David Sussillo: "I Had to Be Like a God"

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Gist — David Sussillo: "I Had to Be Like a God" (May 18, 2026)

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Gist, hosted by Mike Pesca (Peach Fish Productions), features neuroscientist David Sussillo discussing his new memoir, Emergence: A Memoir of Boyhood, Computation, and the Mysteries of Mind. The conversation explores Sussillo’s improbable journey from a chaotic, neglected childhood in New Mexico’s foster system to the forefront of neuroscience and tech innovation. The discussion delves into the psychology of resilience, personal identity, and the interplay between trauma and achievement, all delivered in a candid, thoughtful tone.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to David Sussillo and His Work

• [13:21]–[14:42]: Pesca introduces Sussillo—a prominent neuroscientist formerly at Meta, tech innovator, and now author.
• Sussillo worked on neural network applications in wearables, notably Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses and EMG (electromyogram) wristbands.
• Challenge Highlighted: The complexity of creating technology adaptable across users' unique physiologies and behaviors.
  • Quote:
    • David Sussillo: “The hardest thing there is putting on a device...and having it work the first time. That is actually a very difficult applied neural network problem.” [15:10]

2. Childhood in Neglect and Foster Care

• [16:48]–[21:53]: Sussillo recounts growing up in poverty, his mother’s addiction, and years in the Albuquerque Christian Children’s Home—a group foster setting.
• Explains the lack of long-term adult attachment and the emotional consequences:
  • “You begin to look at the adults in your life as chaperones and not as emotional attachment.” [19:51]
• The absence of consistent mentorship; leadership often came from slightly older peers, not adults.

3. Making Sense of Trauma and Forming Identity

• [22:11]–[24:02]: Emotional lows included the slow degradation of the ability to attach or express love.
• High points: Finding community with other kids, developing discipline, and discovering an academic "patronus" in his intelligence (a Harry Potter reference).
  • “Once I became aware of it [my intelligence], it became the entirety of my identity, in a way that...was probably pretty pathological.” [24:08]

4. Contrasting Trajectories: Sussillo and His Sister

• [25:07]–[27:52]: Sussillo describes his sister’s intuitive, emotional intelligence and the different ways siblings adapt to trauma.
  • His own “Good Will Hunting” genius was cultivated, but his sister gravitated toward self-worth through beauty and social awareness—less recognized in the foster system's educational structures.
• The paths children take in adversity depend on temperament, available support, and chance.

5. Education as Salvation: The Milton Hershey School

• [29:14]–[31:16]: Sussillo discusses how the Hershey School—a unique, well-funded boarding school for disadvantaged children—helped him, despite continued instability in caregiving (house parents).
• The school provided resources and structure, a broad peer community, but vulnerability persisted.

6. Transition to Adulthood & Psychological Struggles

• [31:46]–[41:23]: After academic success, Sussillo’s move into adulthood (tech jobs in Boston) triggered panic attacks (“the shakers”) and emotional crises due to lacking a personal support system.
• Therapy became crucial, leading him to recognize how survival strategies—like seeing himself as “the smart one”—became maladaptive.
  • “I had to accept that [my identity as the smart guy] was probably a survival strategy.” [39:57]
• Emotional regulation and learning to value actual connections became key to healing.

7. The "God Complex" as Survival Strategy

• [42:01]–[43:28]: Sussillo shares that, as a child, he developed a belief that to survive and matter, he needed to be superhuman—a “God” or the “next Einstein.”
  • "For such a great, for such a terrible form of negligence would require a correspondingly enormous lie..." [42:10]
• Recognizing and deconstructing this narrative in therapy was critical to healthy adulthood.

8. Narcissistic Traits vs. Childhood Adaptation

• [44:10]–[46:27]: Pesca and Sussillo discuss how extreme survival identities (the smart one, the pretty one, the bully, etc.) are common for neglected children. These traits may resemble narcissism, but often simply reflect attempts to gain adult attention and affirmation.

9. Resilience, Perseverance, and Luck

• [47:25]–[50:59]: Perseverance and “grit” come up as explanations for Sussillo’s survival and success, but he’s wary of oversimplification. He attributes outcomes to a blend of personal awareness, luck, intelligence, and the ability to "stay in the right lane."
  • “I wasn’t going to let it happen... Even though I was oblivious when I was 6...by the time I was 9, I knew my situation was screwed. And I just wasn’t going to let it happen.” [49:06]

10. The Complex Interplay of Trauma and Achievement

• [50:16]–[51:36]: Sussillo acknowledges that trauma “forged” many positive qualities—work ethic, resilience—but this comes at great cost and shouldn't be romanticized or wished on others.
  • “My perspective on the world, the kind of science that I do...snipping those [traumas] out would lead to a very different human being...” [51:36]

11. Social Reflection: Upbringing and Society

• [51:36]–[53:38]: Pesca prompts Sussillo to compare the effects of harsh vs. nurturing upbringings in different cultures (e.g., China vs. US).
• Sussillo stresses that while adversity can create resilience, most kids from such backgrounds don’t “make it”—the system often leads to prison or worse, not elite achievement. The “hidden national tragedy” of foster care escapes, or the rare successes, should not obscure the broader reality.

