rebuilding

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Cher Scarlett, a 40-year-old former programmer and current community college student based in Southern California. It’s been edited for length and clarity.Growing up in a chaotic household, I never had much of a choice but to figure things out on my…

It made for an irresistible narrative.The large, slow incumbent — in this case, Google — was caught flat-footed by a more nimble upstart by the name of OpenAI. It was the type of story Silicon Valley built its legend on.In Sundar Pichai’s first letter to shareholders in 2016 after becoming…