{
  "name": "Vivek Narayanan",
  "title": "My story",
  "summary": "An illustrated road from the Shire to Gondor and the road ahead. It has four chapters of my life, and each chapter holds three moments.",
  "note": "Text in [brackets] is placeholder copy that has not been written yet.",
  "tribute": "A fan tribute. The Lord of the Rings names belong to the Tolkien Estate and Middle-earth Enterprises.",
  "song": {
    "line": "The Road goes ever on and on",
    "credit": "J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring"
  },
  "pages": {
    "story": "https://vivekn.co/story/",
    "text": "https://vivekn.co/story/text"
  },
  "companions": [
    {
      "id": "frodo",
      "name": "Frodo",
      "title": "The road walker",
      "line": "Small, stubborn and good company on a long road.",
      "action": "Keep to the shadows"
    },
    {
      "id": "gandalf",
      "name": "Gandalf",
      "title": "The wizard",
      "line": "Asks the question nobody else thought to ask.",
      "action": "Raise the light"
    },
    {
      "id": "aragorn",
      "name": "Aragorn",
      "title": "The ranger",
      "line": "Knows every path and keeps the pace steady.",
      "action": "Read the trail"
    },
    {
      "id": "legolas",
      "name": "Legolas",
      "title": "The elf of the woods",
      "line": "Reads the forest and wastes nothing it gives.",
      "action": "Draw the bow"
    },
    {
      "id": "gimli",
      "name": "Gimli",
      "title": "The dwarf",
      "line": "Digs deeper than anyone thinks is sensible.",
      "action": "Swing the axe"
    }
  ],
  "resources": [
    {
      "id": "curiosity",
      "name": "Curiosity",
      "from": "Gardens"
    },
    {
      "id": "craft",
      "name": "Craft",
      "from": "The woods"
    },
    {
      "id": "gold",
      "name": "Gold",
      "from": "The mine"
    },
    {
      "id": "fellowship",
      "name": "Fellowship",
      "from": "Rest at the inn"
    }
  ],
  "chapters": [
    {
      "id": "shire",
      "n": 1,
      "name": "The Shire",
      "years": "until 2001",
      "intro": "Hobbit holes in green mounds, gardens by the round doors and a mill on the Water.",
      "moments": [
        {
          "id": "home",
          "title": "Hatchling",
          "year": "until 1994",
          "place": "Delhi, India",
          "text": "My early childhood was in Delhi. I fondly remember playing with my cousins, climbing fences, and spending many lazy afternoons running around, playing endless cricket games, watching cartoons and playing with my many dozen GI Joes.",
          "url": "https://vivekn.co/story/text#m-home",
          "map": "https://vivekn.co/story/#m-home",
          "tableau": "round-door",
          "scene": "A family at a round green door at dusk, a lamp being lit."
        },
        {
          "id": "first-build",
          "title": "Fledgling",
          "year": "1994 to 2001",
          "place": "Chennai, India",
          "text": "We moved to Chennai when I was in sixth grade, and I went to school at Chinmaya Vidyalaya. I carried my insecurities through the first few years there, struggling to score well in my exams. That changed when my math teacher, Mr. Ravi, showed up. I still remember a 15-mark test on tangents that I aced without knowing it. He asked me to stay back after class and said, \"You know what, you can do a lot more. You're just lazy!\" Way to light a fire, sir! My first programs were a tic-tac-toe game and a visual analog clock, in C++. I kept learning to program from Mr. Sivakumar, my computer science teacher. Everything I have today goes back to the two of them.",
          "url": "https://vivekn.co/story/text#m-first-build",
          "map": "https://vivekn.co/story/#m-first-build",
          "tableau": "workbench",
          "scene": "A young hobbit tinkering at a workbench under a lamp, small sparks."