12. Current Views: On Tech and Humanity

• [53:52]–[56:05]: Now on a book tour and in career transition, Sussillo remains optimistic about technology’s potential to foster connection and healing (drawing from his own positive experiences with computers and games), but agrees with concerns about guardrails and psychological pitfalls, especially with young or vulnerable users.
  • “I would say I’m worried about it [tech losing sight of humanity] in a broad sense, but I’m an optimist.” [54:27]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the survival strategy of intelligence:
  • “Once I became aware of [my intelligence], it became the entirety of my identity, in a way that in hindsight was probably pretty pathological in some ways. But when you have absolutely nothing at all, you hold onto whatever you can.” [24:08]
• On emotional consequences of neglect:
  • “By the time I was in 7th, 12 years old...I don’t know that I would have said I loved anybody. I would have laughed at that idea.” [22:11]
• On developing a ‘God’ complex:
  • “For such a great, for such a terrible form of negligence would require a correspondingly enormous lie...I had convinced myself I had to be like the next Einstein. I had to be like a God...” [42:10]
• On perseverance and luck:
  • “Perseverance and a lot of luck. Yes...I was deeply dissatisfied with that answer...” [47:40]
• On the reality of foster care outcomes:
  • “It is an almost hidden national tragedy what’s going on...1 in 20 foster kids goes to college.” [52:37]
• On trauma’s effects:
  • “My perspective on the world...I would be deeply nervous that snipping those [bad experiences] out would lead to a very different human being...” [51:36]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [13:21] Pesca introduces David Sussillo
• [14:04] Sussillo on neuroscience and his tech innovations
• [16:48] Sussillo’s early life: poverty, neglect, group home
• [19:35] Lack of stable adult attachment, the group home system
• [22:11] Emotional fallout of neglect; finding purpose in intelligence
• [25:07] Sister’s emotional/social intelligence compared
• [29:14] Transition to Milton Hershey School, unique institutional support
• [31:46] Emotional crises in early adulthood, onset of panic attacks
• [39:57] Therapy: deconstructing the “God complex”
• [42:10] The psychological cost of neglect: striving for superhuman value
• [47:25] Discussion of perseverance and personal agency
• [51:36] Trauma’s impact on identity and achievement
• [53:52] Sussillo on technology’s humanity and potential dangers
• [56:05] Reflection on guardrails and mental health in tech

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Final Thoughts

Sussillo’s story is gripping—not just as a personal odyssey, but as a reflection on how children invent themselves under stress, the lifelong work of healing, and the complicated intersections of adversity, intelligence, and fortune. While celebrating resilience, neither he nor Pesca romanticizes trauma; instead, they urge empathy and reform for society’s most vulnerable. The episode offers a unique window into the psychology of high achievement forged in adversity, and the necessary humility in telling such a story.

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Emergence: A Memoir of Boyhood, Computation, and the Mysteries of Mind by David Sussillo is available now.

Transcript

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[Mike Pesca]

It's Monday, May 18, 2026. From peach fish Productions, it's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Eileen Wang, mayor of Arcadia, California. Chinese asset, a Chinese agent. Not spy, but asset. At the risk of going on about this story, I did mention it to a few friends. Yeah, the mayor of Arcadia. And they were like, wait, who? And sure, why should you know about the mayor of a city of 55,000 in Los Ang County? Because she was working for the Chinese is why. And these friends were very, very smart friends. Law school professors, literally. Anyway, it's not the most important story, but I've been very enraptured by the story because Eileen Wang was by her own admission and plea working for the Chinese, the communist government. So I talked about this and the coverage in the LA Times. They were a little bit afraid of offending the Chinese, the Chinese non spies in their audience. The New York Times had one story after news of the plea. While there was one reference in a Trump Goes to China story and another roundup of Wang story and a crazy one out of New York. A New York jury found that Lu Jin Wang operated a secret police station, what they call a secret police monitoring station in Chinatown for the Ministry of Public Security. He was found guilty of charges of acting as an illegal agent of the government of China. At least the New York Times didn't spend a lot of time asking if everyone suspects every Chinese person in New York of running a secret police station. I think in New York the attitude is, yeah, well, we all have our thing, you know. But I'm going to go to the coverage of the Pasadena Star News, which is a paper in the adjoining town city in Los Angeles County. Right next door they send out some reporters to do a little man on the street survey of the locals along Fairgrove avenue in District 3, which former Mayor Eileen Wang represented. Concern about her alleged propaganda activities was mild. Christina Hernandez, who said she voted for Wang, wanted more details about the investigation. Quote, I found that on the news, but I think I need more information to find out if she's really, you know, guilty. She said, okay, so I don't know if these reporters think it's against the reporter's code or not being a good anthropologist or breaking Kayfabe, but, yeah, she agreed to plead guilty. She says she's guilty. They could tell Christina Hernandez that. I think they should definitely tell us that. The reporters interview one guy who they give anonymity to to say it will be interesting to see who the city council picks to step in next week, he said, while also admitting learning about a direct line between a foreign government and a local feels like a breach of public trust. It does feel like that. It actually goes beyond a feeling. It is factually a serious federal crime. I don't know. Murder. It kind of feels like a little bit of a violation, doesn't it? By the way, it's the kind of federal crime that captures something essential about our democracy, namely that it is our democracy. So the same guy, anonymous guy, said he didn't know that city officials had stressed that the charges are for activities Wang conducted before she was sworn into office. Okay, so that's a clue how the reporters think of themselves as far as do we get to inform our interview subjects of the truth that guy obviously heard from the reporters. Well, you know, local officials have said the activities were before she was sworn into office. And the paper does dutifully quote the city manager as quick to reassure residents that the investigation concerns individual conduct. And, quote, the charges are for conduct that ceased after Ms. Wang was sworn into office in Dec. 22. That's true about the charges, but we don't know if the conduct ceased. We know that she took a tour of China in 2023 with the guy now serving four years for being a Chinese operative. There's just a lot of incuriosity, I think, going on in Arcadia. The concern gets pretty nonsensical in the end, where a description of polarization actually becomes polarizing. Here we go. Voices ramped up the backlash against a local leader who they said led a double life as a spy. But it also amplified left, right, political divides over China and foreign infiltration in American elections. It amped up. So some on the left disagree with some on the right about foreign infiltration. Who is in favor of it? Okay, what they're saying here is that some on the right are alleging that there is a lot of foreign infiltration in US Elections. Although wasn't this the entire point of the Mueller report and the Russia probe? There are some on the left saying that, too. A lot of it depends on which country. And they, in the Pasadena Star News, they do a rundown of all the crazy conservatives or Republicans saying crazy Republican things like the charges prompted calls on conservative media platforms to review all green cards from, quote, adversarial regimes and end birthright citizenship. Well, that is stupid, isn't it? The paper quotes Katie Miller, wife of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, calling Wang a spy. That's the whole line. All right, she wasn't a spy. She was a foreign asset. She was involved in something of a spy ring for sure. I guess Katie Miller said it. So that goes to the polarization and it goes on. Some, some even called for anyone from a foreign country or dual citizenship to be disqualified for office. Okay, so that's really stupid. Right? But we do know this particular mayor who was in office did work for the Chinese. There are a lot of overreactions to that fact. That fact. But an underreaction goes something like, let's not overreact to the point where we don't really even properly react. Here's another underreaction. A quote from Judy Chu, who's the representative in Congress from the area. Chu D. Pasadena. Pushed back against what? It's unclear from the context. I think maybe the dumb green card revocation thing. I guess this is all a fight she wants. She pushed back and pointed to Trump administration's anti immigration agenda. Well, that's not good. Quote. These attacks on the Asian American community are unfortunately not new. Wait, the attacks of going too far when there was a quasi spy in the mayor's office or just in general attacks on the Asian American community? These attacks on the Asian American community are unfortunately not new. The Asian American community has already weathered stigma, prejudice and violence fueled by rhetoric from President Trump and his administration. But you know, I got to say this one Asian American, and not just Asian American, you say that you maybe include all the Filipinos and all of the South Koreans and a few Thais and maybe even, you know, if you don't say South Asian, you got some Pakistanis and some Indians we're talking about. This one specific Chinese American was in fact working for the Chinese. And there might be some backlash and people might say stupid things about it. And there was some other guy who had a secret police station and this lady also had handlers who are currently in prison. But it is true that that happened. And even if people are going to say stupid things about that, you could take the political opportunity to jump on the stupid things or you could take the opportunity to say, yeah, this ain't good. Here's her choose ending quote. While I'm completely shocked and disappointed by the conduct admitted to by Eileen Wang. I am proud to represent the diverse communities in San Gabriel Valley. While I do not like the Gilgo beach serial killer, I support the wineries on eastern Long Island. We are in non sequitur land, people. Just imagine if a ethnically Russian American politician were found working for Russia. Would there be all this hand wringing? I don't know. Maybe there would. Maybe there would be. Mass quoting of Russian American officials saying, please don't think all Russians are disloyal. It's just in general the wrong thing to emphasize. Just because some fools allege mass disloyalty, it doesn't mean that foolishly turning a blind eye to the actual disloyal is the bad stance to take on the show Today I've got a good guest, an interesting guest, a genius of a guest, David Cecillo. He's an internationally recognized neuroscientist. He worked for Metta. He also has an amazing and fairly horrific childhood spending years in and out of the Albuquerque foster care system and what amounts to an orphanage. And he's here to talk about it. And to talk about his new book, Emergence, a Memoir of Boyhood Computation and the Mysteries of Mind. David Sicilo. If your team's communications are messy, customers feel it. Mixed messages, drop threads, slow replies. Ugh. Ugh. Right? That's how you lose momentum. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo spelled Quo, the business communication system built so you never miss a call. So a little about Quo. It's the number one rated business phone system on G2 with over 3,000 reviews. It works. Quo does. Wherever you are, right from your phone or computer, you keep your existing number and just add teammates in minutes and sync with your CRM and let the call routing handle itself as you scale. And if you're running a business, you get it. And you get how vital this is. Quo isn't just a phone system. It is a smart system. Money is on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try quo for free. Plus 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com/gist. That's quo.com/gist. 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[Mike Pesca]

