I moved across the world to get into the Ivy League. Then I quit Brown after a year to launch a VC firm at 21.

Raluca Maniță

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Smaiyl Makyshov, 24, the founder of Multifaceted Capital, a VC firm based in San Francisco. It has been edited for length and clarity. I started programming when I was nine years old, teaching myself languages like HTML and Java. I was competing in computing Olympiads, but I wasn't interested in programming as a destination. It felt more like a stepping stone toward something bigger. I was always more curious about the application of this