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A $10,000 Gift From a Total Stranger

Derick David
2 min readJun 17, 2023

I traveled to Switzerland for a tech conference this past January for a speaking engagement and a story I was working on about the industry.

Switzerland at the time of year is cold, but it’s also beautiful. The snow-covered landscape is a photographer’s dream, and there are plenty of activities to enjoy, such as skiing, snowboarding, and snowshoeing.

On my third day, I was lucky enough to get an interview with a middle-aged woman who used to be an executive at Amazon. She is currently a chief operating officer of a major tech firm worth over $1 billion.

I’ve never met her before.

As a matter of fact, I never knew about her existence until the day before. I know a lot of people in the tech industry and I’ve never heard her name before.

I was introduced to her by another person via email proposing a sitdown. Apparently, this person was aware of my work as a tech journalist.

We met at a restaurant in a Swiss resort town called Davos. There was also an event happening at the venue cause it was loud in the main area. The back of the restaurant was quiet, so we decided to do the interview there.

After sitting down, she ordered us two fresh cups of espresso. From our table, you could see a gorgeous view of the Swiss Alps. It was…

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Derick David
Derick David

Written by Derick David

1M+ views. Seen at Forbes. 10x Top Writer in Technology, Innovation, and Design. https://twitter.com/jeazous

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