Making Dreams a Reality

A Review of Q1 2024

So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.

Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

Welcome to this review of my first quarter of 2024. From colleges to life landmarks, there’s an abundance to cover.

In case we’re not yet familiar, my name is Alexander Yevchenko, and I’m a (now) 18 year-old from Toronto, Ontario. I like reading to learn about the world and creating new ideas that make a tangible impact on the world around me. I’ve previously consulted for billion-dollar companies, interned in venture capital, and I’m currently building out Cultura, a project to enable local farmers with the tools they need to improve productivity.

Looking back at these past three months, I still fail to comprehend just how much growth I’ve experienced in so little time. I’m eternally grateful to all of the people and ideas who have helped me along this journey, and to them I’d like to say: Thank you.

Without further ado, here’s what happened so far in 2024:

Turning 18

On February 18th, I became an ‘adult’. Turning 18 is weird, because you’re officially an adult, yet you’re living at home, going to high school, and broadly living the same life you were living the day prior (at least in my case). It doesn’t feel like the change everybody makes it out to be, but I did notice one important mental switch — a sudden need to take your life more seriously.

Broadly, I’ve already been considering what I wanted to do with the rest of my life — whether the decision of where to go to university, or what kind of career I’d like to pursue. But turning 18 is a point of realization, where all of that pondering and reflection has to be put into action. It’s one thing to say that you’re going to become an entrepreneur and change the world, but making these ideas a reality is an entirely different pursuit, which requires a very specific skillset and character, and more than anything, bravery.

There are already a few things that I can think of where I’ve shown some sort of bravery, like speaking on stages or doing my first cold plunge, but nothing to the degree of saying ‘I want to bring something entirely new into the world’ and actually doing it. I’ve realized that age isn’t necessarily correlated with bravery — once you’re 18, you don’t suddenly feel as if you can conquer the world. It’s rather a question of experience, or what you’ve done with your time on Earth, that really counts towards that level of bravery. If you have a track record of doing brave things, you’re more likely to convince yourself you’re capable of doing more.

Becoming a young adult has shown me a flicker of what that future life could be, whether exploring the world on my own or finally being able to go through all that legal paperwork without requiring my parents’ signature. It sounds silly, but it’s the first real recognition from the world around me that I’m an individual, capable of making my own decisions and thinking for myself. I’ve never really needed that validation to do want I wanted to do, but it’s nice to have less red tape. It’s really an exercise in freedom to pursue whatever it is that I’m up to at any point in the space-time continuum.

As I thought about the future, I couldn’t forget the moments and experiences that got me here. I’ve distilled the critical lessons life has taught me over the past 18 revolutions around the Sun, and I’ve decided to put them together in a short video log, which you’ve probably seen up above. I’ve gotten some feedback from teachers and friends that I sound a bit preachy or pretentious, but I didn’t have any purer form of relaying these ideas than me sitting down and speaking to the camera. I’d greatly appreciate if you gave it a watch, and if you enjoy it, leaving a comment and a like to boost engagement. A little really goes a long way.

Becoming a Morehead-Cain Scholar

As I sat in the Eaton Center food court in full business attire, sipping away at an iced latte, my hands trembled in anticipation. My finger hovered over the blue link, as the rest of the DECA executive team looked at me, anxiously. I clicked, and the little screen quickly filled with a rainbow of confetti. My broad smile prompted a roar of celebration, the flustered dinner-goers staring at us in confusion.

Just a few weeks later, I was on the quick hop down to Chapel Hill, with some friends new and old. The weekend I spent on campus was unlike any other I’ve ever experienced. Departing from an overcast and frosty Toronto, the warm breeze and twinkling sun were a welcome introduction. The campus didn’t disappoint, either. The cherry blossoms were in spring, decorating the grandiose architecture with little pops of color, and the vivid green grass mirrored the general feeling of excitement of the student population.

From the warm southern welcome at the Carolina Inn to the magnificent banquet in the historic Wilson Library, I envisioned UNC as my home for the next four years — and I relished the thought. The unique and accomplished faculty, my driven classmates, and the second-to-none facilities sealed the deal. As soon as I landed back home in Toronto, I signed the contract to officially become a Morehead-Cain Scholar.

