On Jan 1st 2022 I was at an engagement party of a dear friend. The memory I have of this day is very positive: chilly weather, amusing vibe, and good people. At the time I was 25 and I was just about exploring what I need to do with my life in the next few years. I was trying my hand at multiple jobs side by side to see what sticks; and I was saying yes to everything that comes my way.
Towards the end of the night, a mutual friend with the groom shook my hands and asked me: What are you doing these days?
This was maybe the 4th or 5th time I see him, so we were not that close. But I was open about what I was thinking to do with my career. We kept talking for a brief 20-minute chat. Towards the end of the chat he told me: “You seem to be pumped about startups, why haven’t you started one yet?”
He was younger than me, and his experience seemed quite limited for what I knew about him at the time. But also, at the same time I had been suffering from Imposter Syndrome, for years. All what I was thinking about was “How is it that simple?”. I knew what I wanted to do but I always thought “I’m not ready”. From our brief chat, it seemed that he didn’t have this. It seemed he was surprisingly delusional even though he hadn’t done anything of significance at the time. But he just thought it was in him. We left it at that and I told him it’s probably best to meet later this week to talk in more depth.
Right on the very next day, I receive a call from the sister of the groom (our mutual friend) saying that she’s working with the USAID on a gov’t project and that they’re hosting a 5-day conference in Alexandria and they’re inviting a few people from both the public sector and the private sector. She was inviting me as one of the representatives of the private sector.
Two days pass by, I meet with him again, I invite him over dinner and we talk for 3 hours. The verdict from this dinner was: I’d want to experiment more with where this could go.
I called my friend from the conference the next day asking if I can bring a +1, she said sure, I call him, invite him, and asked him to join the conference at Alexandria, to which he agreed.
By this time, we knew we’d like to work with each other but we didn’t quite know what we’re going to work on. The conference at Alexandria had a very specific agenda, but we took it as a playground to talk with people and explore what we could sell before we build anything.
A few weeks go by after the conference and we start working after we had had a clear a idea about what we wanted to build. Ramadan kicks in, we’re meeting every couple days, and we’re just trying to make this work - Even though at the time we didn’t even know how to sell this or approach clients.
Two more months go by, and the project I was working on at my full-time job hit a dead end so the founder decides to halt operations and pay everyone their severance package because we’re no longer proceeding. This was around June 2022.
This severance pay gave me around 6 months of personal runway. So I decided I wouldn’t apply for another full-time job and explore assigning more capacity to our project. A few more months go by, we launch a prototype, we get into an accelerator in Cairo (Sep 2022), then travel to Alexandria again for Techne Summit (Nov 2022), then ultimately find that neither of us had the required sales skills needed to pull this off so we hit a dead end and we stop in December of 2022. I get back on a full-time job in January 2023.
The above story seems like a good portray of two guys in their mid-20s deciding to do something reckless and sacrifice progress in their own personal lives just because they thought it was possible.
And even though we didn’t pull it off, this year (2022) has taught me a lot about what to do and what not to do. I learn that the ‘delusion’ I sensed in his tone a year back was quite an integral part of the puzzle. Not enough, yes, but absolutely needed. This year showed me what it’s like to jump before you’re ready, and the small upticks you get from running small experiments in the wild.
In a way, he showed me a sweet model of having blind trust even when everything around you is probably telling you otherwise. In the very beginning of us working together, the trust he had that this was going to work was sometimes shocking to me. I wasn’t used to thinking like that. I was extremely analytical - Like I have to calculate ROIs and manage balance sheets. In just under 12 months, he shifted my thinking towards a mental model that I would later learn is crucial in this racket.
The way he talked about his ambitions around us, even when nothing was working, was just nothing like anything I’d see. There was something about the way he used to describe the future that I didn’t see anyone else do.
He also made my world a little bit bigger: In September 2022, he introduced me to a cool group of friends whom I’m still in touch with until today. He is the type of guy that enjoys bringing people together just for the love of it. They say that bringing different friend groups together, and them getting along, is a testimony of good character - And he was one of the guys that I have seen do this very well.
