Will Cartar's Blog

About

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Hi there! Welcome to a few of my favourite things ☺️ It’s just a collection of thoughts and ideas that I wanted to keep.

Who am I?

The short answer is a Canadian who loves too many things for his own good. Friends & family, science, philosophy, sports, engineering, video games, coding, self improvement, meditation, cooking, travelling, investing… the pursuit of happiness? You get the idea.

The downside to too many interests is that I’m not the best at anything, BUT, that was never the goal.

Things I’m proud of

The long answer…

Fair warning, the remainder of this page is a long answer to the question: who are you?

As you’ll find shortly, I am a bit of an open book. However, without a clear audience in mind, the following is quite a ramble. This is probably for future me to see how past me thought about young me. More likely, you’re not future me, but maybe you’ll enjoy learning a bit more about my life! Or not. That is fine too. I wrote a lot.

Growing up 😇

I grew up in Toronto (well, North York if you know the difference), in a quietish neighbourhood. I had what I imagine is a normal upper-middle class upbringing. Lots of sports, summer camps, hanging out with friends and playing video games. Both my parents were engineers, working at Ontario Power Generation where they met. They’re retired now, enjoying a very social 60’s.

I was good at school, but not uniformly. This was especially apparent prior to high school. I remember in grade 7, thinking my parents only used math and science at work, and so considered other subjects less useful. “Why learn poetry?” I asked my English teacher. “So you can tell girls how much you love them”. This answer did not fly with me. Who cared about girls?! Well, I did, but no way would I let them know it.

If English class was hard, French was impossible. I dropped it as soon as I could, which in hindsight, was a bad move. Now 27, I need to learn French in preparation for a sabbatical with my bilingual girlfriend.

Math had its challenges, but when I tried, I could usually figure it out. I wasn’t the kid who “just got it”, but I’m happy about that. I think it taught me empathy, which is a hard skill to refine if you don’t struggle in some way. I also learnt that learning is hard, but always possible. And that a good (patient) teacher makes a huge difference.

Finally, I was remarkably lucky to have great experiences at all the grade schools I went to. All 3 were Toronto public schools, 1-6, 7-8, and 9-12 in good neighbourhoods (certainly a factor). Some teachers were more memorable than others, but the biggest impact on my time in grade school was that my friend group remained largely intact. From about grade 3 onwards, I hung out with the same group of boys, and still have most of them as best friends today.

In grade 12, our group was 8 boys large, and 5 of us all decided to go to Queen’s together. So began the next chapter.

University 😝

Math and science drew me to engineering, but I had no idea what kind. I had previously done well in biology and physics, so I thought biomechanical engineering would be a good fit. Fortunately, first year engineering at Queen’s was a general education, so I had some time to figure it out.

As I researched the 4th year courses available to a biomech eng, none were spiking my interest. However, there was this cool degree: Engineering Physics, with an electrical option that had 4th year courses like biomedical physics. Also, Laser Physics! Who didn’t want to learn how lasers work? As a final selling point, one of my high school best friends was planning to study Engineering Physics as well. That we’d be living together the next 3 years made it all too easy to pick my major.

Besides choosing Engineering Physics as my major, first year showed me the power of teamwork. To do well in engineering, teamwork was necessary. No one could succeed academically (or party) on their own. Queen’s eng was a work hard, play hard culture. Looking back, it’s funny how memorable the parties were, while the studying is certainly a blur.

Then came my first 4 months summer, and my first office job. I hated it. The people were wonderful, but they had no work to give me. My average day as the “summer intern” was:

  1. Wake up at 7:15
  2. Get to work by 9
  3. Ask everyone if they needed my assistance - usually the answer was no
  4. Complete the work, if any, taking ~ 30-60 minutes
  5. Wait until lunch (I had a laptop with internet, but had to look like I was doing things)
  6. Ask everyone if they needed my assistance - again, no
  7. Wait until 5 so I could leave
  8. Get home around 6, eat dinner, relax for an hour or two before bed

I never knew how boring it could be to be paid to do nothing, while needing to be “visible”. Truly mind-numbing. There is only so much escape the internet can provide.

Second year saw my first long term (1.5 year) relationship end. It was entirely my fault. I had been having doubts about the relationship for a few months, but was totally unable to share them out of fear that’d be too hurtful. Instead of working through the issues, I let the emotions bottle up, until one day everything just kind of came out, very much by accident. As I left her house, knowing we’d “broken up” without actually having said those words, I felt freedom. Having been a prisoner of my mind for so long, I forgot how calming life is when you can share unhappy thoughts openly.