As part of the program, I’m off on a three-week backpacking and kayaking trip in Minnesota and Ontario in June, which is sure to be quite the adventure. I’ve never spent more than a night or so in the backwoods, so 3 weeks in a tent, lugging around a kayak and a heavy pack on my back is sure to teach me a thing or two about leadership and resilience.

I’d like to give a thanks to all of the mentors who’ve helped me along my journey — my parents, my many teachers throughout the years, my friends, the staff at TKS, and all of the amazing people at the Morehead-Cain Foundation who carefully organized a spectacular weekend and keep the program excelling, year-after-year.

Other Things I’ve Been Up To

Collimator

Filming tons of new episodes for Collimator, the podcast I co-host with Unmol Sharma, covering all things emerging tech and business, with a special focus on delivering value to youth.

Here’s a selection of some of our favorite episodes so far:

• Michael Gibson, Co-Founder of the Thiel Fellowship and 1517 Fund

• Ching Tse, the First Hire at Commonwealth Fusion Systems

• Bob Dameron, Head of Business Development at Multiverse Computing

• Adam Molnar, Co-Founder of Neurable

If you enjoy the pod, a follow and a share goes a long way!

Robotics

Our school team is competing at our rapidly approaching regional competition, and we’ve frantically been piecing all the parts together. Working on everything from electrical to printing parts has taught me an immense amount about design thinking and what it means to be an engineer.

If you really want to be a 10x engineer, there are two vitally important skills that one must have — technical prowess and vision.

The technical aspect is developed over time, and requires a combination of both theoretical and experiential learning. I find that there’s often an inclination toward the latter because you’re ‘actually doing something’, but I’ve found that the people pursuing groundbreaking hardware applications have at least some sort of theoretical base upon which to base their companies. Of course, theory and practice without each other would amount to limited progress, so there is some harmony that must be struck between the two — which is the part I’m still figuring out.

I don’t think we’d be near the technological innovation we’ve experienced today without those who come into the world bearing a grand vision for what it could be. Whether Ford with the automobile or Musk with EVs, people with inspiration and an excessive thirst to make it a reality almost singlehandedly push innovation forward. What’s more, they’re able to sell the vision, both to the mass markets and the talented people that work with them to build out these companies. This made me think of something Friedberg said in a recent All-In, along the lines of founders trying to raise money as a metric to find a co-founder. That’s where the vision is lacking!

I’ve noticed this model of visionaries and tech whizzes emulated time and time again by founding teams, say Steve Jobs and Woz. They’re perhaps the greatest duo we’ve witnessed in the last century, because their skills complemented each other so well. If you dreamt it, Woz could figure it out, and Jobs was left with the arguably easier job of selling it to the masses.

I’m excited to show everyone what we’ve been working on when we finally compete!

A Final Reflection…

I watched La Boum (yes the one with Sophie Marceau) for the first time a month or so ago, and the headline song by Richard Sanderson really stuck with me. It’s called Reality, and it’s reminded me, along with reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, just how important dreams are to the human spirit.

We all have something that we’d like to achieve. I’ve tried asking people what their dreams are, and most of the people around me have said they’re not quite sure. Deep down, though, I know there’s something from their childhood or early teen life that they’d do anything, at that age, to become. If you pry deep enough, it’s always there, it’s just that it gets buried with cerebral sediment over time.

We all get clamped down by that sediment through the life pressures we face as we mature. We grow, we learn, and we forget. Buried under all of these layers, though, our dreams never go away.

The more I look around, the more I recognize the people that are truly happy with their lives are those who are living their dreams. Whether it’s my English teachers sharing their love for literature or people like Naval mentoring the next generation of founders, there is a certain spark in their eyes that immediately reveals the serenity of their soul.

You can call me naive, or whatever you want really, but I truly believe that the key to fulfillment is chasing these dreams. They keep you positive in the rough times, and keep you up at night as you work to realize them. After all, is any other life than the life of our dreams worth living?

If you’re looking for more on this topic, there’s a great Huberman Lab episode on this exact subject, that I listened to as I landed in the City of Dreams to celebrate my 18th birthday.

If you enjoyed, please give this post a like and a share, it’s very much appreciated. I’ll see you soon.