Chapter 4: Fate Slides into My Inbox

The next day, my alarm went off at 8:30. I tossed off the covers—then remembered I didn’t have to go to work anymore.

For a moment, I stared at the ceiling fan spinning lazily and wondered if I should just go back to sleep. But my body was running on habit and a leftover sense of dread.

My phone buzzed with a new email.

I almost ignored it, assuming it was another job board alert or a DoorDash promo. Turns out, it was neither.

When I opened it, I was instantly wide awake.

My brain did a triple-take. The sender wasn’t spam—it was a real, actual CEO.

"Jake, hello, I’m Marcus Ellison, CEO of Willow Labs. My team and I saw on Github that you’ve been working on applying AI to Alzheimer’s detection for the past few years, which matches exactly what we’re doing. We sincerely invite you to join us, and look forward to your reply."

I read it twice, then once more for good measure. Was this a scam? But the email signature checked out.

Alzheimer’s is basically dementia.

I’d uploaded a few projects to Github just out of personal interest.

I never thought anyone was actually looking. Half the code was side projects I hacked together at 1 a.m. for fun.

What the hell?

First day unemployed, hadn’t even started sending out resumes, and an offer just falls into my lap?

If there was ever a time to believe in fate—or at least good SEO—this was it.

I googled Willow Labs and the CEO.

Quick search, LinkedIn, Crunchbase. Not much on the company—still stealth mode, maybe? But the CEO was legit.

Not much on the company, but the CEO was impressive: Marcus Ellison, PhD from Duke, specialized in computer vision.

Google Scholar had a wall of citations, and his photo showed a guy in a hoodie and jeans, not a suit. Promising.

His personal homepage was loaded with open-source projects he’d built solo in school.

I scrolled through repo after repo, all clean code and detailed readmes. Not your average vaporware founder.

With my professional eye, I could tell—this guy was the real deal.

No fluff, just solid engineering chops. I felt a jolt of curiosity, even a little respect.

I never expected someone like him to notice my Github projects. I’ll admit, I was a little flattered.

It felt good, I won’t lie. Maybe all those nights hacking on side projects weren’t a waste after all.

But since I didn’t know much about their company, I couldn’t just say yes.

I’d learned my lesson about jumping into things too fast. I typed out a reply, careful but open.

I replied that I was happy to talk further and included my phone number.

I hesitated a second before hitting send. No typos, no desperation. Just honest interest.

The moment I hit send, Aubrey messaged me on Instagram.

Her profile pic was a grumpy cat meme, which felt oddly appropriate.

"Jake, a new guy joined today. Ron says he’ll be maintaining our project. Guess what? He’s a fresh college grad."

I could almost picture her rolling her eyes so hard they’d fall out of her head.

"Everyone knows fresh grads are the cheapest. Tsk tsk, they kick you out and swap in the bargain bin—what a bunch of idiots."

She threw in a GIF of a dumpster rolling downhill. Classic Gen Z flair.

I laughed.

For the first time all week, the tension broke. I actually smiled into my coffee.

Is Ron serious?

Was he really betting the farm on a rookie? I almost felt bad for the kid.

This is still an important business for the company. You really think a rookie can keep it running?

It was like hiring a lifeguard who couldn’t swim and hoping nobody noticed until after pool season.

Is he stupid, or does he just have blind faith in my code?

Maybe both. Or maybe he thinks if things go wrong, he can blame the last guy—me.

Whatever. Not my circus anymore.

I felt a weight lift off my chest. For once, the train wreck was someone else’s problem.

Because just as I was about to scroll job listings, my phone lit up with a call that could change everything.