I also discovered some wicked cool math in second year, but that’s a conversation for another day.

The summer between 2nd and 3rd year was the best summer of my life. I was a camp instructor at Science Quest, a Queen’s science camp for kids. And I loved it. The first 2 weeks began with us creating hands-on learning modules. Each one would teach part of the science curriculum for Ontario schools grades 3-8, and every grade had a different module that took 2.5 hours to present. We’d toured schools across Ontario, some as far as a 5 hour drive north of Kingston. Teachers loved it, the kids loved it, and luckily, I loved it too. Every grade was different, every school was unique, but I never had a bad class. Even the kids who were too cool for our content would perk up after the introductory “wow-em” - a short demonstration of the subjects power in the real world. For example, the wow-em I put together for a structures module (grade 4 I believe) was to stand on an empty soda can with all of my weight. A volunteer would then lightly touch the side with a ruler, and instantly, my weight crushed the can to nothing. If you’ve never done this, it’s actually a lot of fun. The key is to make sure your soda can has no blemishes and is perfectly smooth. Also, make sure your weight is evenly distributed, and you should be able to stand up no problem (I weighed about 180 pounds)! Whoever lightly touches the can is always surprised that something so strong can crumble so easily. Structural weak points are cool.

July & August turn Science Quest into a summer camp, with new kids each week. The content was similar, just with a lot more touch points for each kid. One of the biggest challenges was helping kids with disabilities learn, and more importantly, play nicely with everyone else. For all the effort we put in to making their lives a little better, we received equal parts appreciation from their families. The challenges faced by families who take care of loved ones with disabilities are not for the faint of heart, but the love it generates can be truly special.

I also had a family vacation where I went scuba diving for the first time (it was amazing), AND went skydiving with my summer group of Queen’s friends near Kingston (equally amazing). Both of those are stories for another day, but I will say to anyone who’s on the fence about either activity: do it. 10/10 you will never forget those moments and they are wild.

Third year was an epic journey of mind blowing physics (Quantum mechanics is fun when you have a good teacher), and a new, healthy relationship. I’d learnt a lot from my first relationship, and was on a high from my summer fun. I also knew I needed to find a way to stay in Kingston for the next summer, and so I applied to various academic positions. One in particular was a physics research position that would turn my 4th year thesis project into an accelerated masters thesis. I’d have to stay at Queen’s 1 more year, but that actually seemed like a good idea since my girlfriend was 1 year behind me. And so I started my masters in the summer between 3rd and 4th year.

Physics Overload 😵

Unfortunately, my masters had nothing to do with medical physics. It was theoretical nanophotonics, the study of light matter interactions in nano-sized objects. I had chosen the subject too quickly. In part, I was fearful I’d not find another Kingston employment opportunity for the summer; but also, I was happy to be done with my job search (I’d applied to a few non-academic postings that didn’t pan out).

Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of cool stuff I learnt. A LOT. But I never loved the subject the way you need to, to excel in academia. There were a few times I thought about switching out, moving to the electrical department to pursue something a little more hands on, but I couldn’t overcome the sunk cost mentality of the many months I’d already put into the program.

I did get a peak into an academic career path, which is an incredible life if you love the material. But there is a lot of grant work, and the potential mismatch between “rock solid researcher” and “university professor”. Not to mention, it’s a very long journey. Most of my peers finished a masters (~2 years) before starting their PHD, which then took ~5 years on average. At this point, you’re looking for 1-2 postdoctoral research roles, which have a lot of competition, and are generally much more expensive for the prof to fund, limit the availability, and create incentives for professors to keep a steady stream of PHD candidates coming through their door. IF you make it through all the necessary training, let’s say in ~10 years, you’re still not guaranteed a professor posting will open up in your field. Let alone the country/province/city/university you’re most interested in.

Having said all of this, understanding hard unsolved problems, and hopefully how to solve them, is a forever skill. Though you might not use your research if you switch career paths halfway through, the learned ability to learn is forever transferrable. I guess the more time you spend in school, the more you refine this skillset.

Also, playing with start-of-the-art anything is cool too. Oh, and numerical methods are the real heros of applied theoretical physics.

On a more personal side, I went through my second long-term (1.5 years) break up midway through 4th year. This time the ending was mutual, as she was going on exchange, and we knew our relationship had problems that needed addressing. Timing and geography were our downfall, but we kept in touch and maybe could have gotten back together. Instead, we both found new relationships that summer.

