Different Rooms, Same Questions

On paper, my 2025 looked… a little unfocused.

I’m a biotech-obsessed IB student. My world should be pipettes, microscopes, and figuring out how to get microalgae to produce biofuel.

But in June, I finished an internship at Cento Ventures. I was an “observer” sitting in on Investment Committee meetings. These are rooms where people decide the future of multi-million dollar startups in Southeast Asia. I was just trying to soak it all in, taking notes while partners with decades of experience discussed portfolio strategy.

A few months later? Job shadowing at Chainstack, a deep-in-the-weeds blockchain infrastructure company. We’re talking node APIs, low-latency data, 70+ chains.

The obvious question is: what does this have to do with biology?

And I get it. For a while, it felt like three different worlds. In one room, it’s “commercial dynamics” and “market strategy.” In another, it’s “onchain operations.” In my head, it’s “hydrocarbon yields.”

But it’s not.

After a while, you realize everyone is just trying to solve the same three problems.

1. The System: How does this thing actually work?
2. The Blocker: What’s stopping it from working better?
3. The Scale: How does this grow from 1 to 1,000,000?

Whether it’s a founder pitching a Series A, a dev trying to cut latency, or me trying to figure out how to import a very specific algae strain… it’s the same set of questions.

The “T-shape” thing isn’t about knowing a little about everything. It’s about building a horizontal bar strong enough to connect the deep, specialist spikes. It’s about sitting in any room and knowing which question to ask.