David Sicilo is a fascinating guy, an accomplished guy. If you met him, you would say, wow, this brainiac who's a neuroscientist who has worked for all the huge tech companies and right now is on the forefront. Well, we'll hear about some of the exciting things he's doing. That's not why he came to my attention. He came to my attention because he's written a memoir that traces us through as improbable a path that one could possibly imagine to get to the perch where he is now. The name of the book is Emergence, A memoir of Boyhood computation and the mysteries of mind. David Sicillo. Welcome to the Gist.

[David Sicilo]

Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

[Mike Pesca]

So, so orient us. What's your day job in layman's terms?

[David Sicilo]

Yeah, so my day job. So I'm currently in between jobs at the moment, but my day job is I think about science in terms of neuroscience and I think about technology. And so a lot of the things that I've been paid to do involve, for example, examining bio signals for the purposes of making cool products like the meta Ray Ban glasses or things like this, or in my affiliation with Stanford as an adjunct professor. Well, I'll just think about hard science and how the brain works. And so that's the kind of stuff I think about.

[Mike Pesca]

So the wearables, those meta glasses were yours?

[David Sicilo]

Well, to say their mind is grossly overblown. But yeah, I was a part of. I was a part. We did this EMG wristband where like you. So EMG electromyogram, it reads out the muscle signals. So you can actually. Because if you have a display on your face, that's a computer. And so you have to be able to control it. And so we figured out how to do that using basically motions from your hand.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. What was the white whale of that research? What was the hardest thing to crack?

[David Sicilo]

The hardest thing there is putting on a device using. It's all neural network technology. So, you know, what we now call AI, putting on a device for everyone on the planet with all the differences in people's shapes and people's strength and all of that, and having it work the first time, that is actually a very difficult applied neural network problem.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh. So as opposed to come in for a fitting, come in for another fitting. You need to have this out of the box, strap on everyone with an arm and have it work, basically work. I mean, I know there's some tweaking.

[David Sicilo]

That's right. It's a very difficult problem.

[Mike Pesca]

What's a weird part of that problem that I wouldn't imagine? I don't know, Hairiness of the arms.

[David Sicilo]

Yeah, hairiness. Some people sweat more. People have different. Just all kinds of crazy. Another thing that's surprising is like you tell someone, hey, do a pinch. Because like a pinch is a control gesture and everyone has a different idea of what that means. And so you have to be able to accommodate some of that. And that's actually pretty surprising.

