I Just Kept Doing What I Loved

Year 2010, I received my first PC and an internet connection.

I started browsing the web and eventually stumbled on an online RPG game called Pokemon Omega.

Growing up watching Pokemon, it was an instant fall into the world of the game.

A browser game, where you are a trainer, navigating the maps, catching pokemon, training them, battling the gyms.

As the days passed, somehow more than the maps, and the battles, the profile section became more of an interest.

The player’s public profile, which could be edited via HTML and CSS.

I could write a bio about me, my favorite pokemons and make the text bold, different colours.

Seeing a player’s rare shiny pokemon, all that could be done was be jealous. Or crawl through the maps wishing for one.

But seeing a player’s well decorated profile section, well that, that could be obtained by going deeper into learning HTML and CSS.

Soon, the game had set me up on a completely new journey.

From dreaming of joining clans, making the pokemon reach level 100.

I had this urge to make the game itself. The realization that, the profile section, edited via HTML and CSS is the same building blocks via the game is made.

The player moving around, maps changing, all those interactions are a language called Javascript.

That feeling was more than battling the legendary pokemon Kyogre.

All of the web, everything that I can access through the browser in my PC, is built on just three of those languages.

From wanting to become the best pokemon trainer, now it was a different journey, I wanted to join the development team of Pokemon Omega.

But as I went on with my journey, building websites, learning the fundamentals, picking up jQuery. Nintendo noticed Pokemon Omega and asked for the game to be shut down.

And that was the end. End of first aspiration, a first journey I set out fueled by the internet.

After the game was gone, all that was left was the skills I picked up along, HTML, CSS, JS and jQuery.

To make a serious game, I figured out a database and backend language is needed. Slowly, fell and hit PHP, then Ruby, and eventually Python. Accidental falls across LAMP stack, yep, soon the Windows PC clean installed with a fresh Ubuntu. MySQL as the database, Ruby on Rails for the backend.

The days of Ruby, still has a special feel for that gem.

I never could settle on, Ruby vs Python. I loved them both.

Eventually I started leaning towards Python and saying goodbye to PHP forever. Once Python and Ruby’s beauty is known, it was harder to deal with PHP.

I never thought of becoming a Software Engineer or picking up Computer Science for my bachelor’s.

To the college I showed up for Bachelor’s in Business Administration. Somewhere more than the business theories that was taught I was more interested in understanding the real business of Amazon, Facebook and the likings of Airbnb.

I was fascinated by those companies, built on code, ruling over the world.

The years were of new frontend frameworks launching every week, a shiny new framework to play with.

I wasn’t burdened by the requirement to learn. So every new framework, language was a way for me to understand the fundamentals and view them from a fresh perspective.

Played around with Node.js, Express, Python Django, Flask, Angular.

Towards the end of my first year at college doing a business degree, I wanted to do my own startup. I started working on a Cloud EMR solution.

I enjoyed sitting more in the CS classes than business class. My teachers too enjoyed me being out of the class because I insisted on sharing real world examples of the definitions in the book.

The teachers would read out a textbook theory and would pause for me to fill in the real world example. I loved business more than what the college could ever offer me.

Pitched the product at MG University, they said, the idea too big for them to fund. I knew that the moment I walked into the stage. I was just happy to hear it from them.

Well that was my first time on the stage, hands shaking, voice shriveling.

From then on it was a decade of working in the tech, founder to full-stack engineer, to tech lead to head of engineering and product.

What fueled the whole of the journey, just my burning desire to fall in love with tech.

Tech documentaries became my favorite watch, movies like The Social Network became my all time favorite.

From REST to GraphQL, Pandas to Polars, Flask to FastAPI, npm to bun.

I loved em all.

AI coding agents are here, Claude Code, Goose, Antigravity.

These days, most of my coding is done via the help of coding agents, but these days, I am diving deeper into the fundamentals of coding agents.

In a journey to grasp the essence of Large Language Models, Neuroscience, Agentic AI.

From the days of spending time in the likes of codepen, stackoverflow, docs of frameworks, these days, the rabbit holes are leading me to research papers, google colab. Picking up Maths, Statistics, you know, the likes of probability and such.

Artificial Intelligence is here, every day getting smarter and smarter. The work that might take me two or more weeks to code, an AI agent will do in a day.

So what is it that keeps me ticking? The obsessions, the late night rabbit holes of diving in on a topic of obsessions. Connecting the dots, picking up lessons from the experiences, having fun along the way. The relentless aspiration.

The fire that burned in me 15 years ago, and shone the light towards me wanting to be a developer at the pokemon RPG and never just be a player in the sea of players. Is what keeps me ticking.

To never be satisfied by the textbook definitions and look into the world and view it as a universe of university and never be limited by the four walls of a classroom and curriculum is what keeps me ticking.

The hunger to be more, the drive to work on myself. And take to heart, the words of Steve Jobs

“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

And not knowing, what I wanted to become, I never dreamed of becoming a Software Engineer. All I wanted to do was build products.

Building and shaping products that will be used by others was of excitement to me.

I never knew what I wanted to become, so I just kept doing what I loved. I ended up in a life, I never thought of escaping from.

That was the journey of a decade. And as Oscar Wilde said, to know what you want to become is a punishment. So I became everything that gave me joy.

“If you know what you want to be—a writer, an artist, or a judge—you will become it. That is your punishment. But if you never know, if you live what some might call the dynamic life, but what I will call the artistic life… you can be anything. And that is your reward.”

Who am I?

I am Vishnu Dileesh, an engineer, entrepreneur, educator.

Started the decade co-founding Swasthaadhaar, then EmeReCard (MyResQR). Leading tech at PixelBrahma and now heading engineering and product at Thea IT Solutions.

What lies ahead for me in next decades to come? Well, well, I don’t know…

All I know is, this very day, I am enjoying diving into research papers, learning more and more about neuroscience, and other areas of science. The joy of crafting and shipping products, the late night rabbit holes will become my compass for the journey to come.