Divya

On March 18, 1982, Divya Narendra was born in the Bronx, New York City.  Have a happy 37th birthday tomorrow, Divya.

Divya was the first child of two immigrant doctors from India, Dr. Dharamjit Narendra Kumar, a geriatrician and palliative medicine specialist, and Dr. Sudhanshu Narendra, a pediatrician.  

About three months after Divya's birth, his family moved to 69-47 Cloverdale Boulevard, Oakland Gardens, Queens, New York City.  They were our next door neighbors for twenty-one years.

Three years later (1985), my son Bret was born.  When he was two years-old, Divya started coming to our house to play with him.  Even though Divya was older, Bret was athletic enough to keep up with him, and besides, there were no other boys in the neighborhood for Divya to play with.  He was my son's first friend.

Later, Divya's younger brother Varun (born four months after Bret) started coming as well.  For some years the three of them were always together, either in our house or theirs.  Sometimes I would take them to nearby Alley Pond Park to play.  Once I took Bret, Divya and Varun to West Point for a football game, ironically against Harvard.  Army won.

I remember their mother (Sudha) phoning our house, looking for her sons.  She would always begin by saying, "It's Sudha."  And I would always respond, "I know it's Sudha."  

Eventually, Divya started playing with boys his own age and it became just Bret and Varun, who are still good friends.  But, I saw a lot of Divya over the years until he graduated from Townsend Harris High School in 2000 and then went on to Harvard University.  I remember the night he left with his father, Sudha called out, "Remember the Indian ways."  

The last time I saw Divya was once when he was home on vacation from college and we talked briefly in front of his house.  He was always very friendly,  flashing a big smile.

In 2002 while at Harvard, as we all know, Divya and two friends started what has become the international social network giant known as Facebook.  Mark Zuckerberg took (or stole) their idea and expanded it (all for himself).  There was a lawsuit which made Divya a wealthy young man.

In 2004, Divya graduated cum laude in Applied Mathematics from Harvard.

In 2008, Divya co-founded (and is the CEO of) SumZero, "the world's largest community of investment professionals.  It fosters the sharing of thousands of proprietary investment reports every year, and offers several ancillary services in support of that effort.  Its membership base is represented by analysts and PMs at nearly all of the world's largest and most prominent investment funds."

In 2010, Divya was portrayed by the actor Max Minghella in the film Social Network, the movie about how Facebook got started.  

In 2012, Divya earned JD and MBA degrees from Northwestern University.

In 2017, Divya married Phoebe White, a chartered financial analyst and a graduate of Princeton University.  

Divya seems to be having a wonderful life.  Remembering the boy I knew, he deserves it.