[Mike Pesca]

Interesting. Do you wear this stuff in your real life day to day?

[David Sicilo]

Yes. So the glasses? Yeah, absolutely. With respect to the wrist, those products sold out very quickly. So I don't actually own one. But yes, to be a Fanboy of the company I used to work for. Yes. I think the meta Ray Bans are really cool glasses, and I find great value in them.

[Mike Pesca]

So you didn't give you one out the door? You couldn't just take one off the shelf? Secondary market? I don't know. You're David Cecillo.

[David Sicilo]

The answer is no.

[Mike Pesca]

All right, so let's talk about your emergence and how you came up. Your mother had serious drug problems. When did you realize your mom wasn't like other moms?

[David Sicilo]

Oh, you know, pretty late. Probably like nine or ten. But. So I wasn't living with my mother by eight years old. And for all the time that I lived with her, you know, when you're a kid, you're just a dumb little kid. You don't know. And so I didn't know when I lived with her. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

What was the stability? Were you going to school? How. Because I know you essentially became feral. I know it wasn't stable, but describe your life up to eight.

[David Sicilo]

Yeah, sure. So there was a divorce. There was a big fight and a divorce between my mother and my father when I think I was five. And so then we were just sort of living with my mother. And so we'd go to the public schools. You know, we would eat the hot lunches and get the free food. And I just remember being. Being poor, you know, and. And just have. Doing the things that you do. As a kid, I. You know, in hindsight, I. I could say so. There's really two perspectives here. And as a kid, I didn't know anything. I was just doing it as a. In hindsight, I was like, well, we didn't eat very well, and there was government cheese and all that. And I had a toy at Christmas. And so, like. But, like, I.

[Mike Pesca]

A toy.

[David Sicilo]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We were. We were poor in a way that it was at very sort of bottom of society for the United States.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. And you had an older sister and your father also, like your mother, a heroin addict or heroin. Substance problems. He died pretty young.

[David Sicilo]

No, no, he. Well, sorry. So he died when I was an adult, but he was not in my life. So what ended up happening was my sister and I, Esther, we ended up going to this group home, the Albuquerque Christian Children's Home. When I was eight, my mother was unable to take care of us. And so the way that that looked was like, I was constantly lonely and alone, just walking the streets of this really awful neighborhood called the War Zone in New Mexico in Albuquerque, and she didn't enroll us for school. And so you could just. By the end, it was starting to steamroll, right?

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. And you were there for five years in the Albuquerque Christian, essentially an orphanage?

[David Sicilo]

Yes. Yeah, that's right. You know, the word isn't used anymore, but it is effectively an orphanage. They call it group home now. And to be fair, group home is actually a more generic term. But we were at this place, supported by the local Church of Christ community in Albuquerque. Pure donations. Three sets of house, parents for three different. We called them cottages. Three houses, 16 kids per cottage, give or take. It was meant to be a transient facility, but, you know, for some of us whose situations were really unstable, we were there for five years.

[Mike Pesca]

Were you the longest resident while you were there?

[David Sicilo]

While I was there, yes. There were two guys, Omar and Bobby, who ended up being there longer than me, but. And my sister, but yes.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And also you were longer than the actual adults who were, quote, unquote, running the group home.

[David Sicilo]

And that's the critical point. Yes. So you're. You're like this. You just kind of. You, as a kid are just like this raft going down the river, and at no point, like, you know, they don't know what dings or rocks you ran into two years ago because, you know, they weren't there. And so that's a huge thing. So there's no. There's really no attachment. Right. There's no. So you begin to look at the adults in your life as chaperones and not as emotional attachment. In all honesty, I think that this kind of work is so difficult that emotional attachment from the perspective of the adults is actually a dangerous and complicated thing.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. Well, what about a case officer from the state? What about an official from the school? Now, I say the school, but you could fill me in on that.

[David Sicilo]

Yeah. So neither my sister nor I nor anyone else, I believe, at the Albuquerque Christian Children's Home were actually wards of the state, so we didn't have that kind of connection. I don't know, having read a little bit more about what foster care means these days, I don't know how significant those connections really are. But what happened was my grandparents were part of this church community, and they knew that there was this church that was sort of aligned with their views, and so that's how we ended up there.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And was there one school? Was there an important teacher, an administrator, guidance counselor, anyone? Yeah. Anyone who could actually follow you more than the in and out leadership of the group home?

[David Sicilo]

No. The short answer is no. The real leader in my community was this kid Omar, who was Three years older than me, and he was part of the same ups and downs and craziness and the whole thing. Thing. But, like, beyond, you know, we. You know, people, it's hard to believe we really fended for ourselves. And yes, there was an administrator at the ACCH who was actually there the entire time, but now we're talking about somebody who is really far removed from the kids, who's keeping the community above water by going out and getting donations. So that was not. That was not a connection.

[Mike Pesca]

So there's many stories in your book, from first kisses to video games. A lot of video games.

[David Sicilo]

That's right.

[Mike Pesca]

But give me. Give me some highs and some lows of this experience when you're. I want to get the age right, from about 8 or 9 to high school to 13.

[David Sicilo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So the. The. The lows. The lows are really have to do with slow, like, emotional degradation. You know, by the. By the. By the time I was in 7th, 12 years old or something, like, I. I don't know that I would have said I loved anybody. I would have laughed at that idea. I like, you guys are what? Really? Right. So. So, you know, we're doing chores constantly, and, you know, chores build character, but it was a little bit insane because we're doing it all the time. So. So that stereotype from the movies is 100% true when it comes to the group home experiences that I had. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Did you guys know how to bust out into it's a hard knock life

[David Sicilo]

or, you know, we should have done it. It's seriously. No, Jay Z rocks. That noun. Like, you go, that's right. So on the positive side, I would say that. That discipline. And also, you know, we were going to church three times a week. The Christian Albuquerque Christian Children's Home. It was a real thing. You know, it made me less feral. My emotional system was completely whacked out, but my behavior became tolerable. And that was something that was, I think, important, even though I didn't enjoy the process of it happening. So. And, you know, and we also, like, I had friends, right? I had a friend or two. And like, the highlight of that experience is we. You know, I'm 10 years old, and I finally figured out that my parents were addicts and that, like, my father's worthless and my mother's got serious problems. And so me and Omar, we would, like, sit down and, like, what are we gonna do, man? You know? And so, you know, by the time I'm 10, I have a plan. And that plan is to go to college.

