Challenge Accepted
Jeremi clarifies what he wants out of his internship; Luca reflects on encounters in the aviation community
Welcome back to Jeremi and Luca’s Newsletter, a weekly update from two friends connected by a relentless desire to learn.
Enjoy a closer look at what we’re reading, working on, and thinking about—from the small learnings to the large perspective shifts.
Jeremi: Make It Real
Ten days ago, my partner and I essentially finished our project at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
As I’ve mentioned many times before, the scope of our project was simple and concrete: make querying a database really fast.
Here’s the thing about that—I lied.
I gave you this line because it was the easiest, fastest explanation. And that is the capability that our project offers! But it’s more complicated than that. The tool we’re using to do this, Trino, is free and open-sourced. The paid version of it, Starbust, is already being used at the lab.
So why even work on this project, if “fast querying” has already been accomplished?
Well, my mentor at the lab thought it would be a good learning experience, even if I wasn’t solving an important problem for him.
And it absolutely was. In our newsletter two weeks ago, I rejoiced in finally breaking through a wall in getting Trino (the distributed query engine) to work, and how there was so much learning that had come from my struggles.
But once I had broken through that wall, I was a little lost. I spoke with my mentor about where to go next with the project, now that we had built out the basic functionality. Our thought process was essentially “how can we give a toy example of Trino’s capabilities?”
We decided to show how Trino could (potentially) fit into a Machine Learning workflow. Sounds great, right? Nope. I was totally uninspired.
“But Jeremi, isn’t Machine Learning right up your alley?”
I was asking myself the very same question. Why didn’t I have any desire to pursue this last part of the project?
Here’s why: it wasn’t real.
I originally thought we were going to work with a dataset of chemical compounds that a scientist at the lab wanted to analyze. This would fall into line with my rhetoric of weeks prior, where I emphasized the ability to parse large datasets very quickly. But that scientist didn’t need this capability as much as we originally thought.
And so, ten days ago, I came to the realization that my project wasn’t really accomplishing much at all. And I lost inspiration.
Sure, Machine Learning is cool. But cooler than that, is making a real, tangible, impact. At this point in my life, I’m not greedy about what that is. It could be altruistic. It could be saving the lab money. Above all else, I want to feel that I’m truly making an impact with my time. As I’ve said before, learning by itself is not enough.
This led me to focus on something my mentor had mentioned a few times: if we prove that Trino by itself is capable enough, then my mentor could replace Starbust (the paid version of Trino that he is currently using) with the free alternative.
Already, we’ve proven it works at a small scale—our project is essentially showing how Trino works on a mini supercomputer. The natural next step is seeing if we can scale it to full, production-level capacity, and have the lab switch off the paid version.
If I’d had this clarity ten days ago, I would’ve jumped into this problem head-first, inspired to make it work. Instead, I meandered about, seeking an interesting thing to work on.
But I still have one week left. I have a plan to sit down with my mentor and see if we can scale this to a real, production-level supercomputer. If it works, then I’ll have left some mark on Lawrence Livermore. If not, I can still say I made my time count.
Luca: “What’s next?”
Last week, I finally made it to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for EAA AirVenture—the world's largest airshow and gathering of pilots. More than 10,000 pilots flew in and over 680,000 people were in attendance.
The bucket list trip was an opportunity to have face time with hackathon team members and connect with other friends in person. Of course, it was also an opportunity to let my inner child out…
I did most of my flight training during the summer before my senior year of high school. I was often up for a 5 a.m. flight lesson before commuting into San Francisco for my portfolio management internship at a global aviation lessor.
In Oshkosh, I got to reconnect with my then-boss and fellow pilot, Julian, who was at the show camping with his son. It was great to catch up and learn from his expertise in aviation, finance, and flight simulation.
We spoke at length about how to continuously seek out challenges, and Julian encouraged me to start pursuing my instrument rating: a great way, he said, to keep learning and growing—more on this in a bit.
To cap it all off, I flew a Piper Cherokee with Jack, whom I met years ago through Infinite Flight. We departed over the deserted air show grounds and arrived in Green Bay in time for my return flight to Washington, D.C.
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For spring break of my senior year in high school, my mom and I traveled around the country to tour colleges, which is ironic considering I ended up going to school 30 minutes away from home.
In D.C. visiting George Washington University, I was incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to meet the Acting FAA Administrator, Billy Nolen. We spoke about his work and career, the future of aviation, and my flying adventures.
After returning from Oshkosh, I caught up with Mr. Nolen at his new office. He is now the Chief Regulatory Affairs Officer for Archer Aviation, a startup building electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.
From serving in the U.S. Army and flying for American Airlines to leading the Federal Aviation Administration and now innovating our national airspace and the modes of travel within it, Nolen has always sought out challenges.
A few years ago, he coined the term “Innovate28” which is now colloquially used in the aviation industry to describe the plan of action for achieving advanced air mobility operations by 2028.
We discussed this innovation mindset that has guided much of his career and how it can ensure upward growth in the face of countless hurdles. Nolen stresses the importance of obsessing over how something can be done rather than focusing on why it can’t be done.
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This was all a roundabout way for me to paint a picture of something I appreciate about the aviation community, particularly something Julian and Nolen embody: a desire to learn and be challenged.
Fellow pilots rarely accept stagnation. When I mention I have my private pilot license, the immediate question is almost always, “What’s next?”
Nolen has consistently asked himself this question, and his blend of optimism and pragmatism inspires me to do the same. Julian understands the importance of staying stimulated and knows from experience that the best way to do so is through challenge.
My hypothesis, then, is that applying this mindset to all areas of life can only lead to positive outcomes. And if, by some miracle, everyone adopted this mindset, I believe the world would be a much better place. But it starts with me.
Thanks guys for this exciting update