At 16 I wanted to be a physicist. I enrolled in Physics at PUC Minas to become a researcher. Today I orchestrate AI to ship products.
How did one lead to the other? It goes through a professor, an esports club and a lot of good people along the way. Here's the story.
The advice that changed my course
A nuclear physics professor, Dr. Zé Roberto, pulled me aside. He said I looked like an entrepreneur and a trailblazer, not a bench scientist. And that I'd waste that stuck in a lab.
At 17 I switched to engineering. It was one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received.
Building teams with no money
In my early twenties, I built esports teams. I had no money to buy stars, so I did the opposite.
I looked for the kid who played brilliantly in a messy bedroom, the one nobody had spotted yet. And I built the team around him.
It worked beyond expectations. I led more than 35 people and ran the club for six years. I reached the top of Dota 2 in South America and still played, to the point of competing in a world championship. Teams that came through there became FURIA in Counter-Strike and won CBLOL in League of Legends.
The number I'm proudest of
That one isn't on a trophy. It's the more than 40 people I helped develop, from interns to solid positions in real careers, with multiple champions formed along the way.
People are the result that lasts.
It was never about the game
I thought it was about the game. Over time I understood it was about finding potential, building a team and fighting for the process every day, with few resources.
Then came industrial engineering, Lean Six Sigma and the growth teams. There, instinct turned into numbers: 103% of target, an average ROI of 11.6x and over 3,600% growth in lead generation.
And where does AI come in?
Today this path has a name. On the technical track, the top can be the high-impact individual contributor, without becoming a manager. The person who takes the whole problem and delivers it from start to finish. That's where I perform best, now with AI as leverage.
When AI arrived, a lot of people asked "how do I program this?". I asked something else: "what team do I build with this, and what problem do I solve?".
I didn't become a programmer. I became someone who orchestrates AI to deliver products that work in the real world.
And you, who was the person who pulled you aside and changed your course?