        },
        {
          "id": "school",
          "title": "Champion",
          "year": "1994 to 2001",
          "place": "Chennai, India",
          "text": "At school I learned to make friends, to stand up for myself, and then to stand up for my friends. In high school I was elected School Pupil Leader.",
          "url": "https://vivekn.co/story/text#m-school",
          "map": "https://vivekn.co/story/#m-school",
          "tableau": "party-tree-bench",
          "scene": "An old and a young hobbit on a bench under the party tree."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "rivendell",
      "n": 2,
      "name": "Rivendell",
      "years": "2001 to 2012",
      "intro": "Elven halls with tall arches in a valley of waterfalls.",
      "moments": [
        {
          "id": "college",
          "title": "Wanderer",
          "year": "2001 to 2005",
          "place": "Chennai, India",
          "text": "I studied information technology in college. I spent a lot of my time at quizzes, symposia and conferences in other colleges. I also met the love of my life.",
          "url": "https://vivekn.co/story/text#m-college",
          "map": "https://vivekn.co/story/#m-college",
          "tableau": "lectern",
          "scene": "Elves teaching at a lectern under the arches."
        },
        {
          "id": "first-project",
          "title": "Upstart",
          "year": "2005",
          "place": "Andhra Pradesh, India",
          "text": "The summer after college, two friends and I built a fingerprint attendance system around a single sensor and sold it to a sugar factory in rural Andhra Pradesh. We had no company and no references, so we sold it through a friend's uncle's software company, then spent a month on site installing it. It was my first taste of building something and selling it.",
          "url": "https://vivekn.co/story/text#m-first-project",
          "map": "https://vivekn.co/story/#m-first-project",
          "tableau": "forge",
          "scene": "A dwarf and an elf at the forge, sparks rising."
        },
        {
          "id": "personalization",
          "title": "Apprentice",
          "year": "2005 to 2012",
          "place": "India",
          "text": "In my first jobs I wrote software that touched millions of lives. I learned the nuances of building code that holds up in production, and I learned to work hard and prove my worth. I got married in 2009.",
          "url": "https://vivekn.co/story/text#m-personalization",
          "map": "https://vivekn.co/story/#m-personalization",
          "tableau": "library-lantern",
          "scene": "A reader in a lantern pool in the library."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "gondor",
      "n": 3,
      "name": "Gondor",
      "years": "2012 to 2022",
      "intro": "Minas Tirith on its white terraced rings, and the Harlond quays on the river.",
      "moments": [
        {
          "id": "amazon",
          "title": "Threshold",
          "year": "2012",
          "place": "Bangalore, India",
          "text": "2012 was an eventful year. Our daughter was born, and we moved from Chennai to Bangalore for my first job at Amazon. There I built the marketing platforms that send email and push notifications to Amazon customers.",
          "url": "https://vivekn.co/story/text#m-amazon",
          "map": "https://vivekn.co/story/#m-amazon",
          "tableau": "banner-raising",
          "scene": "Men raising a blue banner on the White Tower."
        },
        {
          "id": "grep",
          "title": "Messenger",
          "year": "2015 to 2019",
          "place": "Bangalore, India",
          "text": "In 2015 I spent a year at Twitter India, then came back to Amazon. I kept building marketing systems for millions of Amazon customers, including a model that predicts what each customer is likely to do next. Our son was born in 2016.",
          "url": "https://vivekn.co/story/text#m-grep",
          "map": "https://vivekn.co/story/#m-grep",
          "tableau": "scroll-shelves",
          "scene": "Scribes sorting scrolls into many small shelves in the archives."
        },
        {
          "id": "forecasting",
          "title": "Trial by fire",
          "year": "2019 to 2022",
          "place": "Seattle, Washington",
          "text": "In 2019 we moved to Seattle, and I led product for the forecasts hundreds of Amazon retail teams plan against. Then COVID hit, and it was a trial by fire. I ran the forecasting for Prime Day and Black Friday through the supply chain shocks of 2020 and 2021.",
          "url": "https://vivekn.co/story/text#m-forecasting",
          "map": "https://vivekn.co/story/#m-forecasting",
          "tableau": "messenger-boats",
          "scene": "Messenger boats and birds setting out from the Harlond, each to a different shore."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "road-ahead",
      "n": 4,
      "name": "The road ahead",
      "years": "2022 to today",
      "intro": "Evening on the road, a fire by the wayside and a tower still going up.",
      "moments": [
        {
          "id": "austin",
          "title": "Sunseeker",
          "year": "2023",
          "place": "Austin, Texas",
          "text": "In 2022 I moved into Amazon Health to help start its online store for health services. We lived in Seattle until the summer of 2023, then moved to Austin for the sunshine. Here I launched a service that helps people use their employer and insurer benefits to join free health programs.",
          "url": "https://vivekn.co/story/text#m-austin",
          "map": "https://vivekn.co/story/#m-austin",
          "tableau": "roadside-fire",
          "scene": "A fire by the road with packs set down."