My 3rd long term (1 year) relationship was the first time I was introduced to right-wing politics. It was very impactful for me to strongly engage in political conversation with someone who’s mind I wanted to change. At the same time, there were some good points she raised, and I discovered how different a story is presented, depending on the political ideology of the news source. Nowadays, I’m a big fan of central/agnostic new outlets, or, will try to consume media from both sides. The undoing of this year long love story had a messy ending, content for another post. All you need to know is that my 2016 summer was coming to a close, but I could already tell, this was one of my worst years yet.

I was supposed to have graduated in September, the bulk of my thesis was done, but my research results were incomplete. I just needed a few more simulations to run to cover corner cases in my numerical theory. I woke up everyday feeling so close to the finish line, yet my professor was adamant my paper be submitted before I defend my thesis, and that couldn’t happen without these results. As the weeks went by, I began to question if I’d ever graduate.

Broken up with, and worried I’d never graduate with the degree I no longer cared about, the last four months of 2016 were a struggle. So I decided to do what anyone else would do, and began building a company with my roommate Nikita.

A start up 😯

He was something of a serial entrepreneur at the time, already having founded 2 other companies. The new idea of his was to use Shopify to build his brother, Denis (a growing YouTube star), an ecommerce website. This first test store was a surprising success, bringing in a few hundred dollars a month! It was mostly surprising because Denis had a small-ish following of less than 100K subscribers. Hearing how an ecommerce store could bring in an extra few hundred dollars a month, Denis’s fellow YouTube friends wanted Nikita to make them a store too. And so Imprint Creations was born, with Nikita at the helm, and myself brought in as his cofounder.

We were a two man team, with very different day jobs. Nikita was busy running his second start up by day, while I was at the lab running my simulations. By night, we’d build out new stores, reply to customer emails, and contract designers to create new products. By January, we’d sold enough merchandise to convince ourselves that this was truly a company, and worth our full attention.

Nikita knew another start up in the YouTube space, Juniper, who’s cofounders (Joel and Ryan) were working out of The Next Big Thing - a Vancouver based incubator. The four of us met virtually, and within the hour, decided we had real collaboration potential. They invited us to share their free office space, while we worked out the details.

Glossing over a few considerations I had at the time: i) earlier in the summer of 2016, I’d been hired as a ski technician at Whistler for the 2017 Winter season; ii) I’d been hired as a Data Scientist at Capital One through campus recruiting, to start post graduation; iii) I had to defend my masters thesis January 23rd. What to do…

Although I’d dreamed of being a ski bum, working on this start up was the clear choice. Whistler was out, but Vancouver was in! Capital One thought I was graduating in May, so I had the offer start date set to September 2017. Tons of time to figure out if I’d actually want to go there, or remain a cofounder (it was not).

And so the plan was set, I’d work remotely in Ontario till my thesis was successfully defended (23rd) and submitted (27th). Then join Nikita and the Juniper boys in Vancouver (30th). Landing in Vancouver began a new journey with renewed focus and excitement. The full story of Vancouver and Imprint Creations is for another time, but I will say 2017 was the best year of my life.

The biggest challenge came in the summer. Do I continue to build this company with Nikita, or leave and start a career as a data scientist? At the time, data science was leading the 21st century career hype train. I was also beginning to miss the math, modelling and application of data. A lifetime in accademia wasn’t my future, but using data sure would be. In comparison, the day-to-day work of the start up was mostly relationship management. Uncertain which choice was “correct”, I decided to go where the learning was most pronounced. Thankfully, Nikita was sympathetic to my dilemma, and made it easy for me to transition out of the company.

My departure left Nikita a one man show, but Juniper was struggling with a similar problem. Ryan was off to work at Amazon, and Juniper was out of cash. The money was flowing for Imprint, mainly because Denis had skyrocketed his YouTube channel over that first year. Clearly, the business worked if your influencer was a big fish. The trouble, of course, was out muscling tons of competition to win the big fish influencers. Joel thought if they could figure out that formula, we’d be in business. And so Joel and Nikita merged Juniper and Imprint to pursue the mission of A premium merchandising solution for the world’s largest influencers.

In 2018, I had little involvement with our company, but returned in 2019 with a part time role as “head of culture”. Now known as Juniper Creates, we continue to grow, and have been on the lucky side of COVID. That is, we’re a fully remote company, who’s entire business is selling products via ecommerce.

