Jared Isaacman

Like I should be pumping gas in, in New Jersey or something.

Um, so, uh, like I'm all for like the well, you know, paved road, um, you know, through higher education to get to success.

And that's certainly the road my kids will be on.

So my parents were a little, um, they were out of their mind to ever let me go down this path, but I'm, I'm, I'm grateful they did.

So I always wanted to be an astronaut.

I mean, when I was five years old, this is how I got into an aviation career.

When I was five, in kindergarten, I would check out books from the library, like the elementary school library with picture books of the space shuttle.

And I remember telling my kindergarten teacher, someday I'm going to be an astronaut.

She said she'll be watching in her rocking chair one day.

When I did wind up becoming an astronaut, she had already passed away, so she didn't get to see it.

But...

I was always enamored by space.

I built my first computer so I could play flight simulators.

I became a pilot because I thought that's as good as it's going to get.

I'm a realist.

I'm not going to be struck by lightning and become an astronaut.

I went to the space camp for aviation.

It's called the Aviation Challenge at Space Camp.

I was 20 years old, I guess, four years after I started my company, where I was waking up on my keyboard

And I was just burning myself out because I was going 20 hours a day.