[Mike Pesca]

And that's because you were smart. But also you were told you were smart. And it was clear that your intellig intelligence was a currency.

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[Mike Pesca]

To what extent was it cultivated by teachers and the school who knew your circumstance?

[David Sicilo]

Almost exclusively. So I, I just would score the highest in on all the tests. I got tested for the gifted and talented program and I was accepted into that program. I didn't know that smartness was a thing until again, the same age of awareness. Call it 9 or 10. And once I became aware of it, it became the entirety of my identity in a way that in hindsight was probably pretty pathological in some ways. But when you have absolutely nothing at all, you hold on to whatever you can. So the way that I try to explain it is like the patronus spell in Harry Potter. I had an idea of what I was and that was being reinforced. And my idea was given by the teachers and it was being reinforced not only by teachers, but by the community I was in. And that was it, man. That was my ticket. And I was going to keep my head and I was not gonna let any of the craziness or the BS or any of that get at me. And I was just gonna get through and that's what I did.

[Mike Pesca]

And what was your sister like?

[David Sicilo]

My sister, she was very smart. Not the same kind of book smart that I was blessed with, but nobody's fool. She was, she's passed away. She was very intuitive and I mean, like easily could have been a really amazing psychotherapist if things had gone another way for her. So for her, you know, I'm 8 years old and I'm heads down in an Atari 2600 just, you know, trying to make it through. She was aware of everything, you know, and in a way that was like, you know, she was aware of the girls at school and they were pretty and they had dresses and, you know, before this word became sort of political and toxic, she'd say, hey, those kids, those girls are privileged, right? Those girls actually have things that I don't have. And it really bothered her. So I would say that the experiences that we went through were particularly pernicious for my sister, given her both her precociousness and the kinds of intelligences that she had. In particular, emotional and social intelligence.

[Mike Pesca]

You had a certain kind of intelligence that presented itself as, you know, goodwill hunting intelligence. Like, ooh, this is a genius kid in the realm of the quantitative. Whereas your sister's type of intelligence, she might have tested well, but I Got the impression. And she had many other problems and, and obstacles. But it wasn't as easy for that to be cultivated by things like advanced schools or people who wanted to, you know, put her in programs where you could tap into her quote, unquote genius.

[David Sicilo]

Yeah. So what I would say there is just first a moment on myself. You don't get through one of these experiences. I was raised with 16 brothers and sisters for 10 years. Right. You learn social intelligence, even if it isn't your God given gift. It was my sister's gift. And so what I would say is she was in the smart classes. I don't think she was in the gifted and talented program. But the critical point is she had her own defense strategy which, you know, she also was trying to like make up a story about herself. And so for her, that story didn't involve intelligence. It involved her beauty. She was, she was, she was an attractive, she became a very attractive woman. But you know, she wanted to take modeling lessons. And so she was focused on a different set of things. And so because of that, I don't think she would have had the same reach. She wouldn't have had, had the same response to teachers who would have reached out to her. She didn't care. It wasn't what interested her.

[Mike Pesca]

I'll also say that people who are more privileged or just have a decent level of care and nurturing and foundation under them could be exactly like your sister and flourish in the realm of the mind after going through the teenage beauty phase or even, you know, 20, 20 year old beauty phase.

[David Sicilo]

I totally agree with you. So what I think is interesting, if I can riff off of that in a slightly different direction. So I added a lot of science in the book and the science does a lot of things, not the least of which is sort of educate you about what I do once I become an adult. But it also is sort of, if I'm allowed to say it, sort of a philosophical underpinning for how do kids end up where they do? Why are some kids resilient? Why are other kids not resilient? And so what I would say there is that whatever was going on with her, we were both in a situation where the kinds of buffers that you're talking about in particular having some money, those buffers aren't there. So it's just sort of out there naked and blowing in the wind, if you will, a little bit, so that you can really see what happens to people. Given their innate interests and all the crazy stuff that happens to kids, your

[Mike Pesca]

grandparents Are essentially quarterbacking from afar. And they never took you in, but they were maybe trying to put you in a decent enough position. I would critique, and I think you do, too, some of the. Their lack of involvement. And then you had an uncle and aunt who took you in, but that didn't take for a while. And then you get to the Milton Hershey. Yes, the chocolate guy. You get to his school, and this is an amazing school, and it's Christian, but it was probably founded with the words the school for foundlings. At some point. This was a school that teaches and reaches out to the sort of kid you were. You were that kid in extremists. But someone maybe without parents, without direction, but also really tries to help them and cultivate what their innate gifts are. And the school and you. But the school you give a lot of credit to.

[David Sicilo]

Yeah. So Milton Hershey school has got 15 or 17 billion dollars endowment. I mean, it's an enormous institution financially. Has about 2,000 kids there now. It was 1,000 kids when I was there. And so what I would say is, for any large organization, it's sort of like, people don't quit companies, they quit their managers. Well, in this case, the analogy is that the house parents are the managers. And so I actually got really unlucky, and my house parents at Milton Hershey School were not fabulous. And so I really suffered because of it in terms of some of the things that were set up there. But broadening out to the school, I do give a lot of credit to the school. They basically accept students with economically disadvantaged backgrounds. And so that means everything from, like, dad's gone and mom sort of struggling to get by, all the way to some very intense backgrounds involving addiction and death and all kinds of stuff. Right. So there's a broad spectrum of kids that end up going there, and also hugely, a real racial melting pot as well.

