Cassie Kozyrkov

They were like...

read some, you know, fantasy books and go play outside.

And I'm like, but no.

The computer compels me.

I went to college when I was 15.

Wow.

To Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, as it was called then.

Now it's just Nelson Mandela University.

They realized that there was a better way to name that.

And I had actually, growing up where I did,

I didn't realize how big the world was, maybe because I was too set in my spreadsheets.

By this time, you can imagine, 15 or so, I'm now collecting data because it's beautiful, folks, it's beautiful.

I'm collecting data on all kinds of biometric things about myself, how much I slept and who did I talk to today and what did I study.

I've got data going back really far, which just tells you I really was quite a weird kid.

But we were a little behind the US in our internet connectivity, and my household was behind as well.

Even in my freshman year, when I would go to the computer lab, which was theoretically connected to the internet, I'd have to go at 4 AM just to get my home page for my email to load.

So that's where it's a little different now, connectivity-wise.

And the town that I grew up in, the suburb, the same kindergarten fed the same elementary school, which fed the same high school, which fed the same university.

And you kind of had choices with respect to your higher education, and they were three choices.

Choice number one is you don't go.