E145: How to Design a Life That Creates Opportunities with Anne-Maria Salmela

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Perception Paradox. My name is Jovelia and I'm your host. And today's episode moves through three arcs, identity and childhood across three continents, the deliberate path into one of the AI's fastest growing companies, and an honest look at AI's biggest open question right now, how much autonomy do we actually give it? Along the way, ego, ambition, burnout, and building a life in seasons. So, ladies and gentlemen, my guest for the day is Anne-Maria Salmel, who is right now working for the hottest company in San Francisco, Resolve AI. And yeah, let's dive in. And welcome to Perception and Paradox. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Perception Paradox. And today I have with me Anne, calling straight from the other side of the world in the US. Hi Anne, welcome.

Hi Zemila, nice to see you. Long time no see from Rwanda a couple of years ago.

Yeah, it's nearly going to be three years, in fact, which is wild how time flies in a way. Yes, and we've almost known each other for 10 years after meeting in Slush in 2018. Yeah. Which is even more like surprising, like how time flies and how different shapes and directions our lives took. Since then, I guess for the audience to get a bit of a context, we met at Slush. You were leading the team back then, right? And I was part of your volunteering team. for the side events.

Yes, exactly. We had a team of international people who flew in for Slush and we were all very excited by the buzz of the energy. And I knew exactly when I read your application that you would be the right person to be having on this team.

That was so cool. I'm so grateful. And I remember we had some coffee and then reconnecting during project in Rwanda was really wild. I didn't have it in my bingo card, to be honest. To go there and then to meet someone you've met before and then it reconnected us and reshaped our connection. That was so great and such a good time and learnings. And since then, three years ago, I've been following your journey very actively. We would be in touch, we would jump on the calls. And I was always very fascinated about your very diverse profile. You're very always ambitious goals and hands-on work on different projects across continents, Europe, Middle East, United States. I was like, Hey, how are you? Oh, I'm right now in Middle East. Oh, yes, right now I'm Saudi Arabia. Oh, actually, I've just moved to the US. Just FYI. I was like, that's incredible. And every project was even more fascinating, very uptrendy with the technology five steps ahead. I guess the good conversation starter would be about the fact that I learned before this conversation with you that you were a Finnish math Olympian kid and at the same time, a competitive dancer. Would you like to share a bit more how these two things correlated and then brought you to the investment world?

Okay, yeah. So to start off, I'm half Finnish and half Mongolian. And my parents met in Mongolia where I grew up for the first three years. And then we moved to the Philippines for six years. And I moved to Finland when I was nine and lived there until I graduated from high school. So the fact about me was that I was an incredibly