[Mike Pesca]

The college experience is chronicled, but when you emerge, you go to Boston, you start getting jobs in tech, is it seen as if, well, you've succeeded or you've graduated from this very hard life that you lived? I mean, no one's there to give. They were there to give you a diploma, but no one's there to officially say that part of your life is over. Now you're in the world of upwardly mobile, very talented tech workers.

[David Sicilo]

Yeah. So there's a lot to say here. So, you know, from age 10 through college, I had this whole setup about I was the smart kid and I was going to do that, and so then I basically did it. And when I was in Boston, my life really fell apart. I started having panic attacks, and I don't have family. Like, I don't call my parents on the weekend. Right. So I have no support structure whatsoever. It is true. You know, I have some connections with my aunts and uncles, but they'd sort of atrophied in that time of my life. And so I get to Boston, I'm living by myself for the first time, and, you know, my life really falls apart. And, I mean, in a seriously clinical and dangerous way. And I think, you know, speaking to your point, that was related to not having what's next. You know, I did the thing I said I was gonna do, and, like, I don't know what it's like to launch a life as an adult. I don't even know what it means to be an adult. It's just starting to happen to me. And so there was that transition that I had to figure out, and it was a very serious and difficult transition for me. And I think for a lot of kids from foster care, yeah, you've never

[Mike Pesca]

really seen an adult making it or close to making it as a model.

[David Sicilo]

And I was super intense. I mean, because by the time I got to college, I was like, this is my moment. If I don't make it here, I'll never make it. And so I was, like, really revved up, you know, and so now I did it, and now the wheels are spinning, and nothing but. I had no plan and no goal. It was really hard.

[Mike Pesca]

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[Mike Pesca]

We're back with David Sicilo, author of Emergence A Memoir of Boyhood Computation and the Mysteries of the Mind. And David, you have these panic attacks that you call shakers, right?

[David Sicilo]

Because my limbs were shaking like mad, right?

[Mike Pesca]

Yes, yes and right. Not because of Pennsylvania. No nice furniture involved. And you need you require, but you don't always avail yourself of it fully. Psychiatric care. What was. Looking back, do you see this as an area of maximum vulnerability in a way that was maybe surprising to you, In a way that when you were a kid and you were vulnerable and you were in a school, essentially a couple of glorified orphanages, at least other people, and the system itself wasn't caring for you, but recognizing just how vulnerable you were. And now it's up to you to recognize that. And you don't always do a great job of it.

[David Sicilo]

That's right. Yeah. So I think young adulthood, now we're talking 23 here, is extremely vulnerable age for darn near everybody, and certainly for people with the kinds of background that I can. I come from. And so I, again, I had no contacts with anybody. I don't know what it means to live a life. So I basically had to get into psychotherapy and sort of just slow things down and actually take a look at all the crazy stuff that had happened to me and really analyze myself. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

How'd you afford that?

[David Sicilo]

Well, so that's the great thing about getting the degree from Carnegie Mellon. I don't know, it was 1998 or something. I was making 55K. My, my whole read on that is like you, you can find a way to afford it if I. I had the means. And it, it was, it was a big spend, but it wasn't. It wasn't breaking the bank or anything.

[Mike Pesca]

And in retrospect, your life pretty much depended on it.

[David Sicilo]

Yeah, and it changed my life. I mean, you know, so every. Everything went well for me once I started getting into regular therapy. Right. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

And what insights did you have, what you learned about yourself on an intellectual level that helped you move forward?

[David Sicilo]

Well, that's. So the, the intellectual framing, I think, is not how I'd respond to that question.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. I know, because you learn tools. Right. You learn how to recognize what was going on with you emotionally. I know this. I mean, I read the book, but I think maybe people would assume that about psychotherapy and the tools that you learn. But my question is when. Yeah. Is about insights, is about looking at how you looked at yourself. Then here is a way you had to change your thinking, not just your practice, but you're thinking about yourself, your job, your place in the universe, etc.

[David Sicilo]

I had to sort of. I mean, people had been like blowing smoke in my direction about my intelligence for. For so long. I had to accept that that was probably a survival strategy. And yeah, I'm a Smart guy. But like, that isn't like, if I continue to build my identity around that in such a pathological way, I'm only going to continue, continue end up in pathology. And that was intellectual insight that I had to contend with. I had to learn that other people mattered. I was always able to maintain friendships, but I didn't work at it. I didn't know how to work at it. So I had to learn that agency in a social setting is something I had and that it mattered. And if I didn't put work into it, it would lead to bad things for me, less positive outcome. I had to learn that, well, this is getting into tools, but I had to learn that when I had all these crazy emotions, because the people from my background, really what we struggle with primarily is emotional dysregulation, that all of these emotions are okay, but you can't act on them. Or if you do, of course you can act on them, but you should do so in a responsible manner. And so that set of tools over getting to know myself, getting to know those tools, that took about four or five years. And once that was engaged, I was, I was making, hey, I was doing great.

[Mike Pesca]

Would you say that you are apt to experience emotions more vividly and strongly than. I don't know what the average person is, but a well situated person. Or is it more the case that, you know, maybe you have your ups and downs like everyone else, but when things get bad, or before you learn these tools, it was when things get bad, they got really bad for you?

[David Sicilo]

I just anecdotally, just talking to the people around me, I'm certain I feel much more strongly than the people around me, right. I assume I attribute that to my background, but it could be genetic too. And so that's what I learned to handle.

[Mike Pesca]

At one point in the book, you said that your conception of yourself to get through these times is not just the smart guy, which you've said many times here, was something like a God.

