You grew up surrounded by early computing and technologists. How did your childhood shape your view of technology as a medium for human connection?

My father was a technologist who built server farms, and my grandmother was a mathematician at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When I was in the sixth grade, I spent the summer with my father at the Information Sciences Institute in Marina del Rey, right downstairs from NeXT Computers, where I met Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. My father had me build my first computer at age eleven. When I discovered bulletin board systems and early online text games, I saw that technology could dissolve distance and connect human beings across space and time. It enabled people to be evaluated for their collaboration, skill, and character rather than superficial facades.