Life’s biggest decisions often aren’t as clear-cut as they seem. What we see on the surface—the choice between something “safe” and something “risky”—rarely tells the whole story. There’s always a deeper current beneath those options, shaped by timing, intuition, and the ability to see what others might miss. And even when things don’t make sense in the moment, that’s often when the most transformative opportunities arise.

Back in 2020, when the world was thrown into chaos by the pandemic, I was working with Netflix’s Open Source Engineering team on Genie — a job orchestration system for big data and machine learning workflows. It was a solid opportunity, no doubt. But I ended up choosing a different path——joining the blockchain and tokenization efforts at Fidelity. At the time, it was still a bit of a gamble since the tech was early and unproven, but I felt it had real potential to change how finance works and unlock trillions in global economic opportunity. Fast forward to 2025, and digital assets are going mainstream across governments, institutions, and the masses.

My career move wasn’t about chasing a trend—looking back, I’m grateful I took that chance.