Dr. Alok Kanojia

So my 15 year old brain was like,

looking at this amazing idea of what a doctor was, and both my parents are doctors.

My dad was an amazing doctor.

I suppose my mom is too, but my dad was one of the seminal researchers in graft versus host disease.

It's how he landed his job at MD Anderson.

So he came from India and was an oncologist.

And so I also remember like he used to, back then HIPAA wasn't, I think there wasn't even a HIPAA law.

So he would have patients over to our house and stuff like that.

He would throw a Thanksgiving party every year where like he would invite all of his patients, all cancer survivors and things like that.

And so my dad was really like a mythical figure, incredibly charismatic.

And so I was like, oh yeah, I'm gonna be that.

And so it became a huge part of my ego.

And then it turns out that ego is not a great way to motivate.

Well, it can be a great way to motivate yourself.

But then I ran into trouble when I hit college because I had never learned how to study.

So either I like absorbed everything and did well on the test.

So I went straight from like A's to F's and then got addicted to video games, failed out of college.

But your original question was, was I into computers and why?

And that probably has something to do with it.

Well, so Andrew, I'm delighted to be speaking to a scientist because I think it helped and hurt.