I digress. Returning to August of 2017, I emailed Capital One requesting to push out my start date 1 month, so I could travel. I figured there was no point in lying, and told them I’d been working on a start up the whole summer, and wanted a mini vacation before picking up the corporate life. I wasn’t sure what my response would be, but was delighted when they said yes. I’ve come to learn that this flexibility is one of the best parts of working for a large corporation. I don’t know why more people don’t take advantage of it?

I spent the month travelling Argentine and Chile with my older sister, who was living in Bueno Aires at the time. Again, a story for another time, but the month was exactly what I needed before diving into a completely new world of corporate finance.

Big corporation life with big data 😌

Everything was slower, yet more precise. I have never witnessed a “business decision” that didn’t involve multiple people, some form of modelling, and an expected financial impact - with a sensitivity analysis, of course.

My role as a “data scientist” has not been what most people would think of, when they hear that job title. I have not been prototyping new models, to be better predictors than the competition, nor have I been maintaining existing models to remain finely tuned with daily trends. In fact, I’ve done almost zero model work beyond simple net present value calculations. This is not to say Capital One doesn’t have data scientists working on state-of-the-art models, we do. It’s more that my role should have been titled “data expert”.

Depending on what team I’m supporting, I’ve been a data analyst, business analyst, data engineer, or Python engineer (I prefer to say Python over software since I’m not developing apps, GUIs, or resilient always-on systems; instead I create data tools in Python). And who knows, maybe my next rotation will be within the modelling team? The point is, there is much more than modelling that large enterprise organizations need done.

In my experience, good work has been measured by how well I’m able to straddle the business and tech worlds. Understanding the business problem, really getting into the nitty gritty, and improving the process is some way. Spoiler alert, the answer always involves data.

I’ve also come to recognize there are many paths “up” at a large company. So far, mine has relied on rock solid communication, and a greater capacity to teach than my average peer. Thinking back to my favorite jobs, science instructor at Science Quest and being a TA for Dr. James Fraser, it makes sense that I’ve gravitated towards teaching. I think to be a strong teacher, you have to have struggled in some way to have learnt the material yourself. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself at a lose why others are facing roadblocks in the first place.

Finally, I will forever admire Capital One for the amazing culture they’ve created. Learning is a priority, having open and honest conversations is a priority. Teaching managers to be great people leaders is a priority. All of these things make it easy to feel like you belong, and feel like you’re valued. The work isn’t the “sexiest”, which is particularly true for credit cards (the only product in Canada), and even more pronounced for those of use who were trained as engineers. I definitely miss the workshop and lab resources, where I could create a physical product, from idea to working prototype.

In summary, so far?

I feel so fortunate to have seen how data is used in 3 very different career paths: the applied science academic, the ecommerce entrepreneur, and the big bank enterprise.

I see the largest factor influencing how data is viewed being the goals each sector has.

Academia has the greatest attention to detail, fueled by their goal to uncover the truth. Mathematical rigor, peer reviews, world-wide collaborations, and long time horizons move academia into the future with better certainty than for-profit enterprises.

Next is big corporations, motivated to apply data anywhere that is profitable. And boy is it profitable to apply it everywhere. When you’re a huge company, saving 1 hour per week per person in automatable computer tedium, or $1 per customer with better risk scores or marketing analytics adds up quickly. However, time is money, and decisions need to be made. The solution to this is tests, which themselves require a lot of monitoring to make sure the right programs are selected in the long term. All in all, more data is being produced, consumed, and acted upon more quickly, but this is a result of their scale. Their motivation is profit, which makes for an impatient parent when compared to “uncover the truth”. Hence, one should be wary of results whenever big companies are funding the studies.

In last place, we have the entrepreneur. Their world is so fast, so network based, that no one has time to mull over the data. This isn’t to say data isn’t important, it is. You need to know your key performance indicators inside and out. But most dashboards are primitive, data production poor, and calculations done back-of-the envelope. Most of your time is spent proving the idea is profitable, or delivering your MVP, and then scaling (i.e., hiring the right team).

For medium sized companies, since I’ve not worked at one, I cannot say for certain; BUT, I assume they’d fit between the start-up and big corp in terms of data use.

Bye!

Anywho, that is me in a nutshell! Or at least, the 2020 me who is currently writing this. Honestly, I don’t expect anyone to read this whole thing, so if you did, WOW! Also, why? Hopefully you found it both interesting and somewhat enjoyable 👏

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