Dropout to Amazon Executive

A story about Blake, the founder of Boom Supersonic, and his remarkable journey from high school dropout to Amazon executive.

He dropped out of high school despite attending a good private school because he didn't feel like he fit in. Later, he discovered his passion for science and math through an after-school program. Realizing he actually enjoyed learning, just not his high school environment, he wanted to pursue college.

Despite being a dropout, he found that Carnegie Mellon had a special program for high school dropouts. He applied as a junior, writing an essay stating "high school had nothing left to teach me." Not only did he get accepted, but he also received a merit scholarship and graduated with a bachelor's in computer science.

After graduation, he decided he wanted to be an entrepreneur but didn't have an idea yet. So he chose to work for who he considered the greatest entrepreneur at the time - Jeff Bezos at Amazon in 2001. He built an automated system for Amazon to buy Google ads for their entire product catalog, ensuring Amazon products would show up first in search results.

By age 24, just three years into his time at Amazon, he was reporting directly to Bezos every three months and running a $300 million P&L as a General Manager. Despite being a rising star at Amazon, where he could have made hundreds of millions by staying, he quit to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions.