Back in my active climbing days, I once had Annapurna on my list.
Not because it’s beautiful — many mountains are. Not even because it’s difficult — difficulty can be trained for.
It was on the list because Annapurna, more than almost any mountain on Earth, is honest.
Annapurna doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t reward persistence. It doesn’t care how strong you are, how well you’ve prepared, or how compelling your personal story may be.
Its danger is objective — risk that exists independent of your readiness, your willpower, or your skill.
On Annapurna, the world can change in a single soundless moment: an avalanche triggered by wind you never felt…a serac collapsing in the next valley…a weather shift that erases the sky and the path beneath your feet.
You can do everything right — everything — and still not come home.
And at some point, I walked away. Not out of fear. Out of clarity.
Because there are risks we can prepare for…and risks that simply exist, unmoved by our desire to overcome them.
Cancer patients don’t get that choice.
They don’t get to study the route. They don’t get to stand at base camp and say, “Not this one. The objective danger is too high.”
They wake up one day already on the mountain, already in the death zone, already fighting for oxygen and time.
No acclimatization. No slow ascent. No retreat.
And still, they climb.
They climb through toxic treatments that take as much from them as the disease. They climb through uncertainty, through fear, through financial strain, through systems that should lift them but too often ask them to carry even more. They climb through odds they never agreed to and outcomes they never imagined would be theirs.
When we speak of courage, we often romanticize the summit — the triumphant photo, the raised arms, the victory. But the truest bravery is quieter than that. It’s the kind that shows up when the danger is real, unavoidable, and deeply unfair.
Some mountains can be walked away from. Some cannot.
And for those forced to climb — for those who never asked to be mountaineers of their own survival — admiration is not enough. Inspiration is not enough. Hope alone is not enough.
They deserve better paths. They deserve better tools. They deserve a world where objective danger is reduced not by luck, or geography, or privilege — but by design, by intention, and by the collective will to say: No more needless lives lost on a mountain no one chose to climb.
This is the heart of Amplifai.
Not technology for its own sake. Not innovation as a buzzword. But the belief that if we can reduce unnecessary risk — if we can clear the route, steady the rope, improve the weather window, and give every climber the support they deserve — then fewer people will face the worst of the mountain alone.
Because cancer is not a climb people choose. But compassion, clarity, and better care pathways — those are choices we can make.
And mountains, even the most dangerous ones, become more survivable when we choose to make the ascent safer for everyone.