[David Sicilo]

Explain. Yeah, so. You're talking about the real concern here is negligence, right? So when it's hard to put people in these shoes, right. Imagine being seven years old and like nobody's there for you, right? And 8 and 9 and 10 and year over year, and this sort of emotional degradation or lack of growth that would happen in those environments and what would be necessary to compensate for that, so for such a great, for such a terrible form of negligence would require a correspondingly enormous lie, right? An enormous compensation. And so it's in that sense that I had convinced Myself that I had to be like the next Einstein. I had to be like a God in order to have a positive or meaningful sense of self, and I had to deconstruct it. So I see now where you're driving. I had to deconstruct all of that in therapy and say, no, man, you're just a guy, smart guy, and that's okay. And you can make a life out of that. Right.

[Mike Pesca]

But gods are powerful and you were feeling powerless.

[David Sicilo]

Yeah, I think that's right. Again, this is a childhood compensation. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

People in the tech industry get described as gods all the time. Did your experience telling yourself you had to be a God give you any insight as to if that's true or when people say that, do they mean something different from how you experienced it? Or maybe there is something there. Right. Maybe everyone feels a certain way and you had this terrible childhood and Mark Zuckerberg, to take your former boss's boss's boss's boss, grew up in affluence in a New York suburb. But still, maybe there is something there.

[David Sicilo]

Well, so. So I've never met Mark Zuckerberg. I can't comment on him. But. But I can speak to the problem, to the point you're making.

[Mike Pesca]

I've just taken that a typical guy who people knew, who grew up pretty well off. And I didn't want to say Elon Musk, because, yes, his travails. His travails are more well documented and daddy issues and so forth.

[David Sicilo]

But go ahead. Yeah, fair enough. So what I would say is that, you know what this is, what we're really talking about is narcissism. Here would be the technical word. Right. In the clinical field. And so it would not shock me at all. I think, in fact, there's statistics about this that people who end up in very high positions have lots of narcissistic qualities. And in some sense those things serve them. Serve, serve them well, because it could be pretty darn stressful to be in those positions if you didn't have such a strong belief about who you are or what you're capable of doing. For me, it was unhelpful. I was able to recognize it in my twenties and deconstruct it and walk away from it because you.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, so you wreck. What part of what you were doing in therapy was recognizing that you had narcissistic tendencies and you found ways to get away from that.

[David Sicilo]

That's right, yes. Yeah. And now whether or not my therapist thought I was a technical narcissistic complex, I have no idea. Right. Because I was able to relate to people. I was able to empathize. And so that would not be consistent. I think I'm not a professional, but would not be consistent with that perspective. But, yeah, I had to really work on these things, and I did.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, a lot of it's nature and nurture. Right. I don't think you had it naturally, but by how you were nurtured or lack thereof, you developed it as traits. So maybe someone with the dark triad would have. It would have a harder time letting go of that. I don't know.

[David Sicilo]

That's right. My view on the kids from the backgrounds that I have is. It's almost like simplistic, but like an incredibly good approximation of what was going on. Like, you know, my sister wanted to be the model. Omar was the bully. Bobby was the really beautiful guy who could. Who was just so friendly. I was the smart. We all had these, like. Like, really simplistic, cliche survival strategies in the sense of, like, you know, how siblings sort of define themselves against each other a little bit. But now just do that with 16 kids, and we all kind of slot it in, and hopefully that worked for some of us, and it didn't work out for a lot of us.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, right. Because life is so hard that there is no allowance for nuance. And you have to be the pure distillation of the one thing to have a shot at what you think is happiness. It's also a child's view of the world. Like, basically how superheroes, you know, you're reading comic books, and one guy's the smart guy and one guy's the Flash, and one guy's Batman. And so you have to, you know, be these. The ultimate expression of extreme personality traits.

[David Sicilo]

That's right. Because what we were really missing was adult attention. And those. That was. Those were our attempts to get that attention. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Maybe that's why superheroes are often orphans.

[David Sicilo]

Yeah. A shocking number of heroes in books are orphaned. I did a little research on this when I was writing the book. I was blown away from. From James Bond to Batman to. To. It just goes. The list goes on and on.

[Mike Pesca]

Harry Potter.

[David Sicilo]

Harry Potter. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Luke Skywalker. So at one point, you give a speech and a girl comes up to you. This has been very successful. What was the difference? You talked a little bit about your life in that speech, and you said something like. Perseverance.

[David Sicilo]

Perseverance and a lot of luck. Yes.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, so luck, Luck. We agree with you. Acknowledge that. But you thought perseverance was A bit too Blythe. And it is like, as a word, what does it explain? Grit. You have grit. But it is also true. I mean, you do have an amazing amount of perseverance. And a lot of the dysfunction was that you were. You persevered so much that it spilled over and.

[David Sicilo]

That's right. You nailed it.

[Mike Pesca]

Rage.

[David Sicilo]

You got it.

[Dish Advertiser]

But it's not that.

[Mike Pesca]

It's not the case that it. There was a lot of luck. But you have the 99th percentile of perseverance. Right?

[David Sicilo]

I mean, maybe I've never. I don't know how to measure it, but. But I'm open to the idea. I'm not. I'm not debating it. Sure. Let's say yes.

[Mike Pesca]

So the question is, how do you think that happens? Because I understand a little bit about intelligence, and there's all this literature about how to instill in our kids grit, and I know how not to do it. But how'd you get that trait?

[David Sicilo]

I have no idea. And so the anecdote you're describing is in the prologue of the book. And the whole point of putting that as the prologue was to say I was deeply dissatisfied with that answer and that the mixture of my story and the science that I'm explaining are meant to give a much deeper response to this server than persistence and a lot of luck. But.

[Mike Pesca]

So, you know, which is the book? The book is the better answer to that.

