If there is someone who has used life lessons as a tool to climb the ladder of success, it’s the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos. Despite being the richest man in the world, it’s astonishing how the American entrepreneur has retained every bit of the education, he grew up gathering.
While giving a lecture at The Economic Club Of Washington on September 13, he gave us another example of the same.
Bezos, who is also a brilliant storyteller, took a look back at his college days at the Princeton University. During the same, he brought to light, the story of a man named Yasantha, whom he labeled as the “the smartest guy in Princeton”.
According to the 54-year-old, Yasantha was a humble guy from Sri Lanka with the longest last name. He went on to reveal how Yasantha solved a partial differential equation by just looking at it for a few seconds. Surprisingly, Bezos and his roommate had worked on the equation for nearly three hours but couldn’t reach a conclusion.
“We showed Yoshantha the math equation and he stares at it and said cosine the answer.”
After solving the problem visually, Yasantha even chalked out a detailed algebraic explanation of it. Stunned by the incredible talent of his friend, Bezos asked him whether he did all this in his head. Yasantha mentioned that he just placed the problem in place of one he had solved three years ago and derived the answer.
However, Bezos had got his much-needed reality check from the episode. It was at that very moment that he realized that he’s not cut out for theoretical physics.
WATCH! The world richest man and Founder & CEO of Amazon, @JeffBezos Explains how a Srilankan guy, Yoshantha, helped him to solve most difficult math problem when he was in Princeton university. and why Srilankan names are three lines long 😄 #lk pic.twitter.com/fNrIxrDWCK
— Podi Malli (@PodiMalli) September 17, 2018
Call it fate or a coincidence, the tweet caught the eye of his long lost friend Yasantha himself. Surprised by the CEO’s memory, Yasantha gave it a share and hailed him for remembering an incident which took place 34 years ago!
Wow! Jeff is talking about me. Amazingly he remembers interacting with me 34 years ago. What a memory! Also no Amazon if it weren’t for this, since he decided not to pursue physics! Cheers!
— Yasantha Rajakarunanayake (@yasantha62) September 18, 2018
Woah. That’s some revelation, isn’t it? However, we take out time to thank Yasantha for playing a tiny role in giving us Amazon. 😛