Chapter 2 - The Daughter Who Took Computers Apart
When I was twelve, I dismantled our family's broken desktop computer across my bedroom floor.
My mother found screws lined up in a neat row beside the bed and stared as though she had discovered evidence of a very polite burglary.
“Kristen, what are you doing?” she asked.
“Finding out why it won't start,” I told her.
“The repairman is coming Thursday.”
“Then I'll try to finish by Wednesday.”
She shook her head and called for my father.
Robert arrived in shirtsleeves, examined the loose cables and boards, and announced that talented Adams women were supposed to lead organizations rather than repair their equipment.
I remember that sentence more vividly than I remember whether the computer worked again.
My sister Diana played piano in the drawing room while I taught myself to understand how machines communicated.
She enjoyed being watched and applauded.
I enjoyed the moment a difficult problem finally surrendered its logic.
Neither preference was wrong, but our parents had only one definition of achievement.
In their world, success wore the correct school crest, married the correct person, and possessed a job title that sounded impressive over cocktails.
I excelled academically, which allowed my father to treat my unusual interests as an eccentric phase.
My teachers encouraged me to apply to strong universities and helped me locate programs where computer science was taken seriously.
I earned a place at Yale, and our family celebrated as if I had finally agreed to become Diana's reflection.
Diana was already several years ahead of me, following a path of honors, graduate admissions, and confident introductions.
At the dinner celebrating my acceptance, Robert raised a glass and talked about the wonderful connections I would make.
He did not mention the scholarship project I had designed or the security competition my school team had won.
He saw a name on a diploma, and that was enough.
For two years, Yale gave me exactly what I needed despite our family's expectations.
There were brilliant classmates who challenged my ideas, professors who refused easy answers, and laboratories where questions could remain open until someone solved them.
I grew interested in the way attackers exploited tiny weaknesses that large institutions overlooked.
A single overlooked configuration could expose information belonging to thousands of people.
The consequences were never merely technical.
They affected scholarships, medical records, bank accounts, and the ordinary trust that made digital life possible.
During my junior year, I noticed an apparent weakness in a university network system during authorized academic work.
I reported it through the appropriate channels and collaborated with staff who understood the seriousness of the issue.
The university handled the problem responsibly, and no public scandal followed.
What changed was me.
I began imagining software that could recognize suspicious patterns early enough to help defenders respond before damage spread.
Artificial intelligence was beginning to offer useful methods for identifying signals too subtle or numerous for exhausted human analysts to catch reliably.
I understood that any such system needed careful testing, clear limits, and human oversight.
But I could not stop thinking about it.
My notebooks became crowded with sketches that had nothing to do with the assignments my parents asked about.
A professor told me the idea deserved rigorous development.
A graduate student warned that turning research into a viable company was a different challenge entirely.
Both were right.
Over months, I met people with technical expertise who were willing to question every assumption I made.
My enthusiasm turned into an early prototype and a plan so ambitious it scared me when I read it aloud.
I went home to Westchester and told my father I wanted to take leave from school to build the company.
He refused to discuss leave.
He heard only abandonment.
“You're throwing away Yale to play with computers,” he said, pushing my handwritten plan back across his desk.
“I might return for my degree later,” I answered.
“But the work needs my attention now.”
“You have no idea how business works.”
“That may be true,” I said.
“Then I'll have to learn.”
His face hardened.
“If you choose this, you won't do it with my money.”
My mother cried in the hallway, saying she had dreamed of seeing two daughters graduate from institutions people respected.
Diana called my decision reckless and selfish, then reminded me that employers preferred finished degrees.
I knew there was truth in the risk they described.
I did not know whether the company would succeed.
But I also understood that staying solely to satisfy their vision would mean abandoning the first work I had ever believed was wholly mine.
I withdrew from Yale after consulting the relevant advisers and arranging the academic details responsibly.
No grand speech followed.
I packed my books and equipment into an old car and drove west with about five thousand dollars, a prototype, and a list of people who had already said no.
Seattle seemed enormous when I arrived.
My apartment was small enough that I could reach the desk from the narrow bed without fully standing.
The heater rattled at night, and rain made a soft, relentless sound against the window.
I taped a simple phrase above the desk: PROTECT THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE DATA.
It reminded me that the company was supposed to serve something larger than my pride.
For the first weeks, I woke with excitement and fell asleep with fear.
Then the savings account began shrinking.
The landlord expected payment whether my latest demonstration had impressed anyone or not.
An investor asked why I had no prestigious executive beside me.
Another suggested I come back after earning a degree.
I began doing contract work whenever I could find it, careful not to compromise the company or anyone else's information.
At night, I wrote code and examined failure reports until the letters blurred.
My family called occasionally, but every conversation ended with a question about when I would admit defeat.
I stopped describing the details of my work because no one seemed interested in hearing them.
One night, as I ate noodles by the sink, I realized I had spent all day thinking of a problem and none of the time thinking about how impressive my life looked.
I was frightened, yes.
May you like
I was also where I had chosen to be.
That distinction would carry me through the years my family later reduced to a joke about food stamps.
