I’m Vibhor. I lead engineering teams at HOAi and live in the Bay Area, which has been home since 2012.
Before that — born and raised in India, moved to the US end of 2008 for grad school in Computer Science, spent a couple of years in Texas discovering that humidity is not a personality trait, then headed west to San Jose to work at eBay. Somewhere along the way, California stopped feeling temporary.
In 2012, I weighed over 300 pounds. A spider bite on my arm got misdiagnosed as diabetes, which scared me enough to change everything. That same year I went on my first hike. I was terrible at it. I fell in love with it immediately. Hiking became the thing that rewired how I think about my body, my limits, and what I’m capable of. I’ve been chasing trails ever since.
A few years later, anxiety showed up uninvited — panic attacks, racing thoughts, the whole experience of your mind deciding to betray you on a random Tuesday. Writing about it honestly turned out to be one of the most useful things I’ve done. Not because it fixed anything, but because naming things out loud takes away some of their power.
That’s what this site is. Personal essays about the messy, real stuff — the anxiety I didn’t know I had, the accidents that left scars and stories, the hikes that taught me more than any book, the time I flew home during a pandemic not knowing if I’d make it back. I write about health, fitness, travel, childhood memories, and whatever else I can’t stop thinking about.
I haven’t written in a while. Hoping to change that soon.
If any of it resonates — or if you just want to say hi — find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, or X.