Instead of being placed in a corner to color while riding out his last two months in the Army, our son was selected to join a team of impact engineers representing all of the major players in the military AI cyber ecosystem to solve an urgent but classified problem. With a direct line to the administration, this team has been sequestered 18 hours a day, six days a week for the past six weeks with an edict to solve this issue or never leave that room. Though we could know nothing about the problem, our son would share on Sunday calls that he and the AI-enabled cyber tool he developed were having a major impact on the mission.
He went into this project having verbally accepted a position with a boutique cyber organization in the DC area. However, after collaborating intensely with him for the past six weeks, three of the big companies in that room started bidding for him as his tool and his talents solved the problem last week. The CTO of the largest company reached out to him last week and eventually outbid the other two. Last night, he accepted their offer. He will have a direct line to the CTO and will build an organization partly to embed his tool into one of their major platforms but primarily to develop functional capabilities to advance our national security.
And he and his wife have just joined the 1%. Now I have no idea what to get them for Christmas.