It began as a mistake.
In 2011, I turned eighteen and gained access to ten thousand dollars my parents had put in my name when they divorced.
My mother wanted me to save it — ideally for a house. I bought a twenty-year-old Audi B4 and a brand-new MacBook Pro.
I remember Steve Jobs was still alive when I got my first iPhone. By the time I bought that MacBook, he was gone.
A few years later, having exhausted the intellectual challenge of Angry Birds, I decided to become an iOS engineer. I bought an Apple Developer account, read the docs, downloaded Xcode, and typed “Hello, world.”
That laptop paid for itself many times over. It turned into years of work, real products — and a journey that’s still ongoing.
My name is Assylbek Issatayev. I’m from the 41st Junction, a small place in Kazakhstan. This is how AI41 was born.
Hello.