I was born in a village near Changsha, Hunan Province. My parents were factory workers.
I was never the smart kid—always ranked in the bottom 30% of my class.
In China, if you’re not good at school, people say you’re useless. I heard that a lot.
I failed math twice in junior high. My teachers didn’t even remember my name.
I wanted to dream big, but I didn’t believe I deserved it.
My gaokao score wasn’t good enough for any top-tier university.
I ended up at a third-tier college in Jiangxi Province—no one had even heard of it outside the region.
The day I left, my mom hugged me and whispered, “Don’t come home unless you can change your fate.”
In my college dorm, everyone smoked, played Honor of Kings, or complained about life.
I asked myself: What’s the difference between me and students at Tsinghua or Fudan?
I found a Baidu post from a senior at Zhejiang University saying: “If you want to learn coding, don’t wait. Just start. The internet has everything.”
I started learning Python through Bilibili videos and LeetCode.
At first, I couldn’t even understand basic loops. I cried once because I couldn’t solve a beginner problem.
But every day, I practiced. Solving just one more problem than yesterday.
My classmates were partying. I coded through Spring Festival.
I used to sneak into the library before it opened to get a seat with power and Wi-Fi.
On Zhihu, I messaged strangers asking about internships and how they got them.
After 1.5 years, I landed a remote internship with a small AI startup in Shenzhen.
My pay was ¥2000/month. I sent it all home.
The next summer, I got another internship in Hangzhou. They picked 2 people out of 500.
One was from Fudan. The other was me.
That internship paid ¥7000/month—more than my dad ever earned.
With my own hands, I paid for my final year tuition.
Back at college, I started a coding club and trained juniors for local algorithm contests.
I made everyone believe even rural students can beat Peking University kids in logic.
I placed in the top 1% on Nowcoder’s national challenge.
Job offers came in: Tencent, Meituan, ByteDance. All for ¥350k to ¥400k CTC.
But I chose a tiny US-based startup with a ¥300k offer—because the CTO called me “the most curious candidate.”
I moved to Shanghai and lived in a 5-person apartment, coding 12 hours a day.
I didn’t care about food or clothes. I just wanted to build something meaningful.
After a year, they flew me to San Francisco.
The U.S. shocked me. Quiet streets. Clean parks. Free tap water.
I walked around Stanford campus with tears in my eyes.
The CEO took me under his wing. When he left to start something new, I followed.
I moved back to China and worked remotely from my hometown for a year.
I worked 16-hour days. My grandma made me soup between stand-up calls.
In 2020, they applied for my H-1B. I returned to the U.S., now as a founding engineer.
In 2023, the company IPO’d on Nasdaq. I watched the screen on Times Square with my name on it.
My stock options made me worth over $2 million overnight.
I bought my parents an apartment in Changsha and one for myself in California.
I married my long-distance girlfriend from Sichuan. We now have a son.
Every Chinese New Year, we fly business class back to visit family.
I angel invest in Chinese startups. I mentor college students on Zhihu.
My mother once said: “Others had destiny. You built yours.”
If you’re from a small town and think it’s over—remember this: starting late doesn’t mean finishing last.