Local Optimization

What if one of the best ways to navigate life's uncertainty came from computer science?

Most of us are taught that successful lives begin with a plan. Set a goal, chart the course, and stay the path. But life rarely unfolds that way. Most important decisions are made with incomplete information, unexpected opportunities, and no guarantee we are heading in the right direction.

While researching how people make decisions under uncertainty, Alvitta Ottley recognized something unexpected: the computer science principles she studied had described her own life all along. Local optimization means making the best decision you can with the information available now.

From working as a bank teller to pay for college, to leaving home for an unfamiliar university, stumbling into research, changing directions throughout academia, earning tenure, and continually redefining success, Ottley reflects on the unexpected choices that shaped a life she never could have planned.

Part memoir and part reflection on ambition, identity, and uncertainty, Local Optimization is not a roadmap for achieving more. It is an invitation to rethink success, embrace the unexpected, and discover that uncertainty isn't a detour from a meaningful life; it may be the path itself.