The thought crystallizes, sudden and terrifying. What if he made Marchetti an offer he couldn't refuse? Not with money - Alex doesn't have money. But with commitment. With sacrifice. With the one thing he has in abundance: desperate, all-consuming focus.
What if he dropped out?
The PhD was always a means to an end. The end was understanding, was building, was making Inferthermic real. And Marchetti was the fastest path to that end. A year in Marchetti's lab would be worth five years of safe, incremental progress at UCSB.
He could be the exception. The dropout who made it work. The guy who bet everything on one mentor and won.
Or he could be the cautionary tale. The idiot who threw away a fully-funded PhD for a fantasy, who burned bridges and ended up with nothing.
Alex stands up. His coffee is cold, but he drinks it anyway. The bitter taste grounds him.
He walks out of the lounge, out of the building, into the California afternoon. The sun is too bright. Everything feels too sharp, too real, like the world is daring him to make a choice.
He pulls out his phone again. Opens his email. Types:
To: Jian Li jian.li@google.com Subject: checking in
Hey,
Got the NeurIPS acceptance. Feels good, but also feels like... I don't know. Like I'm standing on a diving board and I can't tell if there's water below or concrete.