fun, exciting, fresh, and gratifying for me. And I was learning more than I had ever learned from reading books, because I was actually doing things, and making things, and failing all the time, but still figuring out how to move forward and get around the obstacles.
In the end, Offyx failed as a business and a company. Although we had a viable, innovative, and kick-ass product, and a few customers that were early adopters, there were a bunch of things working against us that proved just too difficult to overcome. Broadband penetration in the early 2000’s wasn’t yet there and adopted by businesses, so our customer base was super limited. And when the dot-com bubble burst, it scared away investors, including ours, who refused to keep their funding commitments to keep the company afloat. On top of all of that, eventually 9/11 would happen in NYC. That was the final nail in the coffin for us, bringing morale to an all-time low.
Lessons Learned
The whole story of Offyx could take up a lot more time and pages, but suffice it to say that despite its ultimate failure, it was one of the happiest times of my life. Through pursuing Offyx, I learned everything I needed to know to start over again when it failed, and eventually become successful several times over. Here are a few of my biggest takeaways.
Never Regret
Even though I worked so hard just to let it all go, I don’t regret that. My friends and fellow students couldn’t believe that I just left; to them, it was like I had given up on all of my progress. But I didn’t see it that way. Changing my mind wasn’t giving up: it was the next step to where I wanted to go. And my education affected me in ways that were really helpful, giving me critical thinking and problem-solving skills, as well as confidence that I could figure out hard problems and get around obstacles.
Not a Fortune-Teller
What makes you happy today might not make you happy a few years from now, a decade from now, or forty years from now. In the moment, it can be hard to believe that what you love and feel passionate about could become unimportant to you (or even a source of misery). But it can.
On top of that, there’s what Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has called the “End of History Illusion.” That is, it’s easy enough to look back on your past self and see how much you’ve changed. But it’s really difficult to project further change into the future; instead, we tend to look ahead, imagining that we’ll stay the way we are now.
For these reasons, it’s important to stay flexible and open to changing your mind, and to allow yourself to at least try a big change.
Happiness is What Matters
When I was working on becoming a doctor, I thought that the prestige and nobility of the profession was what mattered most, so even when it made me miserable, I pressed on. But now I think that the costs of becoming a doctor are too high for most people. There’s the financial investment, for one thing, which can put you in debt for decades while you work it off doing a very hard job and living a very uncomfortable life. There are also social costs, from the isolation and intense studying required. And there are opportunity costs, the cost of missing out on being able to do other things. So if medicine doesn’t make you truly happy, then my guess is you’re better off doing something different.
Take the Worst Case into Account
A final takeaway is that for me, starting Offyx was a leap, but it wasn’t an impossible leap. If I projected the worst case scenario, which would be the failure of the business, there were still plenty of ways to bounce back from that. After all, I was young, just starting out, with a lot of experience working in my field. I had some seed money, and I was partnering with other founders who had a lot of strengths. If (and eventually when) Offyx failed, there would be other ways to move forward. In fact, if I wanted to, I could always go back to medical school.
So I’m not advocating necessarily for wild, burn-it-all-down career changes, although those might work for some people. My experience is that of a med school dropout, someone who had worked hard to realize his dream, but who then changed directions drastically. Was it easy? No. But it was a lot easier and more fulfilling than chasing a dream that had lost its appeal, and in the end, it proved to be the right choice.