On Turning Twenty¶
Teddy Warner| Aug 2025 | 9–11 mins
Today I turned twenty. Kind of crazy (or at least feels more substantial than the past few years).
Three years ago, I had a long think about what I wanted to do with myself, with my future. I was sitting in my high school’s woodshop after school and had a few hours to kill while watching a CNC machine hum. I loved engineering (and still do). Yet, I couldn’t help but feel as I progressed nearer and nearer to university, the parts of engineering I loved most (tangible building, making, experimenting) would fade away in favor of a more meticulous, tedious commitment to theory.
Whatever I was to do in the future would probably need to stray from the bliss of publishing my passions to favor a more pragmatic output, and in turn, I would be losing the very thing that I was finally starting to gain recognition for.
This certainly felt like a dilemma. Everyone I knew, and I always associated myself with engineering, and unsurprisingly, I aspired to continue my pursuit in the field at university. That being said, I’ve never been one for dismal work and dreaded the idea of physics class after physics class with less and less opportunity to build and experiment.
I wasn’t quite sure where I’d end up or what I’d be doing, but this uncertainty never really bothered me much. In fact, for a few months, I thought I might become a YouTuber (and even made a banger video for one of my projects: We Built the Alleged Hans Niemann Chess Cheating Device) as it felt like a good means of financially justifying my continued work on my projects.
It was around this time in my life that one of my old friends/coworkers told me about this program he was in at USC: the Iovine and Young Academy. This program was pretty epic, and it looked to address my dilemma exceedingly well: the academy spans engineering, business, and design - a great balance for the aspiring maker. I applied, got in, and moved to California. It was awesome.
I loved university, I loved the classes, I loved the people. I met some of my closest friends, worked on my first venture, and then at eighteen landed an early position on the Midjourney hardware team. A few months later, I found myself at a crossroads: I loved my work at Midjourney and got to work alongside the most incredible people, yet I had just turned nineteen and felt compelled to spend my next few years doing work of my own. Ultimately, I decided to return to USC.
Yet after much reflection, I found university an exceedingly high-risk place to be. High risk that I wouldn’t leave a profound impact on the world, as the crux of university involves learning/doing the same thing as everyone else. Any means of “differentiating” myself while in university (clubs/grades/projects/etc) are trivial compared to the differentiation possible by doing something else altogether.
Around last Christmas, I floated my theory for Intempus and what I had been up to to my parents for the first time in a cafe in Washington, DC, and again floated the potential of dropping out. Somehow, this time that statement felt much more serious than the prior two. My mom told me something along the lines of “you keep telling me you want to drop out and then backing out. It’s going to keep digging at you unless you give it a shot.”
So, three days into my fourth semester in college, I rented a U-Haul, packed up all my stuff, and moved to San Francisco to work on Intempus full-time. I had gone from not quite knowing what I wanted to do with myself, to finding a program which somehow solved my dilemma, to leaving that program altogether. I stand by this being one of my all time best decisions and took a considerable amount of mental back and forth, and several late night walks before I built up the courage to pull the trigger (I think talking with my Mom ultimately gave me the final boost of courage needed for this which I couldn’t appreciate more. Thanks Mom, I love you!).
For a while, I lived without accolade, sleeping in my buddy’s kitchen a few feet from my desk. Nine months after starting Intempus and five months after dropping out, I received the Thiel Fellowship, a fellowship for young people who want to build new things instead of sitting in a classroom.
I now run Intempus full-time, and get to profoundly impact the world at my own discretion.
I don’t think I could dream of a more wonderful position.
Wonderful Blur¶
My final few teenage years have been an absolute blur of wonderful things. I’ve captured some favorites below:
Lessons¶
I’ve picked up a lot throughout my teenage years. Here are some of the things that stuck.
Carpe Diem
The moment the first chime of your alarm rings through the air in the morning, stand up! Plant your feet on the ground, get up. Make your bed, brush your teeth, seize the day. Suck the marrow out of life, you’ll feel the difference.
Causa Sui
According to Google, “Causa sui” is a Latin term meaning “cause of itself” or “self-caused.” It refers to something that is generated within itself, and is a concept explored in philosophy, particularly by Spinoza, and in psychology by Freud and Becker. In these contexts, it often relates to the idea of a being or entity that is not dependent on any external cause for its existence or nature.
According to Teddy, “Causa sui” is man’s most important mantra. Intrinsic motivation is everything and is the cause of passion and genius. It is by far the most important trait to foster. Just pursue the things you find interesting. You’ll thrive! Extrinsic motivation never allows for true creativity - let your internal compass guide you, and you’ll do impactful things.
That said, I’ve found that surrounding yourself with excellence is one of the easiest/most important ways to increase your excellence. Excellent people provide an excellent bar for you to hold your interensic aspirations.
Spontianety
Spontaneous should be fostered (to the highest extent that it can be). Hands down, the best things I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing are a product of spontaneity. You just need to remain open and active.
Confidence is key
You’re in a perpetual rivalry between what you imagine you can do and what you can achieve.
Why not imagine the best possible version of yourself? As I wrote in The Emotion/Feeling Discontinuity:
To foster confidence, one may take advantage of the Emotion/Feeling Discontinuity. Emotions precede decision-making. Humans feel first and think second. Given emotions are objective physiological responses, the independent variable in confidence, the ‘weight’ for you to adjust, is your interpretation of emotion: your feelings.
By adjusting your interpretations of emotions, largely through changing your self-talk, you may rapidly build your confidence and comfort with discomfort.
A tangible example of this: the emotional (physiological) response your body exhibits during feelings of both excitement and anxiety is practically identical (a ‘drop’ in the position of your stomach, etc.). As Dr. Glenn Fox, a neuroscientist at USC, puts it, by simply slamming your fists on the table and exclaiming “I’m Excited!”, regardless of how silly it sounds, you’ll begin to morph your feelings of anxiety into excitement.
Self-talk is everything in expanding confidence. Do not tolerate negative self-talk. Actively scold doubt and anxiety.
Wonder
Many people would be much happier/ more content if they allowed themselves to wonder about the world. Also, go on walks and look up at the trees. I’ve found this to be quite the wonder-inducing inspiration point.
Advice?¶
It’s very important to me that as I progress into the next decade of my life, I do everything in my power to become the best version of myself. Any advice to keep in mind is much appreciated; just drop a comment below.