Mario Harik

So I remember at the time, a few years later, I came to MIT in Boston to do my graduate studies in engineering.

And I met programmers that were 50 times better, that just had beautiful minds, how they thought about things, how they problem solved.

And that taught me that

i'm actually i'm i'm a good programmer but i'm no way close to being a great programmer and that taught me humility it actually enabled me that then suddenly it opens up many many doors because suddenly you're saying well i might be good at this however

wow like look at these other people how they're approaching that problem in a very different way and that humility enables you to then learn more and be able to break through ceilings and always get better and not be able to be stuck in a local maximum in whatever area of expertise it is so when i think about ego i think it's a shortcoming in somebody's framework of thinking

where they think effectively that their knowledge, their skills are the best they can be.

And that prevents them from being able to break through and wanting to learn more and ask more questions as opposed to tell more about a certain area of expertise.

I grew up in Lebanon in the 80s.

During that time, the country was at war.

And it's remarkable to look back at those times because I remember many, many, many nights where at night we wouldn't sleep at home.

We would actually be sleeping in a shelter, in a bomb shelter.

And it was a period of time for the country that was a very, very dark period of time.

Now, my brothers and I were very lucky because we had parents who were unbelievable.

They provided us a beautiful childhood that was surrounded with love.

And although the world around us was crazy, we actually were not impacted to a certain extent.

But you're still obviously dealing with the trauma of war around you.

So it teaches you a lot about how when you're under pressure, it's one thing to be in a bomb shelter and your neighborhood is getting bombed versus any other type of pressure you're seeing in business or in life.

But we were lucky that our parents created, again, a cocoon to a certain extent of safety and gave us what every child want to have in their childhood, which is love, which is a lot of support and a very loving environment.

But also we had to flee the country because of the war.

We lived in multiple countries.