In 2023, he introduced two of his friends to each other, who eventually got married. In 2024, he did it again with another couple. In 2025, he invited us to his own wedding and it all felt like one of the best pictures anyone could paint.
After 2022, me and him kept meeting from time to time, but as close friends, and not work mates anymore. Life had its own way of separating us apart but keeping us close. From time to time he’d call me out of nowhere just to have a sit-down in the middle of the night to chitchat about life and work.
The reason he was keen on keeping a close friendship with me was probably because he like the way I thought about managing work and life, but the reason I was so keen on having a close friendship with him was much deeper: He used to balance two things that I knew were quite hard to balance: Love and respect.
I always used to prefer ‘being respected’ over ‘being liked’. So when it comes to it, it was very common that I’d become hated because I have very strict boundaries. He didn’t have this problem. During our brief venture together, it was very common that people would like him over me. But even with that, he didn’t lose their respect even one bit, which was fascinating to me.
In late 2025, he told me “I’m going to do Umrah”, and that the logistics had been a nightmare because the time was tight. It was late November and he was supposed to travel to Mecca the next month. In late December I knew from his pictures on Instagram that he did it, and was so happy he was able to get it done.
On Sunday Jan 4th, 2026, he added his name on Whatsapp in a list for a soccer match we had scheduled for Jan 7th. At this point we had been playing once every week but he wasn’t around for some time. I see the message, think ‘glad to see him on Wednesday’, and go on with my life.
Monday Jan 5th he calls me:
“I wanted to see you for some time on Wednesday before the match, been some time”
“I probably will be able to make the match right away, because of a wedding running beforehand”
“Try to make it”
“Definitely, see you Wednesday either way”
On Wednesday Jan 7th, match day, where we’re supposed to play at 10pm. He calls me 8pm, I’m still at the wedding, I reply “I’m catching up soon” - An hour passes by and I make it to see him one hour before the match, at 9pm. Normal talk: recent life updates, updates about his marriage, his recent travels, recent work, etc. We catch up for an hour then head to the pitch together.
We play from 10:30 to 12:00. Around 12:00 he stops right in the middle of the match, he sits down on the pitch, I’m the closest one to him - He lays over the ground peacefully, he says Shahadah a couple times - He passes. All under 5 minutes.
It’s not easy writing this because I don’t presume I will see anything like it. If anything, it upgraded my understanding about mortality in just under 5 minutes. No amount of reading or talking to people or understanding religion can do this.
For a moment, we all thought it was a normal pass out. In just a few minutes I’d see what would be the most peaceful passing I have seen in my entire life. I am not educated in these subjects, but after talking with people it seems this is very rare. Almost doesn’t happen. What we have seen on that night is the sweet culmination of a character that truly understood what it meant to live with ‘good deeds’.
One day later, we connected the dots and it seems like he knew it for some time. This is the type of stuff that can’t really be explained, but it tells you a lot about life.
No amount of grief or storytelling can explain what it is like to lose a brother.
In my early 20s, I always thought we meet people by chance. My understanding of God and the Universe, was mostly arbitrary. So it followed by default that everything existed in my world by chance - This started by me believing in ‘Big Bang’: that by way of having an infinite number of chances at life, it had to happen in at least one of them. And then continued by me believing in ‘coincidence’: everyone I meet, is probably due to chance, and nothing more.
This is just a terrible way to live. This model will backfire in your own personal life multiple times until you see it for what it is.
Over the years, I now understand what it’s like to have a support group of people that cheer for you on your worst days. I don’t think that’s abundant, and I don’t take it for granted.
This is not by chance, and the chance of it happening with anyone is so slim; much slimmer than I used to think. This is real life. And real life doesn’t reward what you think, it rewards your actions. People are constant co-investments, and God puts people in your life for see-through reasons that you don’t have to know.
Now I understand that losing someone that I respect and appreciate is not something life would ever compensate me for.
