I had just graduated high school in 2002 and started at a service academy. Laser discs were still a thing, the new mini cassette player was dying out and iPod was new. People genuinely (in most common circles) thought that AI was AGI and wouldn’t be around for a long time. There were a lot of comparisons to the 60s on why we didn’t have flying cars. There was zero insight into how AI/ML would impact life. Interesting now that there is a culture looking at future events as a side note. STRATFOR published, “The Next 100 Years” from a geopolitical perspective and I remember thinking about how future wars will be fought but couldn’t comprehend an RC aircraft could become an antonymous platform of war. In this window I joined and quit Facebook as one of the original 200K users and had a new thing called Gmail beta.

2012- after graduation laptops overtaking desktops was a big deal. It was subtle over time but I remember having a feeling of there is no way they can compete. Analytical programs to assist in quantitative studies were just breaking out. Wild when we saw what the “new world” could be and how much faster we could process information. Protecting PPI and my digital footprint became a thing. Bitcoin was front and center on a side hustle that was considered “super fringe.” Started to understand the difference between a program and app- specifically if we could use an iPhone camera for augmented reality.

2022- expanding homomorphic encryption to data in use at scale! The integration of ISR and satellites for near real time tactical edge computing, forgetting every phone number I ever learned and realizing I’m dependent on my person computer (cell phone) for knowledge retrieval. So the biggest jump personally was that it became more important to know where to find information rather than retaining bulk data as an expert.