[David Sicilo]

The book is the better answer. Answer, yes. But to answer your question, the best I can say is I wasn't gonna let it happen. And it was it being a negative outcome. I, you know, even though I was oblivious When I was 6 to 7, 8, by the time I was 9, I knew my situation was screwed. And I was. I just wasn't going to let it happen. And so, you know, to the degree. So first off, there's some awareness there. Now you say, well, what's, you know, when. When you do start to let make bad decisions or bad things happen, you know, what's going on there? And I always just had. I got into a lot of trouble. I was a knucklehead. I was not a great kid, but I wasn't arrested. You know, I was doing like, lightweight drugs, but I knew better to get into serious drugs. So I always had just a little bit of perspicacity, just a little bit of awareness that there's Elaine and. And I can be in this lane and be okay. So maybe that, you know, maybe that does involve some social awareness and some intelligence, along with the ability to walk away and, you know, pass the marshmallow test and a bunch of other things that combine, that combine together.

[Mike Pesca]

Now everything you went through, like everything everyone goes through, forges who you are. And it always annoys me when people say I wouldn't change anything because obviously we would no matter who we are. And you know, you're not being self reflective and I don't know if you just trying. People who say that are just trying to, you know, have a sound bite or a stitch pillow or something that they buy in a Walmart and hang on the wall. So of course there are things like the horrible things in your life that you would change. But as to this issue of forging who you are, would you say that even the bad things, even the horrors did contribute to the very successful, resilient person we have before us?

[David Sicilo]

Yes, 100%. I would love to go back and revisit some of the really awful things that happened to me and be able to sort of snip those out of the narrative. Right. But I have to say, my perspective on the world, the kind of science that I do, I would be deeply nervous that snipping those out would lead to a very different human being that would be potentially somebody who I wouldn't want to be. And so, you know, and you know, I'm trying to be nuanced here because like, no, I would never change anything as crazy as you just said, but a lot of stuff really was terrible.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. So I think about this societally a little bit and I was thinking about maybe because you are in AI or tech. I was thinking about China and I was thinking about, you know, our big rival. And the children there grow up in much harsher conditions. There are many more demands made of them. There are fewer people to pick them up when they fall down. I would also suspect fact that there are many more sad kids in China if they're allowed to be sad. And also there are probably a lot of experiment potential that's wasted. It's a harsh society, but it does. If what you're trying to do is forge a vanguard of really, really hardworking people who sacrifice and are quite brilliant and you are cultivating all those traits, it might be better than the more forgiving, nurturing, sometimes tipping over into the indulgent American experience, wouldn't you say?

[David Sicilo]

Yeah. So it's funny because you, you used China to erect the same internal thought experiment that I play all the time, which is like, would my life be a good life for other people? And if you look at the outcomes at Least in my case, the answer is a. An emphatic hell no. I mean, you know, 1 in 20 foster kids goes to college, right? I mean, the foster care to prison pipeline, you can't believe, like it is an almost hidden national tragedy what's going on. But to the degree, you know, that's the negative side of it. But hey, you know, all those chores that I hated, they made me a hard worker. And being a hard worker is a pretty useful quality to have. I wish I could let it go sometimes, you know, it's another struggle for me. But it is a useful feature. And so you could go through and list bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, and say, well, those really are a function of the kind of upbringing that he had, and those are positive qualities. And I would be, I would be hard pressed to disagree with you in

[Mike Pesca]

retrospect, should they have. Should they have lowered it to maybe two chores a day?

[David Sicilo]

Maybe one.

[Mike Pesca]

Maybe one. And something rational rather than just sweeping what the last kid swept?

[David Sicilo]

That's right, exactly. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

So you say you're between jobs now by choice to do a book tour.

[David Sicilo]

Yeah, it all sort of coincided. That's exactly right. You know, I'm also, I'm deeply interested in the brain, and so neuroscience is an academic pursuit. It's not something that really you make money doing. And so I'm just trying to find a way to figure all that out while enjoying the book and the book tour and all of that.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Are you worried about technology losing sight of humanity? I mean, this is the AI moment and that's on people's minds, but I don't know if it's sufficiently on the minds of the architects of these systems.

[David Sicilo]

I would say I'm worried about it in a broad sense, but I'm an optimist. I'm optimistic in a specific sense. It didn't come up in the conversation around my childhood, but I was born in 75. Personal computers were in and around the world in video games in the early 80s. So technology and video games were for me, a huge saving grace, an escape, a place of safety and refuge. And so when I think about if I was born, let's say so 10 years ago, and now I'm talking to a chatbot about whatever and to learn whatever I have to say, to me, that's a hugely optimistic thing. And so. So I would say I'll even own it. That my views in and around technology are colored by how much technology was helpful to me. And I do want to be respectful of excesses. And nowadays people play video games online and there's a lot of rage and anger. I didn't have any of that because we didn't have social video games. So things are different. But I'm still optimistic. Optimistic for science. Optimistic. There's going to be disruption, of course. Massive disruption.

[Mike Pesca]

I could see that. What about guardrails and the psychology? Since you understand the mind and you understand how personalities are formed? What about the insufficiency thus far? I mean, we've seen a lot of good reporting on this. It does seem that we should worry about the guardrails are the guardians of this exciting potential technology. Up to the task when it comes to that.

[David Sicilo]

If you frame it in terms of guardrails, I share the implied concern. Right. There's a lot of vulnerable people out there who maybe I'm just using one example of things you would need. You need guardrails on all kinds of stuff from like, hey, let's not allow these things to help people construct biological weapons. I mean, there's many different ways you could have guardrails. But bringing it closer to the nature of the conversation that we had in and around psychology. Yeah, you'd want to have guardrails to make sure people understood what they were looking at, what they were reading and contextualizing that and broadly speaking, in making decisions. Everyone's hopping online to do all kinds of stuff with these things now.

[Mike Pesca]

David Cicillo is the author of Emergence, A Memoir of Boyhood Computation and the Mysteries of Mind. David, great talking to you.

[David Sicilo]

Thank you very much. I appreciate you having me on the show.

[Mike Pesca]

And that's it for today's show. Corey War produces the Gist. Kathleen Sykes runs the Gist list. Ben Astaire is our booking producer, and Jeff Craig runs our Socials. Michelle Pesca oversees it all benevolently improve and thanks for listening.