        },
        {
          "id": "agentic",
          "title": "Artificer",
          "year": "2024 to today",
          "place": "Austin, Texas",
          "text": "Since 2024 I have been building generative AI and agentic systems in health care. They answer people's health questions and take actions for them.",
          "url": "https://vivekn.co/story/text#m-agentic",
          "map": "https://vivekn.co/story/#m-agentic",
          "tableau": "camp-contraption",
          "scene": "A camp with a small contraption being built."
        },
        {
          "id": "next",
          "title": "Hidden paths",
          "year": "today",
          "place": "Austin, Texas",
          "text": "I am still building with generative AI and agentic systems. If you are building in the same space, or just want to talk, write to me.",
          "url": "https://vivekn.co/story/text#m-next",
          "map": "https://vivekn.co/story/#m-next",
          "tableau": "unfinished-tower",
          "scene": "The unfinished tower with figures on the scaffold.",
          "song": {
            "line": "The Road goes ever on and on",
            "credit": "J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring"
          },
          "contact": [
            {
              "name": "Email",
              "href": "mailto:hello@vivekn.co"
            },
            {
              "name": "X",
              "href": "https://x.com/vivekn"
            },
            {
              "name": "LinkedIn",
              "href": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/viveknarayanan6/"
            },
            {
              "name": "GitHub",
              "href": "https://github.com/vivnarayan"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "stretches": [
    {
      "id": "bree",
      "name": "Bree and Weathertop",
      "between": [
        "shire",
        "rivendell"
      ],
      "verse": "The gate swings shut behind me and the lane bends toward the hills. I take the first turn before I can change my mind.",
      "encounter": "The riders on the hill",
      "note": "A stretch of road between chapters. It carries no personal story."
    },
    {
      "id": "moria",
      "name": "Caradhras and Moria",
      "between": [
        "rivendell",
        "gondor"
      ],
      "verse": "Snow on the pass, then stone and dark below it. We keep the lamp low and count our steps.",
      "encounter": "The bridge in the deep",
      "note": "A stretch of road between chapters. It carries no personal story."
    },
    {
      "id": "cleft",
      "name": "The cleft",
      "between": [
        "gondor",
        "road-ahead"
      ],
      "verse": "No stars in here, only the next foothold. Somewhere ahead the air turns warm.",
      "encounter": "The web in the cleft",
      "note": "A stretch of road between chapters. It carries no personal story."
    }
  ],
  "beacons": [
    {
      "n": 1,
      "to": "rivendell",
      "cost": {
        "curiosity": 30,
        "craft": 30,
        "gold": 24,
        "fellowship": 12
      }
    },
    {
      "n": 2,
      "to": "gondor",
      "cost": {
        "curiosity": 40,
        "craft": 40,
        "gold": 32,
        "fellowship": 16
      }
    },
    {
      "n": 3,
      "to": "road-ahead",
      "cost": {
        "curiosity": 48,
        "craft": 48,
        "gold": 40,
        "fellowship": 20
      }
    }
  ],
  "ending": {
    "caption": "",
    "verse": "Still round the corner there may wait \n A new road or a secret gate, \n And though we pass them by today, \n Tomorrow we may come this way, \n And take the hidden paths that run \n Towards the Moon or to the Sun",
    "verseCredit": "J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings"
  },
  "contact": {
    "email": "hello@vivekn.co",
    "links": [
      {
        "name": "Email",
        "href": "mailto:hello@vivekn.co"
      },
      {
        "name": "X",
        "href": "https://x.com/vivekn"
      },
      {
        "name": "LinkedIn",
        "href": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/viveknarayanan6/"
      },
      {
        "name": "GitHub",
        "href": "https://github.com/vivnarayan"
      }
    ]
  }
}