updated 2021-05-07
I was born in Israel and my family moved to Cupertino, CA when I was 6.
As a kid, I liked math and science and was loud and outgoing. My math abilities peaked in middle school (Mathcounts!) or maybe early high school (AMC series of math tests), but I didn't invest in them and never reached USAMO. I did some business stuff in high school: I competed in Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) competitions and eventually led my high school chapter.
When choosing what to study and where, I chose EECS at UC Berkeley over a business + CS program at a preppy East Coast school. I wasn't familiar with Agnes Callard's thinking at the time, but I felt I might be drawn to Wall Street if I went east, and I didn't want to become that type of person. I also knew it was easier to get a technical undergrad and switch to business later than vice versa.
During college, I served as a TA for the algorithms class and interned at progressively more name-brand companies. My goal was (and is!) to start out as an engineer but eventually move into a broader product/business role.
I was influenced by a Wealthfront blog post, maybe this one, which said that to start one's career in Silicon Valley, unless you want to work at FAANG for several years, your best bet is to join a tech company with product-market fit and other clear signs of success. If it grows a lot, you'll reap career and financial dividends. Using this logic and with my best lucky rabbit's foot and amateur VC hat on, I chose to start my career at Affirm.
I spent 3 years working on Affirm's virtual card platform. Initially, virtual cards were just one responsibility of the 5-engineer Consumer team, but as Affirm grew, the Virtual Card Platform eventually became its own team, and I owned that platform for almost 2 years.
San Francisco Bay Area, usually
Twitter @barakgila (DMs open!)
barak dot gila at gmail dot com
I would be more than happy to chat with you; get in touch!