TL;DR: just some context from my origins until the early adulthood.

With the significant Italian immigration to Brazil between 1880 and 1930, one of the families that arrived in the country was my father’s. I don’t know much beyond that. My father never met his father, who passed away during his mother’s pregnancy due to alcoholism. My father and his siblings grew up on a farm, working under conditions that would certainly be recognized today as analogous to slavery. None of them ever set foot in a school. My father wore his first pair of shoes when he was 15 to attend his older brother’s wedding. At some point, he decided to move to the city, building a shack in a slum in the interior of São Paulo.

My mother was abandoned. According to accounts from my adoptive great-grandmother, her biological mother succumbed to drugs, alcohol, and behavior that, based on my personal experiences, I imagine was deep depression. It was my great-grandmother who rescued my mother from the streets and wanted to adopt her. However, my grandparents, who had lost all their children to miscarriages or childhood illnesses, insisted on adopting her. She grew up in the same slum my father moved to when he came to São Paulo state.

I was born when my mother was 17 years old. Both my parents worked hard to provide a decent life for me and my sisters. Since both worked full-time, my grandparents were primarily responsible for raising me. My father didn’t insist on education, but my mother always emphasized its importance. Public schools in the outskirts were very easy; my biggest challenges were when I had to read longer texts, like books (which happened only two or three times during that period), or write or copy extensive passages from books or the board. I was always quiet, and shy, and had good grades in most subjects.

At the age of 15, I joined Brazil’s largest technical school to study industrial electronics. A few months later, I started working in a Kraft Foods factory in my city. My job was essentially maintaining production line equipment, both electronic and industrial automation. This was my profession until I was 21 when I decided to pursue a university degree, initially considering mathematics or electronics. Without money to pay for it, I decided I had to aim for one of the public universities in my state, which were not only free but also the best in the country, with fierce competition.

I got into the first of the five universities I applied to (in Brazil, the process typically involved 3-5 exams for each institution, taken one per day). I moved to a new city to study computer science at UNESP. During university, I always worked full-time in IT while pursuing my five-year program, though I always planned to transition to hardware as soon as possible. The university wasn’t particularly hard but demanded more effort than I was used to, especially while working. Still, I managed good grades. In 2010, after two years, a great classmate and experienced programmer finally convinced me to try working as a developer, at least temporarily. With only basic knowledge of C++, I went to a local software company and asked the owner for an opportunity. I got a full-time job as a developer, even though the salary was half of what I had been earning, but I could learn Java Enterprise. Despite the chaos and the need to study intensely, I loved the job. Within a few years, I was leading teams and negotiating projects.

At this point, I decided it was time to put the university on hold. My career was going very well, and the companies I worked with didn’t require a degree. More importantly, my personal life was chaotic: my grandfather had just passed away, and my mother’s depression had reached a new level, seemingly causing a heart attack in a 40-year-old woman. I brought my mother to live with me so I could pay for and oversee her treatment. When she improved, we discovered my grandmother’s cancer. We decided to move back to our hometown to take care of her, but there were no job opportunities for me there, and I was now responsible not only for myself.

At that moment, I decided to found a startup and work on projects as a contractor to work remotely. My first startup failed, but I learned a lot and met a great person. Together, we started another startup called Blumpa. We dedicated ourselves to it for years, and I consider it a great success—not because it was sold, but because, even during severe internal crises that made it impossible to secure a new round of funding, we managed to turn the company profitable within six months of intense efforts. The independence afforded by this startup ensured that I could care for my family, attend all my grandmother’s chemotherapy sessions, and have a good life in the meanwhile. Nevertheless, even if I loved the business and the product we built, they were always a plus, the cherry on top.