The Boys

I don't really know how to explain this without sounding like a greeting card, so I'll just say it plainly.

The boys are the reason most of this works.

Not in a "support system" way. Not in a "surround yourself with good people" LinkedIn post way. In a real, tangible, "I would not have survived the last five years without these specific humans" way.

They're the ones I call at 3 AM when the code doesn't work and neither does my brain. They're the ones who show up for the road trips. They're the ones who don't judge you when you recite poetry at inappropriate times, because they're used to it, and maybe they even like it.

Chaddi buddies. That's the Hindi term. Friends since the underwear days. Since before we had anything figured out. Since before careers and ambitions and "what do you do?" We knew each other when we were just... us. And they still see that version. Even when I forget it.

I think the most dangerous thing about building a career is that it slowly replaces your identity. You become your work. Your conversations become about your work. Your worth becomes your output. And if you're not careful, you wake up one day and realize you've become a very productive stranger.

The boys don't let that happen. They don't care about my portfolio. They care about whether I've eaten. Whether I'm sleeping. Whether I'm happy, actually happy, not Instagram happy.

This is not something you can build with networking. This is not something you can optimize or scale or growth-hack. This is years and years of showing up for each other. Of fights and forgiveness and silence and road trips and doing nothing together.

I build products for a living. But the boys are the thing I'd never want to rebuild from scratch. Because I couldn't.

Some things only work because of time.

-I.R.