2025/6/28
I’m sad. I fucked up a pitch for a grant. One of the judges in the panel was rude and kept forcing stuff in a humiliating way and asked us to leave early. What’s even worse is for some reason I don’t understand, he was hostile from the beginning. During my presentation he hurried me all the time, and for the Q&A section, he cut me off during mid sentence, until I said, Will you allow me to finish one sentence, he was still cutting me off before I continue my argument.
My mum was chill about it.
Oh, continue what you need to do. She said.
Logically I understand she’s right about if I trust my vision, I need go figure it out myself. And even if it’s wrong I need to figure out myself why it’s wrong. But since I’m still in this angry mood, all I want to do is leave. I don’t need to stay if I don’t get the money right? And I’m free of all commitments - if I don’t get the grant. A few months ago I would totally cry under this pressure. But since everything I’ve been through, I understand in business I only need to answer whoever gives me money, that’s either clients or investors. It definitely made me tougher. The last three months was a very steep learning curve.
I thought about the CoreLab sales guy hinted all their clients are in 100M+ rounds (implying we are poor), I ignored what he said, thinking- how many ACTUAL real clients can you find in this playground? You found me and gave me the free stuff because you know other people will not tape out using your stuff. Im one of the very very few, or the only people that would say yes to such thing. I’m the lab rat. You need me too as much as I need you, which is- not too much but better than the original plan.
During the pitch today another guy questioned us for the 40nm tape out and our goal in the PowerPoint to tape out in 12nm. I said it’s because we got a free 40nm tape out, and we want to try with bigger nodes because it’s cheaper. It’s purely for economical reason. And the rude guy keep trying to paint me as lying in materials again because we wrote 12 but now I’m saying 40. It irritated me so so much. Who’s crazy to turn down free tape outs? You don’t even get people to give you opportunity of a few million for free.
I feel slightly better now, after writing. I’m happy to clear everything off my mind. I had to act fine in front of everyone the whole day, even I’m feeling angry.
After meeting GRY, HHZ said he doesn’t look like my type.
😅 gosh he can finally stop joking if I have ate him (GRY’s dick )
Why? I asked.
He looks a bit macho. He answered. Like alpha male type.
Yeah, and I’m not his type either. He likes 小鸟依人。I said.
True. He said.
I used to kinda like alpha male type, but I’ve never found any guy I can be 小鸟依人 with. Especially sometimes when they make no better decisions than you but still want to take the lead or want to be dominant. It’s dumb. I said.
You need 王者攻. He said.
What? I didn’t get it for the first time.
King level dom. Top tier alpha. he said.
I laughed. Wtf. I’ve given up. I’m not particularly looking for this type of person. Mutual respect is more important. I said.
You know when we started this thing- I needed a societal identity. It was a simple idea, we were never looking things to come this way. I said.
Yeah… true. He said.
Now there’s something more. I’m angry. I want to fuck all those people over. I want to win. I said.
I also feel very tired 🥱