Selected B-School Essay #3

4. Answer a question you wish we’d asked. (400 words)

I wish the xxxxxx Admissions Board had asked me “Why do you love superheroes so much?” to which I would reply, “Wow, how on Earth did you know that I love superheroes??”

All kidding aside, like most kids I liked Batman and Superman growing up but it wasn’t until the movie Batman Begins came out in 2005 that my fascination with superheroes went from casual interest to full-blown obsession. Batman Begins tells the “origin story” of how a young Bruce Wayne became Batman, and I loved seeing the long and arduous spiritual journey that he had to go through before he become the crime-fighting caped crusader that we’ve all come to know him as.

Like a young Bruce Wayne, I have always had an almost-pathological need to make this world a better place in the best way that I can, but for the longest time I struggled to figure out what that “best way” was. It was only after my serendipitous introduction to the world of innovation and entrepreneurship that I was able to experience firsthand the awesome power and scale of technology, and I realized then that THIS would be how I would “save the world.”

You see, what all superheroes have in common is that they start off as normal, ordinary citizens living normal, ordinary lives, but they somehow end up having these new “superpowers” thrust upon them which they never earned or asked for, and are left to deal with the enormous responsibilities that these powers entail.

The more superhero stories I watched and read, the more I realized that in the real world, the real superheroes are people like you and me who were lucky enough to be born in a free and developed society, with parents who were able to look after them and provide for them a quality education – we did nothing to “earn” this kind of life and the sad truth is that there are not that many of us in the world. We are part of what Warren Buffett famously referred to as the “Lucky Sperm Club,” and it’s our duty and responsibility to make the most of these fortuitous gifts in order to make the world a better place for the billions of people in this world who were left with the short end of the stick.

So while I’m not exactly “faster than a speeding bullet” or “able to leap tall buildings in a single bound,” I have been blessed with certain real-life “powers” that are unique to me, and which I will use to the fullest to become the superhero entrepreneur that I’m meant to be.